SHOW ARCHIVE

Episode 365 • July 18, 2015

VIDEO ARCHIVE

This week we have the pleasure of visiting a nice little festival that is relatively new to our area. We were in Forest Grove to visit Parry’s Tree Farm and Nursery, but it wasn’t the trees we were looking at. They have started a new lily festival, check out our story on it further down on the page.

We also had the pleasure of taking over 30 viewers on our first ever bus tour of the mid-Willamette valley on the 17th. It was a blast! We really love hanging out with our viewers. We also made the announcement of our next big Garden Time tour to Ireland. We will be headed over to the emerald isle on June 16th, 2016. Be sure to keep your eyes on the Garden Time tour page of the website or keep watching the show for more information on how to sign up.

This week we featured...

Lily Flower Fest

Lily Flower Fest

We recently heard about a new mid-summer festival west of Portland. We took a trip to Forest Grove and discovered a gem of a festival all about lilies. Kenn Parry is known for the great Christmas trees he grows, but a few years ago he decided to take his hobby, and love of lilies, to the next step, the Lily Flower Fest (503-348-9601). He started to sell them on-line. One year he was left with a lot more lilies than he expected and so he decided to plant them and invite people to come out and enjoy them. Now here we are a few years later and he has a festival. People can come out and stroll the grounds and look at lovely blooms, or a great view of Mount Hood! While they are there they can also enjoy wine tasting and some great BBQ!

You can also get all your lily questions answered. One of the most asked questions was ‘how do I deadhead, cut off my dead blooms’? Kenn showed us how you can cut them a little long and produce more tiny bulbs, or you can cut them short and create a larger bulb. It was amazing to hear that the amount of stalk you leave determines the type of growth you get in the bulb. If you are looking for some great blooms and a fun time, plus getting all your lily questions answered, then the festival is the place to be. Can’t make it out, check out their on-line store (http://lilyflowerstore.com).

Drake’s Summer Sparklers

Drake’s Summer Sparklers

This week we stopped for a little refreshment at a little coffee shop, Antonio’s House of Coffee. Fortunately for us it is located at Drake’s 7 Dees’ (http://www.drakes7dees.com, 503-292-9121)! While we were enjoying our coffee we wandered out into the nursery to check out some of the best plants for summer. William and Judy pulled 6 really cool plants to share. The first one was an outstanding variegated plant called Heliopsis ‘Sunstruck’. This one loves morning sun and a little afternoon shade to protect its foliage. It will die back every year, but return in the early summer with some great color and blooms. Judy had a great variegated plant too, Caryopteris ‘White Surprise’. It is also known as bluebeard and like the previous plant it will appreciate some afternoon shade. The plant has the great foliage but will also set some bright blue flowers. William’s next plant was a caladium called ‘Kathleen’ Salmon Pink. These are generally known as an indoor plant, but during these hot summer days it can live outside and enjoy our climate. You can plant these in a pot and they can be moved indoors for year-round enjoyment. The foliage will brighten up any outdoor garden or indoors as well. It pairs well with the Hydrangea ‘Everlasting Revolution’. This short hydrangea, it only gets about 2 feet tall, has blooms that change as they age. They can start as a lime green and then turn pink before fading to a dusty rose. It loves full sun to a little shade in the afternoon. William then showed us a gardenia. The older varieties were not very hardy for our area, but the newer ones really can handle our conditions. This one, ‘Summer Snow’, is a little taller than some varieties, but it still has the great flowers and wonderful fragrance. Finally, we finished with Agapanthus ‘Mood Indigo’. This plant looks like a grass or lily in its foliage, but it gets outstanding tall stalks of blue flowers. Once the flowers are gone you can still enjoy that great foliage as a back drop in your garden.

These are just a few of the great summer plants you will find at Drake’s. if you are in the area, stop by Antonio’s House of Coffee and grab a cup, then head out to the nursery and find a plant to take home.

Jan’s July Tips

Jan’s July Tips

This month we found Jan McNeilan out in her vegetable garden for our tips of the month. Jan was hanging out by a raised bed where she had her potatoes growing. She told us how she had planted her potatoes in a bed that was finally back to normal after she had put some apple scraps in it a few years back. Unfortunately the apple seeds sprouted and the root system of the seedlings took over the bed and choked out the potatoes. She thought she had got everything out but there was a mass of roots sucking up all the water and nutrients, which means her potatoes had a short season. This brought up a good point about making sure that you know what is going on underground and not just aboveground. If you have mice, gophers or moles the water and fertilizer you are adding to your garden may be disappearing into their tunnels. Make sure you pay attention to your garden problems early and then you won’t have problems when they get too big. Speaking of water, Jan also mentioned that you should give a little more water during the hottest days of the year. Also, make sure you keep fertilizing your veggies. Water first and then apply your fertilizer so you don’t wash away all those nutrients you just added to your garden and hanging baskets. We also talked about shaking out your outdoor laundry. Just like those fresh cut flowers that you shake to get rid of bugs before you bring them indoors, make sure your clothes don’t transport critters indoors either. Finally, Jan talked about fall planting. We know, it is too early to think about fall, but really it’s not. If you know your first frost date you can sometimes plant a crop now and get another harvest before those freezing temps return. To learn more about fall planting, or get other gardening tips, check out the OSU Extension website, http://extension.oregonstate.edu.

Smith Blackberry Jam

Smith Blackberry 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 Stevia), so it is great for diabetics. First we crushed the berries and our sweetener then added the pectin, finally we added the calcium mixture (part of the Pomona product) to our mixture. Since we were making a freezer jam we didn’t even need to cook the fruit. Smith Berry Barn doesn’t use any sprays on their fruit so we just had to wash it off. After a couple of minutes we checked the mixture to make sure we didn’t need to add more sweetener or more calcium water to help it jell and we were done! We poured it into containers (in this case it was sterilized jars) and left a little room at the top of the jars for the jam to expand in the freezer. The freezer jam will stay fresh in your freezer for 6 months to a year! 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.

TOW – Little Baja Tree Watering

Little Baja Tree Watering

Our tip of the week is from our friends at Little Baja (503-236-8834). Little Baja are the experts in containers. They sell terra cotta, concrete and glazed containers for the home gardener. One of the biggest questions they get this time of year is how do I keep my plants from dying. Wayne told us that the problem is water. When a tree or large shrub is in a container they are reliant on you to keep then watered. They cannot pull water from an extensive root system in the ground. Plus, when you water them, they need LOTS of water. A little bit on the top won’t make it to the roots. You have to give a large tree about 1-2 gallons of water every day during the heat of summer. This is especially true if you have a tender tree like a maple. An evergreen tree with needles will dry out slower and can make it by if you miss a day, but a maple if left alone can be damaged permanently.

Also, it does make a difference on the type of container you use in the garden. Concrete and glazed pots help to seal in the moisture, but a terra cotta pot breathes. That is what makes them so great for your plants (they stay healthier in Terra Cotta), but that also means that they can lose moisture faster too. The key is to pay attention and make sure your plants stay well hydrated. If you have any other questions about pottery, or statuary, stop by and ask our friends at Little Baja.
 

 
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