Plantwise

Plantwise Joins At Home

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:30:00 -0800

Portland Monthly’s gardening blog Plantwise is moving… home. More precisely, Plantwise is “moving in” with At Home, the magazine's home design, cooking, gardening, and entertaining blog.

You see, Kristin and I decided to, well, shack up together (virtually), bringing our interests and talents together into one space. This way, you'll be able to get all of your home and garden expertise, news, projects, and ideas in one place. Starting next week, you’ll find Plantwise cozily nestled within At Home. Meantime, click on over to At Home to explore our new shared space!

For more home and garden content, sign up for our weekly At Home newsletter. Subscribe to our RSS Feed and stay up-to-date on the latest from Portland Monthly's At Home Blog.

*Blog content reflects the views of the individual authors and not necessarily SagaCity Media, Inc.

Mud Sweat and Cheer Holiday Show

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 06:35:00 -0800

Find unique, Portland-made gifts and support local artists at the same time. Mud Sweat and Cheer's pop-up shop opens on Black Friday, November 23, 2012, with over 50 local artists selling everything from ornaments to sake sets, vessels and sculptural work, as well as The Bloomer: a series of self-watering, wall garden ceramic planters designed by Zoe Umholtz.

The planters are made by Mudshark Studios, a ceramic production studio in NE Portland. The Bloomer has two styles: the Slim - a minimal laser-cut steel wall bracket - and the Hempster, a wall-hung design suspended by hemp rope and a wooden knob.

Other ceramic artists include Victoria Christen, Chris Baskin, Kowkie Durst, Rabun Thompson, Jason Lee Starin, Puji Sheer, Barb Jenson, Brett Binford, Chris Pate, 5th Season: Clothing Reborn and many others, creating functional, sculptural and decorative pieces, ornaments, and more. Included will also be ceramic growlers from the Portland Growler Company.

Mud, Sweat and Cheer will also help raise funds for non-profit p:ear, an organization that creatively mentors homeless youth. 10% of the pop-up shop’s profit, all proceeds from giftwrap sales and a silent auction will be donating to the organization.

WHAT: Mud Sweat and Cheer All-Ceramic Holiday Pop-Up Shop

WHEN: Daily from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve (Nov 23 to Dec 24): Monday to Friday, 12 -7; Saturday 10-7; and Sunday 12 -6.

WHERE: 922 SW Yamhill St., Portland, Oregon

Contact: mudsweatandcheer@gmail.com / 503-974-4607 / visit their Facebook page for details on special events: www.facebook.com/MudSweatandCheer

Great Deals on Daffodils and Tulips!

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 22:49:00 -0800

Justabout every retailer around town and on-line has now put spring bulbs on sale. Buy them right away and get them in the ground in the next week or so, and you will have gorgeous sheets of bulbs in flower in your spring garden. They will likely flower a bit later than normal, but who cares?

The main trick to discount shopping for bulbs in November is to make sure you're still getting healthy bulbs. If you buy from a bulb specialist, you can expect that the bulbs have been stored properly in coolers. It's a little dicier to buy bulbs from your local retailers - most shops are heated, the bulbs have been sitting there since September, and sometimes they can begin molding or drying out. There isn't staff to go through every bulb box and pick out the mushy ones. That's your job. Be sure to check each bulb you buy. You want bulbs that feel heavy, solid and firm. Avoid any with blue mold, that are squishy or soft, or that are much smaller than the rest. (Sometimes they are broken pieces from another bulb and won't flower.) Note: sometimes tulips lose their papery sheathes - if the white bulb underneath is not damaged, it will usually flower normally.

In addition to the usual daffodils, tulips and crocus, look for flowering onion (Allium) bulbs. These underutilized gems come in a variety of shades of purple, pink, silver, white and green and are highly architectural additions to the garden. They can be tiny little gems (like our native Allium cernuum) or spectacular, four foot tall globes of silvery purple that last for weeks and often look great and stand tall long after they've finished flowering.

Also look for the Pacific Northwest native camas (Camassia). This iconic flower looks great in sheets, and is perfect for damp areas of the garden.

Best deals can be found at your local nurseries (often up to 50% off). The sooner you buy, the better chance you have of getting desirable varieties and the quantities you may want. There are also a 40% off sale at Van Engelen Bulbs (40% off) and weekly specials at Brent & Becky's Bulbs (this week, it's on tender indoor bulbs for the holidays, like Freesia, amaryllis and paperwhite Narcissus).

Have fun and get busy! You'll be glad you did it in the springtime, when those sunny daffodils and bright tulips are blooming.

Rejuve Hosts Pop-Up Flower Shop

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 08:10:00 -0800

Rejuvenation is celebrating its 20-year anniversary in the historic Neustadter Building on SE Grand Avenue in Portland. Part of the celebration includes the opening of a charming pop-up flower shop featuring Meg of Fieldwork Flowers.

Between November 12 and December 23, Fieldworks will be selling terrariums, succulents in planters, wreaths and some cut flowers in a beautiful temporary shop tucked inside Rejuvenation.

It's a fitting idea to celebrate this beautiful historic building. Built in 1902, the Neustadter Building originally served as the factory that made "Boss of the Road" overalls and men's work shirts. But by 1941, the building was sold to Standard Investment Company, which began leasing part of the space to the Oregon Flower Growers' Association on December 1, 1946. Before long, three of the city's major floral wholesalers (Robert A Hungerford, Oliver & Thompson and Chase Gardens) occupied a 100 x 200 foot space in the south side of the building. In May of 1946, the Oregon Flower Growers' Association bought the building. By then, the Association had grown to a membership of 80 growers, which were housed in individual stalls in the building.

Over the years, traffic and parking became a major issue in the area, and the Oregon Flower Growers Association moved to Swan Island in the late 1980s, where it now known as The Portland Flower Market.

Rejuvenation is also hosting a one-day pop-up artisan event on November 17, 2012 from 10 am to 5 pm that will feature local artisans, including two pottery studios - Puji Studios and Kelly Pottery. Every gardener can use a few glorious hand-made pots! I'm also told that there may be some great-looking stoneware tabletop composters for the kitchen. Check out this list of artists participating in this one-day event.

Portland's Top Five Fall Foliage Walks

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 12:55:00 -0800

Image: Kate Bryant

Almost leafless tree at the Lone Fir Cemetery, November 2012

Trees have played back-up to flowers all summer. Now the scenery is shifting from green treetops to brilliant reds, oranges and yellows and the leaves are dropping onto the ground, bringing trees back into view.

In addition to bright fall color, keep an eye out for the native licorice fern overhead in the bark of the bigleaf maples. Licorice fern dries up and disappears during the summer dry period and sprouts afresh every October! Don't forget to look down, too, to admire the carpet of leaves on the ground and to notice the return of the beautiful green mosses covering the ground, rocks and stumps.

Here's where to best admire the transition to autumn in Portland over the next couple of weeks:

Lone Fir Cemetery - 2115 SE Morrison St. Portland OR 97214 /503-797-1709

Lone Fir is Portland's oldest cemetery, and is brimming with beautiful trees including sugar maples, big-leaf maples, beech, chestnut, carpets of leaves, mossy graves, and plenty of paths for wandering. Circumambulate the whole cemetery in 20 minutes - or spend an hour or two strolling all the paths, the historic rose garden, the military statues and the beautiful graves. More photos can be seen here.

Portland Japanese Garden - 611 Southwest Kingston Avenue Portland, OR 97205 / 503-223-1321

Widely praised, Portland's Japanese Garden is beautiful in every season but autumn is perhaps the most dramatic and colorful. See Japanese maples, Enkianthus, and many other Asian trees and shrubs in fiery autumn color, set off against the subtle shades of our native conifer and bigleaf maple woodland setting. Gaze out across the city to see leaves changing color and dropping in neighborhoods all over the city. It is a shame to walk the garden in less than an hour and easy to spend two or more wandering the paths and pausing long enough to appreciate the tranquil atmosphere.

Elk Rock Garden, 11800 SW Military Lane, Portland OR 97219 / 503-636-5613

Maples, magnolias, oaks and any number of other deciduous trees are dropping leaves fast and furious. Some trees drop foliage early (like most ash); others late (like hornbeams, chestnut, oak and Styrax). Check in at the booth, make a little donation or buy a plant, and stroll the paths and lawns until you catch a view of the mighty Willamette, far below. Expect to spend at least an hour wandering - easily three if you walk up the madrone trails to look down over the river.

Hoyt Arboretum - 4000 Southwest Fairview Boulevard, Portland, OR 97221-2706 / 503-865-8733

Hoyt Arboretum ranges over 187 ridge-top acres and some 12 miles of trails. It contains a collections of trees, many of which go through autumn transformations including birches, maples, oaks, magnolias, witch hazels and more. It may take years to really explore Hoyt, but there's plenty to see in a one- or two-hour walk through the nearer trails. Or spend a few hours and venture further down your favorite trails.

Forest Park - NW 29th Ave & Upshur St to Newberry Rd, Portland OR 97219 / 503-823-PLAY (7529)

Forest Park contains over 5,000 acres, criss-crossed by trails running up, down and around, including the 30-mile Wildwood trail. The park is populated by hundreds of species of wildlife, as well as a wide range of deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs and - of course - a wide range of native plants. Remember to look down (you'll see native banana slugs aplenty after rains) and to look up to spot luscious native licorice ferns and mosses dripping from overhead boughs of bigleaf maple. Pick any trail and you'll be rewarded with the subtle colors of our native deciduous trees: variations on yellow from the bigleaf maple, as well as yellows, reds and purples from the vine maple, yellow salmonberry, thimbleberry and devil's cane, and a beautiful tapestry of understory plants turning from green to gold and orange. A Forest Park hike can take anything from half an hour for a traipse up the trail at Mccleay Park to a full-day's hike into the deepest forest. Learn more about Forest Park's best trails here.

Quick Fall Garden Projects for Sunbreaks

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:41:00 -0800

Image: Kate Bryant

Clean fallen leaves out of succulents like yucca plants now, while it's easy!

At this time of the year in Western Oregon, gardening projects are best broken down into sunbreak-sized chunks, since sometimes all we have is 20 minutes before the next deluge.

Here are a some ideas for quick garden projects that you can get done quickly, maybe even without donning a raincoat!

Pull out those summer veggie plants. Blackened tomato vines and mushy squash plants can go - especially since they can host fungal disease from year to year. Most other old vegetable stalks can be left as forage/habitat for birds, at least for the next month or two - birds can pick off any remaining fruit or seeds or insects.

Rake leaves off lawn. We love to hate our lawns for their water-wasting ways and, well, for being boring. But don't smother lawn under a blanket of neglected leaves - this just encourages weeds to replace the grass. Better to stare at the lawn for a while this winter and contemplate what kind of garden you'd like to replace it with. Meantime, rake about once a week until those leaves stop dropping. If you care about your lawn, it's all the more important to keep it clear of leaves in the fall. If you get a dry day, chop leaves with a lawnmower and spread them over your vegetable garden. Add them to your compost pile to break down into glorious compost over the winter. Or just toss them in your yard debris bin. Most leaves are good for home compost piles - just avoid black walnut, which contain a growth-suppressing substance called juglans (give black walnut leaves a year or two to decompose before adding to your garden) and avoid composting too many big, waxy leaves like English or Portuguese laurel, which take forever to break down in ordinary garden conditions.

Bring houseplants inside. If you haven't brought them indoors yet, do so now. It has been unusually warm this fall, so most frost-tender plants (Aloe vera, rubber trees, tender orchids like Paphiopedilums, etc) won't mind too much unless you live at higher elevation in the Portland area. And many plants, like Cymbidium orchids and Thanksgiving cactus, actually need some cool nights to set flowers. But this warm weather won't last much longer. Also, bring inside half-hardy succulents like Aeonium and Agave. If a winter freeze doesn't do them in, the constant rain will. Once the night temperatures shift from cool to cold, you'll want all those plants tucked in, indoors. Before bringing them inside, wipe off the outside of the pots, check the underside of the pots for slugs and wipe off the leaves to remove insects like aphids. If the plants are lanky, give them a trim.

For more late fall gardening tips, click over to Portland Monthly's monthly gardening column.

Cooking With Winter Vegetables

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:47:00 -0700

Image courtesy of Growing Gardens.

So far, so good: we're in the midst of a stellar autumn for growing cool-season vegetables. Greens and root vegetables are positively exploding with growth during this current warm, wet spell of weather. Let's hope the shift to colder temperatures is reasonably gradual now, so that the plants have time to slow their rambunctious growth and adapt to the coming cold.

But with the abundance always comes the question: what to do with it all?

Here's the perfect cooking class to kick off the change of season: Portland food blogger and Slow Food Portland advocate Katherine Deumling explains how to make the most of fall and winter produce, covering time-saving ways to prepare and assemble delicious and uncomplicated winter meals. The workshop will cover simple pantry staples to have on hand that will help you turn vegetables into delicious weekend night meals with plenty of leftovers to freeze or save for later in the week.

Take this class (details below) and learn how to prepare healthy, delicious meals with the more subtle produce of winter. Instructor Katherine Deumling knows a thing or two about local, seasonal cooking - she has an inspiring food blog called Cook With What You Have, connected with her small business in Portland devoted to educating people how to make fun, sensible and creative cooking a part of daily life. She is also chair of the board of Slow Food Portland and an active member of the organization.

The class is a benefit for Growing Gardens, a non-profit organization devoted to providing food education to low-income people. Deumling also teaches other classes: see this list for other upcoming classes.

WHAT: Growing Gardens' Cooking With Winter Vegetables class with Katherine Deumling
WHEN: Thursday, November 8, 2012 from 6 to 8 pm
WHERE: location TBD
COST: Growing Gardens' workshops are sliding fee scale (usually $10-30), in keeping with their mission to make gardening and garden knowledge accessible to all. All proceeds go to Growing Gardens and their programs.

Read about class here (scroll down nearly to the end of the list for Deumling's class) and then, sign up for it here.

Learn to Prune Your Trees

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 23:50:00 -0700

A dogwood (Cornus) at Hoyt Arboretum. Image courtesy of Hoyt Arboretum

Wondering how to prune your own trees?

Learn from Martin Nicholson, Hoyt Arboretum's curator, how to do it right. This two-hour class will provide the information you need to evaluate what and when to prune, how to make good pruning cuts, what tools you need and more. An instructional booklet is included with the registration fee. Note: the class is for pruning small ornamental trees in your garden - that 100 foot Douglas fir might just need the attention of a trained arborist with a bucket truck!

WHAT: Small Tree Pruning Tips and Techniques

WHEN: Saturday November 10, 2012 from 10 am to 12 pm

WHERE: Hoyt Arboretum's Visitor Center Classroom

COST: $35 for Hoyt Arboretum Friends members; $45 for non-members

To register, call: 503-865-8733

Do give yourself time to take a walk around the Arboretum while you're up there - the foliage is breathtaking right now.

Five Reasons to Love Twiggy Dogwoods

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:46:00 -0700

Image: Kate Bryant

Cornus sericea 'Hedgerows Gold'. Variegated gold and green foliage (left) and the beginning of rosy red fall color (right).

Variegated red-twigged dogwood (Cornus sericea ‘Hedgerows Gold’) is beautiful and versatile in the garden. Here are five compelling reasons to grow it.

First off, some background. Hedgerows Gold is a cultivated variety of our native red-twigged dogwood, found and selected by David Mason and Susie Grimm of Hedgerows Nursery of McMinnville. Although this delightful small nursery closed its doors a few years ago, Hedgerows Gold dogwood is a tribute to a superb nursery and the owners’ contributions to horticulture in the Pacific Northwest.

Why is it so fantastic for nearly any garden?

It’s stunning in every season of the year.

In spring, vertical golden buds appear on vibrant crimson stems. In summer, creamy white and green variegated foliage and flat white heads of flowers. In autumn, the variegated leaves take on a rosy pinkish-red cast before turning fire-engine red and dropping. The white fruit really start to show up in fall, too, on red stems that soon turn black. Winter, perhaps the most elegant of all: truly vibrant red stems that shine against the brown and gray of a Pacific Northwest winter garden.

It’s great for wildlife –and it’s native, to boot.

There are several species of “twiggy dogwoods” and all are beloved for their glowing red, yellow or orange winter twigs. All – native or not – produce late spring to summer flowers that supply butterflies and bees with abundant nectar and pollen. The ripe fruit is also beloved to birds. Furthermore, many people believe that it’s best to grow true regional native plants, which often develop subtle symbiotic relationships with native insects, birds and other wildlife.

It’s easy to grow!

White Cornus sericea grows naturally in damp or wet soils (in ditches and alongside ponds and wetlands), it’s surprisingly tolerant of dry conditions. Heavy, wet clay soils are great, but so is rich, amended garden soil, too. It thrives in sun or shade, although the stems and leaves color up best in sun, and it produces more flowers (and therefore fruit) in sun.

The PNW native species is Cornus sericea (syn. C. stolonifera) but there are others including C. alba (Siberian dogwood) and C. sanguinea (European dogwood) which also have colorful winter stems and beautiful foliage (green, gold or variegated) and all produce butterflies beloved to butterflies and bees and fruit that is enjoyed by birds in winter.

It’s easy to propagate and is an economical way to cover a lot of ground.

Most shrubby dogwoods can be propagated easily. Buy one large plant and you’ll have enough cutting material to start several new plants this winter. I usually take cuttings throughout the winter and just poke them into pots of well-drained potting soil and leave them outside over the winter. They root with nary a thought from me. I am pretty casual: I just snip 4-6” lengths just a quarter to half inch below a leaf node and poke them in to the potting soil, a couple of inches deep. They root during the winter, and usually have developed enough roots to transplant by April. Easy!

Shrubby dogwood can be shaped or pruned into various forms to fit the garden.

Hedgerows Gold reaches around 12’ tall if left to its own devices. But you can engineer the height to suit your needs, too. To maintain as a 4-6-foot tall shrub, just take about a quarter (25%) of the oldest stems down to a couple of inches in height in March. This helps maintain the height and keep fresh, colorful stems growing from the base. You can also chop them all down to about 4-6” in height, although it’s best to wait until your plant is a few years old before attempting such a drastic measure. You can also limit water (and, naturally, fertilizer) to keep plants growing more slowly. If you’d like a small tree instead of a multi-stemmed shrub, select and train a single trunk and remove all competing sprouts. You might want to stake the selected trunk-to-be. It takes a few years, but eventually, the main trunk will grow large and sturdy, and the bark will turn brown, with plenty of bright, fresh red branch tips to admire in winter.

Try some other selections, which vary in size, leaf attributes and twig color: Cornus sericea ‘Kelseyi’ is a 1.5 foot tall cultivar, which spreads to produce a low-growing thicket of red-tipped, yellowish-green stems. Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ has brilliant reddish-orange stems on a plant reaching 8-12’ tall and wide, with yellow fall color. Cornus alba ‘Aurea’ has lovely golden foliage and red stems on an 8-10’ tall plant. (Its yellow leaves can burn in full sun unless provided with good summer water.) Fall color is orange and red. Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’ reaches about 10’ tall, with vibrant red stems and reddish fall color.

Lonesomeville Pottery Open House & Studio Sale

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:17:00 -0700

Twenty-five years ago, artist Danny Hills and Wayne Hughes bought a crumbling 19th-century home - originally known as Blampede Farm - in the heart of Southeast Portland. Falling in love with the beautiful old Queen Anne style home and acreage around it, they made it their life's work to restore and reconstruct the place, from the cabinets and furniture to the millwork, tile and gardens. With collaboration and help from other artists, they brought the house back to its original period charm and created a garden that enhances the architecture and creates an idyllic setting for the creation of their period pottery wares.

Sold nationwide, and locally at the Pendleton stores, the Portland Art Museum shop, Paul Schatz Furniture and the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles, among other places, hand-made Lonesomeville pottery is widely admired for its authentic Craftsman- and Art Deco-inspired forms and craftsmanship. The pieces include functional pottery such as plates, bowls, vases and tiles, all based on Danny's original designs and glazes composed on site. For the garden, there are decorative plaques and edging pieces, although most of the garden art is found at their spring sale. In keeping with their artistic inspirations, much of the work is inspired by the Pacific Northwest's natural beauty. Native and common Pacific Northwest ornamental plants feature heavily in the vases: dogwood, white oak, maple, acorns, ginkgo, tulips, conifers and other evocative themes.

For the Halloween Open House, Danny makes a series of specialty items - skull sconces, halloween platters, luminaries, and any other fun things they can think of that suit the season. Their Open House is an effort to bring out the authentic, spooky, dark side of Halloween and they go all out, with pumpkin carving, scary masks and more. (Lonesomeville's apparently The Place to Be for trick-or-treaters on Halloween night: they went through 50 pounds of candy last year, says Wayne. Yowza!)

You'll find new works developed this summer and fall, as well as a seconds sale and of course, seasonal Halloween pieces offered only during this sale. It's also a fine opportunity to get a little early holiday gift shopping in, if you're looking for classicly beautiful, nature-inspired, Pacific Northwest gifts that will endure the test of time.

And of course, the expansive, old-fashioned gardens are worth strolling through, any time from spring through fall. There are numerous island beds brimming with flowers that look perfect in Lonesomeville vases.

WHAT: Lonesomeville Studios Open House & Studio Sale

WHEN: Saturday October 27, 2012 from 5 to 9 pm (one evening only)

WHERE: Lonesomeville Studios, 5006 SE Long Street, Portland OR 97206 / Tel: 503-774-5387