Got to love the warm weather! These first few days of summer-like weather are welcome by everyone. It is funny how, in a few weeks, we will be missing those cooler, rainy days of early spring. Oh well, enjoy it while you can. I was able to finally get outside and enjoy our hammock for the first time this year. I even saw 2 of the neighborhood bats cruising the skies at dusk. A welcome sight since I know they are taking care of the mosquitos. Ahhh… it’s a great start to the summer season!

This week we featured...

Water Demonstration Garden

Everyone wants to save water but you may think it is hard to do and still have a great lawn and garden. We stopped by one of the newest water efficient gardens to learn how we can do both. The demonstration garden at the Tualatin Valley Water District has some great examples for you to follow if you are looking to reach a water saving goal. Steve from TVWD gave William a tour of the demo garden. We started at the north end of the garden. Steve told us how a walk through the garden is a continuing lesson in how to use water wisely. The garden has some modified lawn areas, some ‘native’ plantings and even some great ‘mixed-plant’ areas where you can mix natives with other ornamental plants to achieve a great garden! We also saw the main kiosk in the TVWD building. Steve mentioned that the kiosk is a great place to pick up some free ‘take home’ material about water saving. This kiosk also helps explain how to reach the 1-inch-a-week goal of watering your lawn. It also talks about different types of plants and how the garden is designed. If you are looking for ideas on how to save water and still have a garden the neighbors will envy, check out the TVWD garden, or check out the wonderful tips at the Regional Water Providers Consortium website, www.conserveh2o.org.

Little Prince Native and Woodland

Adding native or woodland plants to your garden is not difficult. There are lots of choices out there and to see a few of the choices you have we stopped by Little Prince of Oregon. Mark from Little Prince started with variegated Solomon’s Seal. This woodland plant likes the shade but it can handle morning sun. It is not a native but is hardy for our area. It has early white blooms but the variegated foliage makes it a nice plant for the year round garden. We then moved to 3 different types of ferns. The sword fern, the deer fern and the maidenhair fern. These fern all have different heights, textures and growth characteristics, but all are great for our area. If you have a difficult area, there is probably a fern that will grow there. We moved to a hardy ginger next. Asarum caudatum is another great plant for the shade woodland garden. It does have a flower but it is located next to the ground under the leaves. In fact the flowers are pollinated by slugs. Finally, we ended with the showy flower of the bunch. The Lewisia is a group of plants that were first listed and recognized by Lewis and Clark during their Corps of Discovery expedition in 1804-06. This plant has been hybridized to include a colorful bunch of different varieties. If you are looking for a native plant that loves our climate and gives you great color, this is your plant.

If you are looking for Little Prince plants they have a lot of different specialty categories, but they all include the little frog logo! Always look for the frog with the crown!

Tip of the Week – Deadheading Iris

The irises are finally blooming and as the first blooms fade you can freshen them up with a little pruning. Just take your pruners and cut off the dead blooms as they get old. Just be careful to not cut off the new blooms that are usually lower on the stem. These blooms will mature and give you great color for weeks to come. If the foliage is looking a little tattered you can cut that back as well. Just remember to leave as much green foliage as possible. This green foliage will feed the roots and result in more blooms next year! If you would like to see some great iris, the Schreiner’s Iris Gardens (1-800-525-2367) are still open this weekend for their final big weekend! Stop by and check out the great color.

Lonesomeville Border Pots

Going to Lonesomeville Pottery (503-774-5387) is always an experience. The pottery is outstanding, unique and beautiful, but their gardens are also spectacular! Plus we get a chance to hang out with Wayne, one of the owners. Wayne is a blast to visit with and this time he took William on a tour of the gardens to show off his ‘muumuus’. A ‘muumuu’ is a dress that helps hide little imperfections and Wayne has something similar in his garden. His muumuus are pots that he fills with wave petunias. He can place them around the garden and when they grow out they cover those areas that don’t always look so good. He also had another cool idea for containers. This time he had ceramic borders around his garden and, as a spacer, he placed planted containers of flowers to break up the line! It was a great idea. The borders were built with ceramic edging that Lonesomeville makes and is an outstanding addition to the garden.

Your chance to see this wonderful garden and purchase a piece of wonderful pottery is today, Saturday, May 30th from 10am to 4pm at their home/studio in SE Portland. Stop by 5006 SE Long St.
Portland, Oregon 97206 and check out the sale and the garden!

WSU Answer Clinic

One of the best groups for finding the correct plant information is the Master Gardeners. This group of avid gardeners may not be horticulture professors, but they do go through an intensive training to prepare them to help other gardeners perform better in the garden. We stopped by a place in Vancouver where these volunteers man an answer clinic at the Clark County Extension Service where they work hard to help trouble shoot garden problems. We ran into 2 of the friendliest master gardeners you will find in Bekah and Karen. They told us about the answer clinic and how they help people. When you contact them they only have a couple of requests. First bring a sample of your plant problem and also a sample of the healthy portion of the plant. The second thing they ask is that you bring it in a sealed bag so there is no danger of spreading any plant diseases.

Karen started by talking about Azalea Lace Bug. This is affecting a lot of gardeners and they have all the solutions listed. So if you have this problem, contact them and they can point you to the solution that will work for you in your garden. Next we moved to apple scab. This is a fungal disease and if you don’t treat it early in the season you will be battling it all season long. They recommend that you plant a scab resistant variety. The other apple problem has to do with volume. When you have too much fruit early in the season you can end up with smaller fruit come harvest time. They recommend that you thin your fruit about now. As tough as it is to remove all this fruit, this will ensure a higher yield later. We then saw a great example of leaf miner. These are tough to get rid of. If you try to spray them they will sometimes survive because as a ‘miner’ they have burrowed inside the leaf and are protected by the leaf from those sprays. Karen also showed us the spittle bug. This bug is harmless to your garden plants but it can be unsightly. You can just wash it off and once on the ground other predators will get it or you can just let it go and they will be gone in a few weeks. The last thing that Karen had for us was peach leaf curl. The curl can be avoided with early season spraying, but also by replacing it with a curl resistant variety. Finally Karen’s last item was to show us signs of root weevil. These critters are usually gone by morning so you normally don’t see them. You should treat these with nematodes in the fall to avoid problems with them in spring. Bekah then showed us our final plant problem, Verticilium wilt. This is a fungus problem that can affect a lot of different ornamental plants. This sample was just a dead branch so that makes it difficult to diagnose. Remember to bring in a healthy branch to assist them in finding the problem so they can solve it.

If you are looking for some plant help, these are the people to call. They will always give you an answer that is based on university research and will work for our area.

West Linn Oak Savanna

When you are driving down I-205 did you know that, in the West Linn area you are driving by a remnant of a native White Oak Savanna? Long ago the Willamette Valley was covered in white oaks. Native tribes relied on these plants for food, shelter and building materials. Those savannas were cleared for homes and farms, and very few areas still exist. A few years ago a couple, who were new to the area, walked through a lot on the hills overlooking West Linn that was slated for development and discovered this incredible meadow. Roberta Schwarz and her husband decided that this area was worth fighting for. They helped form the Neighbors for a Livable West Linn. They enlisted the help of neighbors and other interested groups and purchased a big chunk of the land and have led the way in reforesting and replanting this hillside. Local groups were not the only ones to take an interest. The famous recording artist, Joni Mitchell, allowed them to use her song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ to raise awareness of their efforts. Educational group have planted native bulbs and other trees and shrubs, and the city has dedicated and funded the area as a city park. Other groups came in and cleaned up the invasive plant species on the acreage. One of the biggest corporate partners is Collier Arbor Care, a division of Bartlett Tree Experts (503-722-7267). Terrill Collier and Kevin Carr from Collier/Bartlett are big supporters of the savanna!

Since the park founding other groups have become interested and the push is now to add more acreage to the park. They are currently involved in raising the funds to finalize the purchase. If you would like to volunteer in the park or donate funds give them a call or drop them an e-mail through their website. Either way this is a great park just to visit. In fact, we spent some extra time up there before we shot our story just to have a quiet lunch! It is an incredible area!

Togetherfarm Garden Blocks

Did you grow up with Lincoln Logs or Legos? Then, as a gardener, we have something that is just for you! We met with Matt Stormont at the Portland Nursery location on Stark Street. Matt is one of the founders of Togetherfarm Blocks. These are interlocking blocks that you can use to build your own raised bed or other garden container. Matt told us how they are built from recycled plastic in our area and are completely ‘food safe’. He then built a complete raised bed in a matter of minutes with one complete kit. You don’t need any tools to build it and it can be configured to just about any shape and size. Once the bed is built it is so lightweight that you can pick it up and move it. You can also make it permanent by using screws to secure the pieces together and using stakes to anchor it to the ground. You can also run drip irrigation lines though the blocks to make it more efficient. If you want a larger raised bed you just get more kits!

If you would like to pick up this great product you can check out their website or stop by the Stark Street Portland Nursery location.

Concrete Sealer

Protecting your investment in containers is tough in our weather. The rain and freezing temperatures can cause the best of containers to break over time. It is best to seal them. We stopped at Little Baja (503-236-8834) to check out a product that they use. Jared recommended a product from Timber Pro that you use on your fountains, statues, and birdbaths. This product is safe and easy to use. It helps keep water from penetrating into the cement and terra cotta where it can do some real damage and ruin your investment, and it is safe for the environment! Little Baja also does maintenance of fountains and water features as well. So if you have any questions, give them a call.

Margie’s Strawberry Pie

There is nothing like fresh grown Oregon strawberries! We know they are starting to show up at the local farmer’s markets. One place that we found with fresh berries was Margie’s Farm and Garden (503-866-6123). Margie said that they are picking Hoods, Shuksans and Puget Summers right now and that other varieties are going to be ripe soon. That means it is time for fresh strawberry recipes. Margie grabbed some berries and we headed to her kitchen where she shared her strawberry pie recipe. This was a very easy recipe and it takes less than 20 minutes from start to finish if you have all your ingredients. First she had William crush 14 graham crackers in a Ziploc bag. This is a great chore for the kids because the bag keeps the crumbs from making a mess. Then the crumbs were combined with 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar and half a cup of melted butter and mixed together. Then the mixture was formed into a crust in a pie plate. This was baked in the oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. While that was baking Margie took a sauce pan and, on the stove she combined 1 cup of sugar and 3 tablespoons of corn starch, a cup of mashed strawberries and a half cup of water in the pan. This was heated to a boil and then removed from the heat. By this time the crust was done baking. While the crust cooled a little Margie made a cream cheese filling by mixing 4 ounces of cream cheese and 2/3 of a cup of powdered sugar in a mixing bowl. This was spread as a bottom layer over the crust. Whole sliced berries went over this and then the strawberry ‘gel’ from the sauce pan went over that! It was incredible!!! If you are looking to try this recipe, be sure to stop by Margie’s for some fresh berries and then treat the family to one of life’s great pleasures, a dessert made with fresh Oregon berries! You can also print out the recipe here.