Welcome to GardenPalooza, presented by Dramm. This year we celebrate our 13th annual event. We love returning to Fir Point Farms and our hosts Jack and Jessica Romaine from Country Grains. This venue has become a home to us and the Romaines are some of the greatest people we have ever had the pleasure of working with!

This year we have more giveaways than we have ever had before! In fact we will be giving something away every 15 minutes, all day long! We have $25 gift cards from Portland Nursery and Al’s Garden Center. We have cleaning kits from 30 Seconds Cleaner. We have a bunch of garden tools from Dramm. There are also books from Timber Press. We also have a bunch of goodies from KPTV and KPDX as well. Some of our larger giveaways and drawings include a $50 gift card from Garden Gallery Iron Works, and a $500 prize in the ‘Build a Better Garden with Black Gold’ contest. The Black Gold contest also includes a landscape consultation with a Portland Nursery landscape designer. If you are looking for something with a personal touch. Our own Judy Alleruzzo built a potting bench which we featured in last week’s show and we will be giving that away as well! (William and Judy show some of the prizes we're giving away in this video. Check it out!)

There are also a ton of money-saving coupons as well. Just go to the GardenPalooza website and click on the coupon pages, print them out and bring them to the event to save even more money. Here is a shortcut to get you started.

Finally, we have a huge prize for someone to take home. French Prairie Perennials is offering a Visualscaping makeover valued up to $2,500! Just stop by and see Rick at his booth or come and see William and Judy to sign up.

One more thing… as if all this wasn’t enough. If you order your ‘Garden Time’ tulip at GardenPalooza you will receive 10% off your entire bulb order.

It is going to be a great day and we will see you at GardenPalooza!

This week we featured...

Repotting Orchids

Growing orchids can be very intimidating, especially if they start to outgrow their container and need a bigger space. Lori from the Oregon Orchid Society joined us to show us how easy it is to repot an orchid. You can repot an orchid to dress it up in a nicer pot or give it more room for growth. First of all don’t repot a plant when you first buy it. They are blooming and they don’t like to be messed with while they are blooming. Then we looked at a plant that was at the end of its bloom cycle. This one you could just tear off the old root ball and get the plant down to the good firm healthy roots. Cut off all the stray roots with a scissors. You will want to sterilize the scissors first. Next prepare the planting mixture. Lori recommends a bark mixture with vermiculite. You can make your mix like Lori or you can buy a good commercial product like the Black Gold Orchid mix. Remember that the orchid likes what we like; a warm room, good water and sunshine. You can finish by cutting off the old bloom which will send all the plant energy to the roots for future growth.

If you would like to learn more about orchids or are a big fan this weekend is for you. The Oregon Orchid Society is having their 68th annual show and sale this weekend at the Ambridge Event Center in Portland. Check out their website for more details.

Newberg Camellia Festival

We made the short drive out to Newberg to learn about one of the newest of festivals in the Northwest. Newberg, the camellia city, is hosting their Annual Camellia Festival this Saturday, April 11th from 10-4 at the Chehalem Cultural Center. They are partnering with the Oregon Camellia Society who is having their annual show at the Cultural Center. If you love camellias this is the place to be. We started our visit with Collier Brown from the camellia society. He had brought in a few camellias for us to look at. These included ‘In the Pink’, ‘Freedom Bell’, ‘Eleanor McCown’, ‘Nicky Crisp’, and ‘Night Rider’. It was amazing to see all the different styles and flower types. We then visited with Bryan Stewart to learn about all the activities that they have planned for this weekend. He also told us about the Asian themed events they have happening like the Taiko drummers, a lion dance team and a swing band will be performing at the event. The day starts with a fun run and then people can catch a trolley which will be giving tours of the historic area of Newberg and areas showcasing the camellia, or they can just hang out at the center for a full day of fun. They will have 3 stages full of entertainment all day long. During the festival you can also check out the local art and photography and visit the plant sale. For fans of Hello Kitty, she will be at the festival courtesy of our friends at Uwajimaya. If you are in the Newberg area you really need to stop by and check them out!

Grimm’s Spring Mulch

Now is the time to apply a good layer of mulch to your garden. Jeff Grimm from Grimm’s Fuel (503-636-3623) joined us to talk about the different types of mulches you can get for your garden beds this spring. We were looking to add some mulch to our garden this year and Grimm’s came out and blew a unit of it into our garden beds. No shovels or wheelbarrows for us! Jeff told us about all the different materials they offer. In the spring you can get gravel for pathways, wood chips for under your swing set and bark dust in all different styles and colors. Garden Mulch, which is what we got, is VERY nutritious, protects your top soil, prevents weeds and retains moisture. They also have top soil which will improve your beds and they even have a fine mulch that is great for renewing your lawn when you over-seed. In the fall and winter they can also supply your heating needs with wood for your fireplace or woodstove and heating oil for your furnace. If you need it, Grimm’s has it. Grimm’s has all this and can deliver them in bulk or even blow them in, as we found out, so the work is done and you save your back!

Petal Heads – GardenPalooza

Petal Heads (503-953-3228) is a great little garden center in West Linn. They carry a lot of unusual and cool perennials for the northwest garden. We stopped and visited with Dave about some of the plants they will have at GardenPalooza this weekend. We started with a Bleeding Heart called ‘Valentine’. This is one of the few that is a true red color in the flowers and dark stems. We also saw a couple of the newer heucheras that are new to the market. These stay upright and won’t droop when the weather is a little cooler, so you get to enjoy the foliage longer and they handle the temps better. They even handle the sun better than the older varieties. For the plant nerds Dave pulled out a plant that most people won’t be familiar with, Mukdenia ‘Crimson Fans’. This one starts with olive green foliage and tiny white flowers, then when the weather heats up the foliage turns a crimson color. Next we moved to the Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’. This plant has a lot going for it. First of all the foliage is silver with streaks of green. Then in the early spring it gets a pale blue flower. But one of the best things about this plant is that it is very deer resistant. As Dave said, it is almost like ‘deer kryptonite’, they just don’t like it. The first plants were more of a shade loving group, now we moved to some sun lovers. The first one was a golden rosemary. This one is a great culinary rosemary and with the golden color it adds a lot to your summer, full sun, garden. Finally, we moved to a couple of euphorbias. The first one was a shorter more compact variety called ‘Tasmanian Tiger’ with variegated foliage and bright stems and the taller ‘Aztec Rainbow’ with darker burgundy and red foliage in cooler weather. One of the benefits of all these plants was that they are all pretty drought tolerant once they are established in your garden for a year or so. If you would like to learn more about these plants, including how to use them in containers, stop by GardenPalooza and see our friends at Petal Heads.

French Prairie Perennials – GardenPalooza

We love going to see Rick and Kerry Naylor at French Prairie Perennials (503-679-2871). They have one of the cutest gift shops at their store in Dundee, plus Rick has a bunch of trees, shrubs and perennials that you will not find together anywhere else. Rick always surprises us with some cool plants and this time was no different. The first one was Chamaecyparis obtuse (cypress) ‘Sunlight Lace’. It has a great golden foliage and dark stems that it retains for the whole season. It also has an open structure and is a great contrast plant in the landscape. Another conifer that Rick had was a dwarf blue spruce called ‘Neimetz’. Even though the foliage is a blue color, the new growth is a buttery cream color so you have a nice contrast between the two colors for most of the growing season. Our third plant was a Japanese maple called ‘Red Pygmy’. This one has a great red foliage color that gets even more red during the summer and then turns an orange color in the fall. This one is great for the small garden since it only gets 5 feet tall by about 5 feet wide. The final plant Rick highlighted was another Japanese maple called ‘Orange Dream’. It starts out with a lime green color in the foliage with an orange tint to the edges of the leaves. During the summer it will get more of a yellow color and then, in the fall, it will get a pumpkin orange color! What a variation of color!
Another thing we talked about was Visualscaping. This is a unique form of landscaping where you get to see the plants in your landscape before you buy them. So, instead of guessing about which plants would do well in your garden and how will they look, Rick will actually help you ‘test drive’ your choices. You can then spend your money on the plants and not on drawing up a plan. If you come to GardenPalooza, you can sign up to win up to $2,500 in Visualscaping services. It is quite a deal!

Oregon Bliss – GardenPalooza

Adding art to the garden can be tricky. Sometime we don’t have room for something large and the smaller stuff all looks the same. We all want something that is unique! We found just that with another one of our GardenPalooza vendors, Oregon Bliss (360-921-2631). Linda Olsen is the artist behind these outstanding leaf castings. Calling them leaf castings doesn’t really do them justice. She has very detailed work and it is amazing how she brings those details out when she finishes a piece with her paint combinations. Not only does she work on painting in the patterns of the leaves, but she also incorporates the woody stems and seeds into the art as well. If you would like to see more of her pieces, stop by her booth today at GardenPalooza.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival

William and Judy visited the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm for the Annual Wooden Shoe Tulip Fest (1-800-711-2006). This event showcases the fields full of beautiful tulip blooms. This year the early warm weather has the fields looking spectacular! Now that is has cooled down a little, the blooms are really holding their color. Barb Iverson took Judy out to the fields and we were surrounded by incredible blooms! Barb says this is one of the earliest blooms she has seen in years. One area that we found interesting was the small display areas out in the fields. These areas featured all of the bulbs that they have planted in the field. You can take a look at these bulbs and compare them side by side. Once you figure out what you want, you can order them for next year. Also, if you are confused about which ones to get, you can order special prepackaged mixes of bulbs. This guarantees that you will have a nice combination of bulbs that will continue blooming for months. The flower fields are just hitting their peak and the farm is full of events and it is still a must see for anyone, even non-flower lovers. Every weekend they are packed with different activities including a wooden shoe carver, pony rides, arts and crafts, wine tasting and other entertainment for a small fee. The rest of the week has a discounted fee, so you can save a little money by coming out on the weekday! While you are there don’t forget to order the ‘Garden Time’ tulip. This one was recently named for our show and promises to be a show stopper in your garden next spring! Even when the weather is a little damp, the fields never disappoint. You can even check out their ‘field report’ link on their webpage for the most up-to-date bloom report. Bring a camera; this is a scene you have to capture on film!

Simple Hoop House

In the last couple of years we have shown you how to build your own raised garden bed. Recently we had the itch to get out and do a little early gardening so we came up with a simple way to build a basic hoop house to protect our tender vegetables and get an early start on the gardening season. The one we build was very easy to construct. We stopped by a local hardware store to pick up 4 different materials we would need. We needed 3 hoops for our 6 x 4 foot bed. So we needed 6 pieces of 2 foot long rebar (you might need to get 3 foot pieces if your soil is soft). 3 - twelve foot pieces of PVC ½ inch pipe, plastic sheeting that is clear and at least 6 ‘mil’ thick, and finally some clamps to hold the plastic on the poles. Drive the rebar in the ground on each side of your raised bed. Be sure to call 811 to locate any underground obstacles. Leave about 6-8 inches above the ground and slide the PVC over the rebar on one side. Get some help, bend the pole and slide it over the PVC on the other side of your bed. We did this until we had 3 nice hoops. Then we pulled the plastic sheeting over the hoops and secured it to the hoops with the clamps. At the ends we folded the plastic and secured that to the sides of the raised bed. Remember to check and water your plants since they will not be receiving any direct rainfall. Also, keep your eye on the weather and when days get above 55 degrees you may want to take the plastic off for a few hours until dark.

Now you can plant your tomatoes, pepper and other tender plants out a little sooner than you normally would, or in our case we want the bed to heat up so we get asparagus a few weeks sooner. What a quick and easy way to start your garden early or extend it later this fall!

SowEZ

We hear of new tool introductions every year, but every so often we discover a new tool that really stands out. Recently we were introduced to the Sow EZ a precision hand seeder which will made one of our spring jobs a lot easier. We met with Earl Weber, a local man, who is the designer of the seeder, and good friend Nadia. This tools is based on the same principle as a large seeder that you can use in a field. The problem with the large seeder is with dealing in smaller seeds and tight spaces. This tool addresses those problems. The Sow EZ has a wheel which you can turn to handle smaller seeds, and by just squeezing the handle you can get a single seed to pop out. It is so smooth. It is great and will save us time when we are planting this spring. If you would like to get your hands on this new tool you can check out their website or order one through Territorial Seed.

Timber Press Spring 2015 New Books

Spring is when everyone gets excited to get back out in the garden. At Timber Press spring is the time to get some great gardening information out to those excited gardeners. We met with Tom at the Timber Press offices in downtown Portland to talk about 4 of the newest titles that they are offering this spring. The first one was called ‘Roses without Chemicals’. This book is all about roses! So many people love roses but they think that they can be too hard to take care of. This book covers 150 roses that are not only disease-free but also have great foliage, scent, color and are easy to maintain. If you are looking for a low care rose, it will be in this book. Next we looked at ‘Small-Space Vegetable Gardens’. This book by Andrea Bellamy helps you can grow a great garden in a small space. Whether it is a small plot, a container or a raised bed, she not only tells you what to plant, but also how to build a small garden space. Plus, it isn’t just about small vegetable, it even covers growing small fruit trees! The 3rd book was ‘Homegrown Berries’. Berries have become very popular for the home gardener lately and this book talks about how to successfully grow just about any type of berry in the Pacific Northwest. It will give you all the information on the different cultivars of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and more. It also covers rules for pruning, fertilizing and growing conditions. Finally, we found a book about art in the garden! ‘Mosaic Garden Projects’ is a how-to, easy to understand book about creating mosaic art in your garden. Everything from cutting tiles and glass, to mixing the right grout, this book will walk you through the steps with great written instructions and photos. We all crave color in our gardens and this book can help you achieve that with over 30 different plans listed in the back of the book to get you started on your next project.

If you would like any of these books you can find them at Amazon.com or at the Timber Press website. OR, you can stop by GardenPalooza on April 11th and enter to win one of these titles!