A
Break! The weather this week has given us
and our gardens a break from the recent hot
weather. Now is the time to assess our
plants and see which ones have handled the heat
well. This past stretch of warmer weather
may have stressed some of your plants and now
would be good time to check them and figure out a
plan for helping through the hotter weather still
to come.
This
week we featured...
Garden
Trains
If
you are looking to add something different to your
garden, check out garden trains! We visited
the garden of Dennis and Caroline Rose to see
their G-scale garden train and learn how to build
one. The Roses started their train when
Dennis went to a model train show with his
grandson and fell in love with trains. They
ended up joining the Rose
City Garden Railway Society where they found
over 100 other garden train enthusiasts.
Building a garden train means you have to find the
right plants too. ‘Dwarf’ varieties may
not be enough. Those varieties may still be
too big when mature. Look for plants that
have ‘Nana’ or “Mini’ in their names.
They will maintain their sizes to work in the
train layout. If you are interested in
garden trains you can check out a local hobby shop
like Tammies
Hobbies (503-644-4535) or you can plan on
touring some gardens during the up-coming
‘Railroads in the Garden, Summer Tour’.
For $10 you can tour 12 garden train layouts in
the Portland Metro area on July 22nd
and 23rd, from 10:00am to 5:00pm.
Stihl
– KombiSystem
We
are always on the lookout for new tools on the
market that will make gardening easier. We
found a great new system from Stihl
called the KombiSystem. The
Stihl KombiSystem is a complete family of
multi-task tools comprised of different power
heads and numerous attachments. The split shaft
design lets you quickly change attachments.
It also comes with the new Easy2Start engine which
takes no effort to start! Wayne Sutton from
Stihl demonstrated how easy it is to operate.
Check out the Stihl
website to find a dealer near you.
Hypertufa
Pots
Hypertufa
is the art of making lightweight cement pots.
Donna Wright from Black Gold/Sungro gave us the
step by step instructions for making these
wonderful pots. Hypertufa means ‘light
weight cement pots’ and she walked William
through the process of making them. The 3
ingredients to remember are ‘Peat, Perlite, and
Portland Cement’. You can customize them
by adding moss, creating patterns and changing the
color when you make them. It is a great
project for families and will last for years!
Check out the recipe if you missed it on the
air.
CLICK HERE FOR THE
RECIPE
Summer
Hostas
If
you think hostas only thrive in the shade, think
again. We visited Thomas Johnson of Sebright
Gardens (503-463-9615) in Brooks to check out
some of the 300-plus varieties they grow and to
learn what you can do to get your hostas to
perform well in the summer sun. We also saw
some of the varieties they carry including
‘Christmas Tree’ and ‘Lemon Lime’, which
Thomas had growing along a path. He also
gave us tips on dividing hostas and how to protect
them from slugs. It is important to stay
ahead of the slugs before they can do real damage
to these wonderfully textured plants.
Small
Garden Plants
With
gardening spaces shrinking in newer homes, finding
the right sized plants is very important. We
found a new nursery that focuses on the smaller
sized plant. Small
Garden Plants (503-538-8529) was started at Heirloom
Roses by John and Louise Clements, the owners
of Heirloom Roses, when they moved into a smaller
house. John had problems finding plants that
stayed small but still looked great, so he started
the new nursery. Small Garden Plants
features plants that are one-half or smaller than
their original cousins. Christine Williams
from Small Garden Plants pulled a couple of her
favorites to show us including Hosta ‘Tick
Tock’, Gaillardia ‘Fanfare’, Ice Plant
‘Starburst’, plus one of the many varieties of
miniature roses that they also carry. If you
are looking for a plant for a smaller area, check
out the new addition at Heirloom Roses, Small
Garden Plants Nursery.
