Oregon Garden Artist

Walking through the Oregon Garden (1-877-674-2733) is like walking through a painting sometimes. There seems to be an explosion of color and texture around every corner. For an artist this is a never ending source of inspiration. Coming up next weekend on the 21st, you will get a chance to learn from a professional artist about how you can take those images, impressions and feelings and put them down on a canvas. Judy met with artist Brian Rennick near the water gardens at the Oregon Garden where he will start with his class next weekend. Brian talked about how an artist draws many different feelings, emotions and visuals from a scene. During the class participants will be able to collect samples from the gardens to help them take that inspiration back into the classroom. Once in the classroom aspiring artists will get a little direction from Brian but they will be encouraged to create the picture as they see it and not as others might. It promises to open up new creative doors for everyone! If you would like to participate you can go to the Oregon Garden website and sign up by the 18th for a discount, or show up on at the garden on the 21st before noon to join in. You can become a member to save on the fee, and your fee will always include admission to the garden. Come to the class and help find the inner ‘painter’ in you!

Corbett Garden Train

If you are looking to add something different to your garden, check out garden trains! We visited the garden of Jonette and Gary Lee in Corbett to see their wonderful garden train layout and learn how they built it. It all started when Gary was just a small kid and saw his uncle’s house and saw that train over the edge of a table. That started a passion that has taken over their entire backyard. The Lee’s train is built based on an Eastern Oregon idea of a train that runs from La Grande to Ukiah, Oregon. During the 1880’s. The train line is called the ‘Baker and Grande Ronde’ and it rumbles up and down hills in the Lee backyard year-round. Building a train layout is never easy. They started with a flat space and then engineered the placement of rocks, ponds, soil and plants to make a very realistic layout. The choice of the plants is very important. These have to be dwarf or miniature plants and then some still need pruning to help them keep their shape and size. Train lovers look for plants that have ‘Nana’ or “Mini’ in their names. These plants will keep their size under control for a longer period of time in the garden. The plants aren’t the only thing that get loving care. All the buildings, houses, bridges, trestles, and other details are all handmade! It was incredibly fascinating! We could have spent hours just watching the trains run around the track. Now, if you are interested in seeing this train and would like to see up to 10 more garden trains, then this is your weekend. The Rose City Garden Railway Society is having their huge summer garden tour. This tour takes place every year on the Saturday before Father’s Day from10am to 5pm. Society members open up their backyards to the general public and you can stop by and see these enchanting layouts. There is a booklet that is a self-guided tour to trains from Corbett to Hillsboro. It is also your ticket! The booklet/ticket is available at local hobby shops and garden centers around the area. If you would like to find the location nearest you, check out their website. The cost is only $10 for an entire carload of people. So gather all your friends and pick up a booklet/ticket and start ‘training’.

Terra Gardens – Birds N the Hood

Looking for something to do with the kids this weekend? Why not build a house? We aren’t asking you to build a huge house, just one for our little feathered friends. Terra Gardens (503-581-0441) in Salem has partnered with the Salem Audubon Society for an event called ‘Birds N the Hood’. Kids, with their parents, can stop by between 10am and 2pm on Saturday the 14th and build a birdhouse with pre-cut materials and lots of expert help. The cost is very reasonable at just $5 to cover materials. Lowell from the Audubon society told us that these little homes work great for quite a few of our little local songbirds. We know it is true, since we got one of these bird houses years ago and it welcomes a new family of black-capped chickadees to our backyard every spring. Dan from Terra Gardens also talked about all the other things that are happening at the nursery this spring too. It is a great place to stop by even when you don’t have your kids with you.

Subaru Garden Dayz

We stopped by Capitol Subaru in Salem to preview the Subaru Garden Dayz event. William and Judy will be welcoming viewers and gardeners to stop by from 11 to 3 for a day full of gardening fun. People can shop 6 different garden vendors including Al’s Garden Center, Ferguson’s Fragrant Nursery, Garden Thyme Nursery, Margie’s Farm and Garden, Oregon Bliss Garden Art and Elk Mountain cedar. This is a great place to pick up those last few plants you will need to fill out your summer garden. While you are there you can pick up a 3 pack of bedding plants (600 while supplies last), free cosmos seeds, and free hotdogs and soda. There will also be a drawing for Dramm watering tools every half hour and a drawing for a $100 Al’s Gift Card at the end of the event. Plus, if you take a test drive you will get a garden trowel to take home too! Stop by and say hi and pick up lots of treats!

Portland Nursery Bonsai Event

Bonsai is a great hobby for those that like to garden, but may not have any space to do so. The problem is that people tend to be intimidated about getting started. One of the best places to learn more about this art form is at Portland Nursery on Division (503-788-9000). We met with Sara to learn a little bit about bonsai. Bonsai is an art and can involve plants for indoors or outdoors. Most of the plants we are familiar with are the outdoor versions and varieties. Indoor bonsai is different and those plants have specific needs. The tools you need are the same for both types. The basic materials include a plant, a pot with good drainage with a screen to prevent the soil from leaking out. You also will need some shears for trimming foliage, a small rake for combing out the roots and a chopstick for moving soil in the pot and working the roots. You will also need a small amount of fertilizer for bonsai because normal fertilizer may burn the roots. If you are looking for some tips on getting started the Division street location of Portland Nursery is having an event on June 21st that you will want to attend. From 10am to 3pm you can stop by for a bonsai show, bonsai classes and you can also meet members of the bonsai society. Check the Portland Nursery website for even more information about this great event and other classes.

Heirloom Rose Ramblers

Roses come in all shapes and sizes. There are miniature roses, groundcover roses, hybrid teas, climbing rose and ramblers. What is a rambler? To get the answer to that question we stopped by Heirloom Roses (503-538-1576) and talked with our good friend Ben Hanna. He was standing next to a building that was covered with a wall of color! Lots of people would think that this was a climbing rose, but it really wasn’t, it’s a ‘rambler’. The variety was called ‘Alexandre Girault’ and with just 4 plants it was a blanket of huge pinkish blooms that covered the side of a garage. Of course, if you have been to Heirloom in the late spring you have seen the large white rambler called ‘Paul’s Himalayan Musk’ which takes over a large black walnut tree every year. Ramblers will give you huge splashes of color every year which will last for 2-3 weeks. We then moved to a large rambler called ‘Francis E Lester’ behind the office building at Heirloom. This one was a huge plant covered with white blooms that had pink edges. This plant had taken over a dead pear tree and had not been pruned in a few years, but it didn’t need it! That is one of the great characteristics of ramblers. They handle pruning really well and even perform well if they haven’t been cut. Our final stop was near the north garden. Here Ben showed us this one which had climbed along a fence and up a trellis, he also gave us another reason for having a rambler. These are more pliable than a regular climbing rose and, most of the time, it has little or no thorns. If you would like the best of ramblers and climbers, you can plant them together for a big show followed by repeat color. As we mentioned earlier, these ramblers are putting on their best show now, so stop by Heirloom Roses soon to see them in all their glory!

Ferguson’s Garden Dayz

If you are looking for fragrant plants, the place to go is Ferguson’s Fragrant Nursery (503-476-7550) near St. Paul. Dani and her staff always have just about every scent under the sun, but they also have a huge array of color perennials and annuals too. Judy stopped by the nursery to see what Dani was going to bring to the Garden Dayz event on Saturday. We started with the new geranium ‘Persian Queen’ with great lime green foliage. Next was the ‘Bermuda Beach’ petunia with a striking pink bloom color. We also saw calabrachoas, osteospermum and scaevola. All of them were loaded with blooms and ready to go into your garden or containers. Stop by Garden Dayz and take some home or take a trip to the nursery for a wider selection!

Garden Thyme Garden Dayz

If you have been to GardenPalooza in the past, you have probably seen the great selection of annuals and perennials from George and Patti Harris at Garden Thyme Nursery (503-551-1875) in Silverton. Patti is going to have some really overlooked plants for sale at Subaru Garden Dayz and she shared a few with us. The first was a yarrow from the Tutti-frutti series. She had 2 to show us including ‘pink grapefruit’ and ‘pomegranate’. These stay lower and don’t flop as much as the older varieties. We also saw one of the newer lavenders called ‘platinum blonde’. Once again this was a shorter variety and would work in any sized garden. Patti also likes the darker foliage of the newer peonies on the market because they give you an interesting color in the garden when it isn’t blooming. Finally, we saw a marginally hardy salvia called ‘hot lips’. This one is worth the price when it is in full bloom! It really puts on a show. Another benefit of her plants… most of them are drought tolerant and deer resistant. If you would like to see more of these great plants, stop by Capitol Subaru on Saturday!

Pest Patrol – Bud Worm

When the flowers start to bloom it brings out some new pest in the garden. Right now we are starting to see the reappearance of the Geranium Bud Worm, also just called the ‘bud worm’. The bud worm is starting to show up on petunias, geraniums and other flowering plants. What you are looking for is notches in the blooms. Sometimes you will also see notches in the buds themselves. You may also see the little caterpillar that is the problem. It can appear green or a light brown and is sometimes hidden on the stems and under leaves. Right now you can use the Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew from Bonide. This is a natural product and can be used to treat the problem or as a preventative. It treats the pest bacterially and since it is a natural product it can be used in organic gardening too. Of course we always recommend that you read and follow all label directions. Look for the dreaded bud worm and then look for Captain Jack’s to get rid of the problem.

Dipping Strawberries

Early summer has arrived and that means the strawberries are looking ripe and ready for picking. You may enjoy strawberry shortcake and slicing strawberries over ice cream, but there are so many more ways to enjoy them. William and Judy thought up some interesting combinations for dipping sauces for you to enjoy. We featured ‘night and day’ which had strawberries in half white chocolate and half dark chocolate. We also had ‘Coco-berry’ which was a dip into frosting with coconut flakes. All of them were delicious! We also enjoyed the filled berries! For this we hollowed out a berry with a small melon baller and then filled it with cream cheese frosting, then topped that with ground graham crackers for a mini-cheese cake berry. If you are looking for more ideas, check out the Garden Time On-line magazine from June of 2009. The Garden Time Magazine is free and it comes to you in your e-mail box each month. Just go to the Garden Time home page and click on the link to sign up.

Baja Chimineas

Even though we are in the ‘summer’ season, there are nights where we still get a chill. To take the chill off we stopped at Little Baja (503-236-8834) to look at the ‘Baja Chimney’, or chiminea, an outdoor fireplace for your deck or patio. Jared gave us a couple of tips for making your chimney last for years and years. Always start your fire small and let the chimney slowly warm up. Never use a metal poker, it can damage the clay and cause cracks. When burning a fire, use a hard wood or pressed log. This will minimize the ‘popping’ of softer woods, and never burn garbage in the chimney. Finally make sure you keep all combustibles away from the area around your fire. Little Baja will also help you in selecting a metal fire pit or instructions on how to create your own. They even have one that is made out of an old washing machine! Stop by for instructions and tips.