This is the latest job I am working on which in Portland Oregon - a lovely blank slate to work with! These are clearly the "before" shots. It's very much a collaborative effort between me and the owner, which I love! She is installing the plants herself and has a lot of knowledge of the plants she likes. The idea for this design is to create an easy-care, low-growing planting scheme that will allow views of their newly remodeled house (they previously had huge, overgrown mugo pines that blocked everything) from the street. These pines also blocked views from their windows to the area across the street which I've suggested we plants with pops of color placed in logical spots in and amongst the existing rhodies and forest plants. This area will have light green colored foliage with white, light pink, pink and blue flowered plants. I'm specifying plants that like dry shade for this area (anemones, piggy-back plants, acanthus & red-flowering currants). The front yard of the house will have blue/green-foliaged plants such as manzanitas, lavenders and rosa glaucas with punches of lime (choisya, lemon lonicera) and some purples (loropetelum, euphorbia). We have also put in some blueberries and lingonberries along with fig, pineapple guava and saffron crocus because the owner is very fond of harvesting from plants. The plan I've posted here is the preliminary rough and the shots are of the front yard viewed from the house just after the irrigation and top soil were finished.

End of August Garden Shots

July Portland Garden

What can I say? The cherries are almost ready to pick and there is color everywhere in the garden!

Urban Gem finished!

I went up to Seattle to finish a design that was started last October. We sheet-mulched the yard back then so it was ready for planting and putting in the hardscape this month. Here it is with before and after shots. I did this in a week with the help from North Creek Gardens in installing pavers, concrete block low wall, and the gravel and brick path and seating areas North Creek Gardens also provided some of the native plants. This was a particularly hard yard to install as the house is 12 steps up from the street. All the gravel was put in buckets and handed up one at a time...very time consuming. I think it was all worth it, though. It will be a wonderful respite for the owner and will be low-care and private once it establishes itself.

Poppies, Peonies & Peas

Things are really starting to grow around here! My veggies are in and flowers are appearing! We have finally had a few warm - even hot - days! The poppies are Pattie's Purple, a lovely dusty shade of pink. My peas are so happy - I have more than I can eat. And, a truly lovely peony bloomed in the side garden, an old plant from years ago, I think.

April/May Updates

It's spring in the garden and despite all the rain we've had here in Portland, things are starting to grow. If only it would get warm now! I've put peas in my garden hoping they will do OK in this cool weather - hopefully the warmth from my house and my neighbor's will get them going. The north side of my house where I am creating a NW native walkway is doing well, although I still need to fill in the wandering trench that takes the drain water from my gutters with more pebbles. It will be an ongoing job. My hydrangea and clematis are already blooming, though so it's a start!

Plum Trees Are Blooming!

It's March and the plum trees on my parking strip are in full bloom - often filled with bees buzzing and gold finches chirping away. These are the first trees to bloom in spring. Heavenly!

Desert Meditation Garden

A big project I am currently working on right now is a meditation garden in the southern California desert at a small hot springs spa. The garden will be on what is now four residential-sized lots that will be sandwiched between the delightful 7 room spa and a new treatment center that will house massage rooms. This new garden will have a labyrinth, a large outdoor gathering area for yoga, 5 private meditation pods, a small desert Zen garden, and a fire pit. Both the hot daytime heat and the cool desert evenings will be taken into account so that it will be comfortable and magical experience no matter when one is there. We will use desert plants that the owners have on hand after having purchased a nursery that was going out of business. Right now we are in the design stages and getting the irrigation put in to make sure the first year of planting does well. Virtually all of the plants are native to the desert southwest so it will be a sustainable landscape. There is also some run-off from the spa pool into a small area that we will built the Zen garden around. The view of the San Jacinto Mountains to the south and the Joshua Tree National Park to the north will be a feature of the garden. The photo of the landscape is the actual property, the next is the view from the spa, and the other shots are of plants that I saw while visiting nurseries in the area.

Little Urban Gem

I'm currently working on a yard in Seattle that needs to have a new life. The family is growing up and the kids are leaving so Mom wants a renewed and more useful yard for this. We started this project back in October...well, September, really - but due to weather and the busy schedule of the client it really got off the ground right after the big Halloween party that she and her neighbors have at her house each year. The goal is to make an urban garden on the south side of the house, fix the not-too-effective middle yard that drains into the outside basement stairway and provide a new outdoor room on the north side of the house for repose and contemplation and to help extend the deck area.

The client wanted to do a lot of the work herself and agreed to tackle the hard work of putting cardboard on the old lawn and covering it with about 4" of mulch to sit there all winter generating itself into the best garden soil ever! This house sits about 12 steps up off the street so hauling all that mulch up to the yard to some time and effort. You can see the before and after shots of the three parts of the yard here - the grassy areas are the old yard, the muddy shots are the new mulch and cardboard turning into new soil. Kind of messy right now but it will be great when it all gets replanted.

We also had a small garden shed built in the north yard which will add charm to the new outdoor room. When spring rolls around we'll put the new plants in and fix the middle area by terracing and creating effective drainage. The north yard with the shed will have a circular seating area surrounded by native plantings that will give it an enclosed feel - the outdoor room! It will look great.