The lazy days of summer!  Welcome to August.  The ‘back to school’ sales are starting but there is plenty of summer left for you to enjoy your gardens.  Fresh fruits from the fields and fresh cut flowers from the garden prove that this is one of the months gardeners love!

This week we featured...

The Oregon Garden

We stopped by The Oregon Garden (1-877-674-2733) to check out their changes to the Children’s Garden.   The kids area has so many new changes that we will be returning in a couple of weeks to take a closer look at all the different things they have incorporated into the garden.  Right now the garden is full and looking spectacular.  If you would like a nice quiet day, take a trip to Silverton and stroll the gardens and enjoy their beauty.  Also, don’t forget, the new resort at the garden is almost finished.  They will start receiving guests this fall.

Night Blooming Plants

With people working longer hours, it is hard to enjoy that garden you have worked so hard to create.  Enjoyment of your summer garden can extend into the twilight hours and longer if you design a garden with a group of special plants.  Certain plants have characteristics that make them perfect for night time gardens.  Erica from Garland Nursery (1-800-296-6601) took us on a tour of her garden where she has plants that show off in the late evening.   For an evening garden you want to look at plants that are white, silver or variegated.  There are also plants that bloom in the evening or become fragrant later in the day.  You can also add hardscaping that can reflect moonlight or ambient light.  Erica showed off some of the plants she has chosen to include in her garden.  Plants included an Annabelle Hydrangea, a variegated hosta, honey suckle, and a porcelain vine that was planted with a Star Jasmine.  In another part of her garden she had nicotiana, Angels Trumpet, Four o’clocks (which start to bloom at 4 o’clock), foxglove and stargazer lilies, all excellent plants for a night time garden.  If you are looking for some reading material about night time gardens you can get the book, ‘The Evening Garden’ by Peter Loewer from Timber Press (1-800-327-5680, ), or you can stop by your local garden center for help.

Smith Summer Jam

Saving the taste of summer is made easy if you capture the flavor in a homemade jam or jelly.  Joelle from Smith Berry Barn (503-628-2172) invited us into her kitchen to show us how quick and easy it is to make a jam from fresh fruit.  All we needed was 3 ingredients, fresh fruit, pectin and a sweetener.  The pectin we used was Pomona Universal Pectin which is great because you can use any type of sweetener (Equal, Splenda, Honey or even Steevia), so it is great for diabetics.  First we crushed the berries and then added the pectin, next we added the calcium mixture (part of the Pomona product) to our sweetener.  After bringing the fruit to a boil we added the calcium/sweetener to the pot and kept stirring.  After a couple of minutes we pulled the mixture off the stove and poured it into out containers (in this case it was sterilized jars).  Joelle went one step further when she added a sprig of lavender to the mix during cooking to add an additional unique flavor.  If you would like to try this at home, you can call Smith Berry Barn, or pick up a packet of Pomona’s Pectin; the instructions are in the box.

Summer Roses

A lot of flowers are looking tired in the garden right now, but there are some flowers that are showing off in spite of the heat.  We stopped by Heirloom Roses (503-538-1576) to see a few roses that are loving the weather.  Louise took us out into the garden to see 3 different roses that are in full bloom.  The first one was ‘Rosa Moschata’ which is rumored to be the famous ‘musk rose’ that Shakespeare referred to in some of his plays.  It is a large rose that smells like cloves when in full bloom.  The other varieties included ‘Good Ol’ Summertime’ and one of our favorites, ‘The Impressionist’.  Louise also gave us some tips for keeping our roses in shape during this time of year.  You should deadhead your roses (cut off the old, dead blooms) to promote new flowers; give them a boost of a balanced fertilizer and lots of water.  If you are looking for more information you can always give them a call, or better yet stop by during the big annual sale August 8-10 for a deal on some great roses.

Terrestrial Waterbowl

A few weeks ago we learned how to build a water bowl in less than 5 minutes with Eamonn Hughes at Hughes Water Gardens (503-638-1709).  This time we returned to learn about his ‘surf and turf’ special.  What we are talking about is combining a water feature and a planter in one pot.  First Eamonn showed us a miniature fountain that contained a mushroom-like feature in the center of it.  This is placed in a large planter.  Then we started to add plants around it.  These plants don’t have to be water plants because we treat the rest of the container as if it were a regular planter.  Once everything is planted we dressed the area around the fountain to hide the edges and then we plugged in the fountain.  It was done in less than 10 minutes!  It is a great way to enjoy the best of both worlds, and planter and a fountain.  If you are near Hughes you can see more of these little combination pots and enjoy the final weekend of the 6th Annual Waterlily Festival and Invitational Art show (through August 3rd).

GardenTime.TV

So many people say they like the Garden Time TV show and are asking how they can get more information about stories on the show and other gardening information that William and Judy took everyone on a tour of the website.  But since you are reading this you have probably explored the site already.  If you haven’t you can go back to the home page and learn about places to go, projects to do, and soon, Garden Time apparel.  You can also see some of the stories you have missed in our streaming video area. 

And here is an insider secret for people who read this far down the page: You can now get to see some of the stories before the show airs on Saturday.  You can go to YouTube and look up the GardenGuy06 page.  Once you are there you can subscribe to the page.  Then, every week when we post the videos (usually on Wednesday or Thursday) you will receive an e-mail and you can go to the YouTube sight and see the stories before anyone else!  Also, don’t forget to check out our blog to hear from William and Judy about their gardens and behind the scenes stuff about the show.