The Blogger's Garden

We traveled 14+ hours to smell the ocean and cross the ferry into a land filled with the songs of birds, the crash of a wave and towering trees. We fell into the warmth of friends and the house they built nestled in a garden of trees and flowers and when I finish posting this, I am off to a cherry cider and a laugh or two or three.

Another tool in the soil conservation toolkit–and a relatively new one–is conservation tillage, which includes both no-till and minimum tillage. In addition to reducing erosion, this practice helps retain water, raises soil carbon content, and reduces the energy needed for crop cultivation. Instead of plowing land, discing or harrowing it to prepare the seedbed, and then using a mechanical cultivator to control weeds, farmers simply drill seeds directly through crop residues into undisturbed soil, controlling weeds with herbicides.

So what's so special about Portland? Actually, quite a lot. Portland has the largest and most authentic Japanese gardens outside of Japan. And the International Test Rose Garden and the annual Rose Festival has given Portland its sobriquet, the City of Roses.

At Costco we check the swimming pools again. The pool he wants is 18′ in diameter and 4-1/2′ deep. It says so on the box! And we’re in luck. One of the pools of just that size is set up as a floor model. Now I trust what the box says. Dont you? I mean if it says it’s 18′, then I assume it’s 18′. Not my husband. I hear him muttering to himself, “I cant believe I didn’t bring my tape measure. Eighteen feet. I wonder if that’s exactly 18 feet.” I walk away. My sanguine, impulsive self has seen too much today.

And my status as America’s Worst Gardener (word to the wise: do your gardening in a public garden, not at your own house, if you’re not all the proficient) is solid. Short season gardening is hard to get used to. I really need a calendar/timeline of what needs to be done when in the early going, or I stay behind for the whole season.

It is still my dream to be a philanthropist in the serious sense of the word. I love to see people who are spending their money to bring hope and awareness to causes. It’s great to see those spare dollars at work in my own town, and across the world. I think it’s easy to forget that people in our own community need help too. It’s also easy to forget that there are causes that need money like the arts, zoos, aquariums, and gardens that help bring beauty and to educate. With so many causes doing good things, I think the hardest part would be deciding how to spread the love around.

The first one is to be aired on Sunday 8 July (that’s today!), with 2 more segments to follow in future weeks. This first segment is on the history of heirloom gardening before WWII. The next segments are on changes that took place during and after WWII, and where to find heirloom varieties to grow in your garden today.

Until last year, Hexalectris grandiflora was known only from a few locations in Mexico and far western Texas. But then one turned up here. Nobody knows for sure how or when or why, or how long it was here before it was discovered. These flowers aren’t only rare — they’re also very beautiful. That’s a great combination, as far as I’m concerned.