At the southern entrance was a searing melange of annuals that was repeated beyond the gates throughout the entrance plaza. Beautifully grown as far as gradation of heights, etc. The bodacious planting had me imagining the staff brain-storming this splashy summer display to knock the socks off visitors, and then the methodical work of ordering seeds and planting out hundreds of annuals. The saturated color impulse was so aggressively retro it felt brand-new. A horticultural middle finger to San Francisco’s typically overcast summer skies.

A standout among the petunias and ageratum was a tall, silver-leaved orange daisy, maybe an arctotis of some kind. Wasn’t there once an annual called Venidium ‘Zulu Prince’ or has it now changed names?

After looking around at seed catalogues, I’m fairly certain this is Venidium ‘Orange Prince.’ Looks like a scorcher, right? From my reading, it actually prefers a cool summer like San Francisco (or my Oregon coast garden, maybe next year).

And that marigold was a nice choice too, a simple tall-stemmed single, color of burning embers, maybe ‘Cinnabar.’ The kind that Christopher Lloyd made acceptable again, along with tall-stemmed ageratum. No dwarf varieties, no Victorian bedding-style blobs allowed.

And don’t panic, the entrance plaza is filled with all the cool plants that thrive here year-round, like cussonia, beschorneria and agave.

The first day we arrived was a hot muggy mess. What had become of my San Francisco, with its unsurpassed weather for long cool city rambles? The next day the city mercifully returned to its baseline overcast conditions.

Now we’re wandering into the garden, through the Mediterranean, South African and Australian sections.

The cactus and succulent garden is not large but the gravitas leant by its age and maturity make up for size.

A couple standouts not frequently seen were the hardy gloxinia Incarvillea arguta and francoa. The latter I grow in the front garden and mine was in bloom in July as well. From Chile. Great stiff evergreen crinkly leaves, loves a cool summer. Makes an incredible container plant too.

Have a great weekend.

Crocosmias bring a freshness to August, particularly in the early bud stages when the whole plant embodies something plump and juicy. Looking at them gives me a craving for nectarines. But we’ve all seen them at their worst, in overgrown, disheveled clumps, so there’s no arguing if you’ve decided to steer clear of them. I will say that growing them hard against a boundary where they can’t overspread and not mid-border has worked well for me. And some varieties like ‘Solfatare’ are much less vigorous than, say, ‘Lucifer.’

Take care, more soon, AGO

I’d heard that the garden was to be included in a book, and The Spirited Garden was released this spring. After this June visit I ordered the book, which I highly recommend for the generous amount of photos and knowledgeable writing on 17 PNW gardens. Along with the Courtneys’ garden, PNW touchstones like Cistus are included. (If you’ve attended a PNW “Fling” garden tour, the book covers in-depth some of these featured gardens e.g. the Kuzma garden, but also includes rare treats such as a tour of Ann Amato’s home and garden sanctuary.)

This garden unabashedly wears its hardscape on its sleeve. Along with Harlan’s free-standing sculptures, there are painted culvert pipes, varying heights of undulating Corten retaining walls, experimental types of gabion. The engineered design solutions contain and counterpoint Mary’s adventurous planting, and any visit is an overwhelming eyeful.

Mary’s planting is wide-ranging and robust enough to balance the visually arresting hardscape. This June visit differed from the last one in July in that the cutting garden filled with cosmos and dahlias as well as mid-summer perennials were still gaining strength. This visit I was struck by all the stunning conifers that Mary had been planting that are large enough now to make a statement. You never know who’s going to be a conifer fan! A winter tour of the garden to see the conifers would present an entirely different mood, magical in its own way — especially if the surrounding meadow is dotted with the local herd of grazing elk.

Closing with a photo of the workshop. Thanks again to the Courtneys for opening their stunningly imaginative garden. More soon, AGO

By the end of July the garden is definitely over the top. A surging, buzzing, no-holds-barred spectacle I’ve been looking forward to since spring.

Even Alstroemeria ‘Third Harmonic’ can barely keep up. The Silver Spike grass, Achnatherum calamagrostis, seems to keep it in bounds. The grasses are the glory of this very windy coastal garden.

I do have to brag about the clean lines of my Eryngium pandanifolium. I pulled off so many splaying, crosswise, thorny leaves in spring that I wasn’t sure it would be strong enough to bloom. And here it is with three shoots forming. If you want to grow this big eryngo in a small garden, cleaning up the leaves in spring is the only way. And no lie, it’s a nasty job requiring long sleeves and gloves. Otherwise it will be a sprawlingly annoying and scratchy mess that you will grow to hate as passionately as you once admired it.

While I was away for a week the persicarias swung into action. Obviously preferred by the bees to all else, the persicarias have added incredible vibrancy to the scene. Just standing next to all the noisy thrumming action gets me buzzing with energy too.

Lobelia tupa is a hummingbird battleground by July. Leafy tower on the left is tithonia, which depending on ultimate size may be too much for this little corner to bear.

First order of business next spring is dividing Sanguisorba ‘Red Thunder.’ After several years’ growth, its falling-off-the-barstool, lush and leaning ways would be impossible to manage without bronze fennel for support.

This little corner near the east fence somehow became filled with buttery yellows for mid-summer, a gratifying bit of serendipity.

When it became apparent that this kniphofia was not the dwarf torch lily I thought I purchased (K. hirsuta), it was moved out of inappropriately tight quarters. So what was it? This summer has indisputably revealed its identity as Kniphofia northiae, the Octopus Red Hot Poker. The polar opposite of K. hirsuta, the dwarf poker, K. northiae is the giant in the group. Apart from pulling off a few tatty lower leaves, it comes through winter looking like this. (At least last winter, which was mild.) It produced a flower in spring, but it’s really more about the shape and scrollwork of the substantial leaves. And it likes my heavy, wet soil too.

My sole hydrangea, picked up at the local farmers market a few years ago. Dark leaves, picotee flowers give it a novelty look that leaves me uncommitted, but it pretty much grows itself. I could fill the east borders with them, they love the coast that much. Silver-leaved Argentina lineata was moved to the less crowded east side of the house this spring. Over the years I’ve made repeated attempts to get the spinach substitute purple-leaved orach established enough to self-sow in both north and south gardens. Maybe this year does the trick.

I finally secured the sheet of die-cut salvage metal I’ve been eyeing for years at the local welder’s. The owner was never there, no one knew what to charge, etc. etc., but yesterday the stars aligned and we agreed to pay per pound. Tucked out of the way for now. More soon, AGO

I was in the Bay Area last week catching up with familiar places, and discovering some new ones too. Immediately upon arriving at the southern entrance to the San Francisco Botanical Garden (free admission before 9 a.m.!), I was struck by some dark, richly colored planting among broken stonework.

The allure of this little garden of ancient stone and dark-leaved plants and flowers held my interest longer than my companions were willing to wait, and they drifted off as I took time to absorb this small but strongly atmospheric space.

There is a small plaque that briefly explains how these stones from a Spanish monastery ended up in this garden. It’s quite a story. We start with a very wealthy, antiquities-obsessed collector, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (aka Citizen Kane). In 1931 he purchased portions of the 12th century monastery Santa Maria de Ovila with the intention to reuse the stones at a Northern California estate. The Spanish government had confiscated the monastery in 1835 and later sold it on for peanuts to a banker, who sold the Chapter House to Hearst.

Despite a ban on exporting historical artifacts, Hearst proceeded to build the necessary infrastructure of road and rail to eventually transport the stones on a fleet of 11 ships to a San Francisco warehouse. Later in 1931, after Hearst had acquired approximately 10,000 stones, what remained of the monastery was declared a National Monument of Spain and thus foreclosed to further pillaging.

Then the Great Depression ruthlessly rearranged wealth and livelihoods. Hearst ended up relatively broke and abandoned the project. Eventually, warehouse storage fees owed to SF were forgiven in exchange for the stones, which were then kept in Golden Gate Park. A plan to use them in some sort of folly in the park failed to secure financing.

After decades of storage, with multiple grand plans contemplated and abandoned, in the 1960s the stones found a modest new life in a few places in the botanical garden, including the one that snared my attention, the Library Terrace Garden.

After studying the perimeter plantings for a while, it was time to explore the enclosed space protected by the low retaining walls of Spanish limestone.

The interior courtyard rearranged various stone shapes into rough seating areas and planters, which accentuated the feeling of visiting a tumbled-down ruin.

But the journey of the stones didn’t end at the botanical garden. A Trappist monastery in Vina, California learned of the stones in the ’50s, and a new obsession took form of a more reverential kind; to rebuild a replica of the 800-year-old Chapter House in Northern California.

The stones had come full circle, from Hearst’s folly to once again a place of devotion, completed in 2018. Gaps were filled by Texas limestone. Built to earthquake code, “The reassembled chapter house is the largest example of original Cistercian Gothic architecture in the Western Hemisphere, and it is the oldest building in America west of the Rocky Mountains.” (Wikipedia)

More soon, AGO

(P.S. — I’m having issues with WordPress, so the photos may take a while to load.)

Marty tells me it rained overnight and this morning — hallelujah!

More soon, AGO.

As soon as it was potted I did an image search: Pilosella aurantiaca (formerly hieracium), the Orange Hawkweed. From the Alps, it’s been in Oregon maybe since the 1920s.

For a brief moment I was hopeful it needn’t be bagged and tossed in the trash. With climate change stressing and pushing fauna and flora off their local patch, there’s been some nuance injected into the discussion of native vs. exotic, with the acknowledgement that some exotics may be useful where natives can no longer cope. And, encouragingly, Beth Chatto Gardens describes it as: “A jolly little plant that adds a dot of orange over a long period from mid-summer to autumn.  Long bristly black stems bearing clusters of burnt orange flowers arise from hairy rosettes of basal leaves. Attractive to many pollinators and with a preference for poorer soils, this is one for dry, arid conditions, banks or wildlife gardens. Dainty seeds are dispersed by the wind.”

But giving the Orange Hawkweed the benefit of the doubt, with my enclosed garden within blocks of agricultural land, sounds like trouble for Oregon. It spreads by wind-driven seeds, stolons, and shallow rhizomes, a triple threat. And as if that wasn’t enough guarantee of survival, in its pursuit of monoculture, it possesses allelopathic abilities enabling it to suppress germination of surrounding flora. So add chemical warfare to its survival toolkit. It’s already a serious problem in Alaska. Also known as the Devil’s Paintbrush, an apt common name.

So seductively beautiful, so relentlessly aggressive. As a fan of all things orange, I was nearly recruited as one of its minions in aiding its pursuit of world domination, especially in cool wet climates. Marty jokingly said I should “drop a dime” on the sweet lady who sold it to me, aka report her to the invasive plant authorities. I’ll go back with an additional 50 cents and direct her to some info from the Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District.

On May 30 I visited another fascinating Portland garden through the Open Gardens program of the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon. Sometimes the open gardens are closer to me in the farmland surrounding the city, where they of course tend to be much larger. But whether city or exurban, it’s always worth the trip. If I were prone to making assumptions, and unfortunately I kinda am, to my mind a city garden implies small lots with intricate mid-size planting, maybe some screening shrubs and small trees. Well, Pete Eastman and Dayrl Griffin’s garden in a historic district of Portland proves the axiom: Never assume anything.

These guys on their double lot dream big.

When I left the sidewalk plantings and stepped up the walkway into the garden, I found the owners discussing the winter damage recovery of their Wollemia nobilis with visitors. This discussion went on for some time, so I drifted within earshot of the conversation. Garden owners are incredibly generous with their time and energy in opening their gardens, but it must be maddening to answer the same questions dozens of times. If there’s a chance to eavesdrop, I always take it. (I think this is accepted garden tour protocol, right?)

Like the Dawn Redwood, the Wollemi Pine is another living fossil, one of the world’s oldest and rarest trees. We’re talking dating to the dinosaur era. A theme was emerging. This garden had a lot on its mind and wasn’t just another pretty face.

More from the handout: “We live and garden on two city lots, just steps from the bustling Mississippi Historic District. We have been gardening in this space since 1988. In 2003, we purchased the vacant lot to our south and the main garden was created.”

My compact form of Senecio/Brachyglottis greyi is now shining forth in bloom. And this is after getting frequently trimmed for size to keep it off the manzanita. I love it in the nubby pearly bud stage, which lasts a while, but have no quarrel with the yellow daisy stage either. For me summer and yellow are inseparable.

I’ve read that the yellow daisies are considered a drawback, and some opt to shear them off. And that’s cool. I’ve pulled out flourishing plants whose color I just couldn’t wake up to another morning.

Bees are drawn to yellow flowers, while the color seems to set some people on edge. Maybe there’s a linkage there: instinctive fear of getting stung? Perhaps people find it a bit on the common, lowbrow side of the color spectrum. After all, yellow is one of the most common flower colors of weeds. The bee’s survival depends on honing in on yellow; in the garden, we have the luxury to indulge personal aesthetics. (And aesthetics haven’t always been a personal choice. In medieval times, “sumptuary laws” prescribed fabric colors based on rank and were enforced by punishment.).

Manipulating plants like shearing off flowers sounds so unnatural, but hey that’s horticulture. Every volunteer seedling we pull or allow to grow, what we deadhead or allow to set seed. Topiary, pollarding, pleaching, grafting, hedging. Training vines through shrubs, etc (this year it’s rhodochiton again, Cobaea scandens, and Jerry’s Tropaeoleum tuberosum.).

Just this morning I limbed up the little ‘Sunset’ manzanita in the stock tank to keep it off the phlomis in the ground below. It was past time to reveal that sexy burgundy armature anyway. And speaking of phlomis, that’s another one that gets a bad rap for its yellow flowers.

Making a garden is a glorious, ruthless business, full of color disputes and rancorous opinions. More please!

Have a great week. We’re hoping for less firework activity so Billie catches a break and gets a good night’s sleep. We hiked that little dog 3 miles yesterday around Soapstone Lake — she needs her rest! More soon, AGO

I got an unexpected peek at my Long Beach, Calif. garden courtesy of the watering crew. It does my heart good to see it in fair shape for July, even if a little on the wild side. So many kangaroo paws!

Have a great 4th of July!