theHPSO quarterly · 2017-09-13 · from people like me, whom she decided were writers. She clearly...

the quarterlyHPSO SUMMER 2017

A PUBLICATION OF THE HARDY PLANT SOCIETY OF OREGON

front cover photo by Doug Barragar: Hibiscus moscheutos ‘Summer Storm’ — page 6

photo this page by Lindsey Kerr: Gaeity Hollow, home of the Lord & Schryver Conservancy — page 10

summer 2017 table of contentsHPSO Hortlandia Photo Sampler .................1

Letter from the Editor ...................................2

Remembering Dorothy Rodal .......................2

The Garden That David and Dorothy Built ....3

A Shot of Brilliant Summer Color: Perennial Hibiscus. ....................................6

Why I Garden: Tom Fischer .........................8

The Lord & Schryver Conservancy.............10

Isn’t it Time You Visited Wildlife Botanical Gardens? ....................12

What’s Bugging You Now? Insects Take Wing ....................................14

Grant to the Leach Botanical Garden .........15

From the Library .........................................16

Recent HPSO Activities & Events: ..............17

Welcome New Members .............................18

Fall PlantFest ..............................................19

Save the Date: Annual Meeting ..................19

Plant Profile: Crocosmias ...........................20

Upcoming Events .........................back cover

www.hardyplantsociety.org the HPSO quarterly ~ 1

HORTLANDIAsampler

Hortlandia photos by Annette & Claus Christensen and Loree Bohl

2 ~ the HPSO quarterly summer 2017

the quarterlyHPSOA publication of the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon

Volume 5, Number 3

Annette Wilson Christensen, managing editor Jolly Butler and Tom Fischer, copy editors Linda Wisner, designer Rod Diman and Bruce Wakefield, proofers

To view a pdf of the Quarterly, please visit our website.

4412 SW Barbur Blvd, Suite 260, Portland, OR97239 | Office and library hours: Tues-Fri 10am to 3pm; 503.224.5718

www.hardyplantsociety.org

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear Readers:

I am continually seeking ways to improve the HPSO Quarterly, and this month I’m posing two important questions to you:

Do you have organizational skills and an interest in helping with the HPSO Quarterly Magazine?

Being editor of the Quarterly for the past two years has been very enjoyable, but I would love to have help after I receive articles and photos from our writers. You would assemble the edited articles, photos and the photo cap-tion lists to make them ready for layout. If you use a computer to communicate, you have the skills you would need! You will have lots of help getting started and would be a part of the wonderful Quarterly magazine team, so don’t be shy! Please email me if you are interested at: [email protected]

Has your garden been featured in a gardening magazine?

Many member gardens have been featured in the past year or two in well known garden publications, and if yours is one, the Quarterly would like to share your story with other members. We will introduce your garden in the Quarterly and provide members with a link to the article so they can enjoy it too. If you’d like to participate, please email me at [email protected].

I extend my heartfelt thanks to all of the writers and photographers who helped create this lovely summer issue of the HPSO Quarterly. Enjoy!

Annette Christensen Editor HPSO Quarterly

Our Summer Issue — Abuzz and Aflutter

We are saddened at the recent passing of Dorothy Rodal. Dorothy, a devoted gardener, made important contributions to HPSO during her many years of membership, as an officer and volunteer. I asked a few of our members to share their memories of her.

Jim Rondone, HPSO President

Sharon E. Streeter, a founder, and editor of the Bulletin from 1985 to 1990:

Dorothy—Viburnums spring to mind. As do roses. And the latest tree she and David planted that they didn’t need but had to have. Dorothy seemed always to be battling with herself, her covetous self always winning. The garden was her pleasure ground. Having “retired” from being a serious artist in California, her keen eye discovered a larger palette on Sauvie Island, where she and David tackled five acres of land, the intention being to fill every square inch with favorite plants. But it was as editor of the Bulletin, that Dorothy showed me her true colors. “I’m not a writer,” was a phrase she uttered many times, probably to deflect criticism from people like me, whom she decided were writers. She clearly loved to write. Whether it was book reviews, travel pieces, or articles about her favorite plants (“It is hard for me to pick favorites of anything, as whatever I am looking at is often my favorite.”*), there are precious few issues of the HPSO Bulletin that do not include an article by Dorothy. Mary Hoffman was no fool. She invited Dorothy to “learn the business” when Mary sensed she no longer had the stamina required for gathering material, editing , typing, and producing the Society’s official journal. Mary and Dorothy worked alongside for 10 years (with Judy McNeill for some issues), bringing David on as Technical Editor. By the time Mary was ready to let go, Dorothy and David took off like kids with their very own bikes.

Remembering Dorothy Rodal

*from “Rosemoor,” Vol. 22, No. 2, p. 40) Sharon is currently working on a history of the Society’s publications.


I remember when Dorothy announced the full-color edition (2011). She so much wanted David’s photographs to be appreciated. (They had produced the first color cover in 2004). In spite of her diligent crusade to persuade the Board to budget for the price jump to color, she wrote no fanfare for the accomplishment, but instead, plunked two of her plant- adoration articles into the issue (“Hydrangea paniculata,” and “Yellow Trees and Some Shrubs”), whipping out her usual wit to mask the hard-earned wisdom behind her words.Dorothy was broken-hearted when the Board determined it could no longer afford the Bulletin in its current form. Happily, she lived long enough to see the Quarterly evolve into the fine publication it is today (with color!). If you asked her what issue she favored, she would no doubt have said, “The one that’s in my hands.”

Barbara Blossom, Member of the HPSO Writers and Golden Gardeners’ Groups:

Several years ago, Dorothy and David gave our Golden Gardeners interest group a tour of their garden. While David walked along with us, identifying plants, Dorothy rode aloft on their tractor, clearly Queen of the Garden. Inside their cozy home, we relaxed around their beautifully set dining room table, drinking hot beverages, while Dorothy regaled us with stories about their lives in the garden. Dorothy made sure that we saw one of her favorite views of the garden out the bathroom window —she had purposely designed it to enjoy while sitting on the porcelain throne. I seem to recall that Dorothy and David were dressed in matching fleece outfits, brilliant red, which I coveted.

Bruce Bailey, former HPSO member and friend:

Dorothy Rodal was determined her whole life, educated and passionate. An artist in everything from the canvas to the garden. Selectively, she gathered her horticultural family around her. She went out of her way inspiring and encouraging those she loved. She was a force, intimidating, lovely, and willful.

by Lisa Fuller

All the best stories end with “...and they lived happily ever after.” This one is no exception.

This is a visual stroll though the Sauvie Island garden of two of our most beloved members, David and Dorothy Rodal, and makes for a very good story indeed. Dorothy recently passed away, but the garden she inspired, and worked so tirelessly to create with her quietly determined husband David, remains a glorious testament to the journey they embarked on many years ago. It is easy to smile in constant delight at the thought of these two people building their paradise together.

The journey actually started, Dorothy used to love to tell, on her explorations into the English countryside while David was on business trips in England. They were both working. David was an engineer who did engineer stuff, and Dorothy taught art history at the local college. The English gardens were enthralling, and soon she dragged David to see the marvels of English horticultural ingenuity; and when they got home, they demanded that their local nurseries procure the plants they saw on those trips.

The Garden that David and Dorothy Built

We think the Rodals had a lot to do with the growth and sophistication of more than one nursery in the Bay Area, where they lived at the time, simply by their attempts to fill Dorothy’s many orders. This trend continued when they relocated to Oregon after retirement in 1994. Eventually, they even leased some of their land to a nursery (our well-loved Cistus) for the love of Parker Sanderson, Dorothy’s favorite procurer. She named part of their garden the Parker Arboretum (below).

David and Dorothy in the ever-useful gator.

continues on page 4

continues on page 4


I have fond memories of staying up late with Dorothy as she would tell me stories of her youth and of her time living and teaching in the Bay Area. I have heard the stories of how she met David and the times that they shared abroad and with their two sons.In the morning she would sit at the head of the table and make David and me pancakes and serve them with strawberries that she and David had put away. Dorothy was a great fan of strawberries and each batch was labeled by variety. Organization and labeling was part of Dorothy, as seen by her collections in the garden. Every plant labeled as correctly as she could research it. Many who know her have seen her master list. It is precise and has years of observations in it. Dorothy was not just passionate about plants, it was her research. She enjoyed the process.Her passions in life were many. Those who surrounded her, the lives she touched. Many knew that she just was as passionate about those that she loved as plants that she grew.

Lisa Fuller, HPSO Assistant Manager:

The Dorothy I know—Sometimes you meet someone for the first time, yet it feels as though you are embracing an old friend that you are simply eager to catch up on the news with. Your individual opinions, loves and hates, desires, and tribulations are unspoken and understood. You are as if “home.” Thank you, Dorothy, for being such a loving, comforting place in my soul. Thank you for nurturing me with benign conspiracies, percolating humor, and imperious command of the English language.

Sauvie Island, Oregon, turned out to be the perfect location to stake out a spot in which sink roots for the long haul: climate, water, soil. An English garden gardeners paradise!

You can also read about the garden’s journey and monographs about the many beloved genera on which they became experts, some of which they introduced themselves to the trade over the years. Dorothy wrote articles in nearly every HPSO Bulletin published since she arrived in Port-land. She became editor after Mary Hoffman retired in 2007. She was the editor until she and the publication retired in 2012.

Dorothy’s last lecture was for the HPSO “Gen(i)us” Series she helped start. It was, among other things, about Berberis, “one of our favorite plants.” She tells the story of procuring Berberis jamesiana from Western Hills Nursery, “a very scraggly plant with two very small leaves,” now a towering behemoth that David can stand under, and a plant we acolytes still seek.

Her style was sassy and witty and impeccably astute. Her stories were many and often epic. Treat yourself to a ride through the Rodal’s world, right there with them, on that jaunty green Gator, visually and through Dorothy’s writing.

Dorothy, on a decklet, contemplates the newly planted area inspired by the Cambridge Botanic Garden

The van that pulled the trailer that brought the plants that started the garden that David and Dorothy built.

Planting David...

David’s roof top shot of the mature garden in full fall color


Lise Storc remembers a few funny moments from the last month with Dorothy:

Andrew and I were fortunate enough to get to visit Dorothy and her fully intact sense of humor. Not what you’re looking for in the quarterly but I wanted to share them with you.On trying to entice Dorothy to drink a foul tasting antibiotic by offering various vessels: “Well, I MIGHT be willing to give it a try if you put it in a chamPAGNE glass”.Upon hearing praise for her soft brilliant blue socks: “I got those years ago. The GOOD news is that I remember where I GOT ‘em. The BAD news is I’d have to go all the way to HOLLand to get another PAIR!”

From Beth Hansen-Winter, HPSO Board Member:

Dorothy Rodal introduced me to HPSO during my first, long, isolated winter here in Oregon back in 2002, and for that I will be forever in her debt. Through a lucky set of circumstances, I fell into a wonderful three-month correspondence with her and found her to be compassionate, funny, and profoundly knowledgeable about botany and horticulture. We’ve lost a remarkable plants-woman and friend. It will be a less fragrant world without Dorothy.

NOTE: Past editions of the Bulletin are available at hardyplantsociety.org in the members-only section.

Here’s a snippet to whet your appetite for more of Dorothy’s writing, published in the fall 2006 Bulletin:

“Parker (Sanderson) told me not to plant Halesia carolina ‘Rosea’. He said it was not in bloom that long, but I told him that neither is a tulip. David has always said I am a willful woman. It has lovely, pale pink bells along the branches, which utterly seduce me. Since it blooms in spring, the weather is not always wonderful, but we put on our slickers, park the Gator in front of it, and admire it until we are almost frozen. Then we go in the house happy, to sit by the fire.”

All photographs taken by David Rodal.

Island inspired by the Parker Arboretum

Below, fall panorama in the garden.

Island with Viburnum trilobum ‘Wentworth’, Berberis thunbergii ‘Red Chief’, and Viburnum opulus ‘Exuberant’

Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’, Rosa ‘Mme Gregoire Staechelin’ and Rosa ‘Paul Transon’ in Arbor


I’ve come to love beautiful foliage as much as flowers, as the leaves last so much lon-ger. Shades of gold, wine, bronze, silver, blue-green, and green variegated with cream keep my garden colorful for most of the year. I’d given flowers a back seat until I noticed that Doug Barragar, my neighbor across the street, had the most flamboy-ant color works all summer long. Actually, from winter’s hellebores through summer’s perennial hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos and hybrids), his garden is a parade of blossoms that was stirring up some seri-ous envy. Whoa, I needed to rethink my choices.

Not only were Doug’s hibiscus flowers big and showy, in shades of red, pink, fuchsia and grape, but they bloomed for months! The plants were tall, and many even had interesting leaves, some beautifully incised, some deep burgundy. I wanted this kind of splendor in my own garden, pronto!

I credit (or blame) Doug for igniting my obsession with these perennials. Sure, I had tried the original Hibiscus moscheu-tos many years ago, but they were plain compared to these new hybrids that Doug has been collecting like mad. By now he has more than 20 varieties, and they are all amazing. How did this all start?

“I bought a couple of the old varieties like ‘Lord Baltimore’ and ‘Blue River II’, and liked them,” Doug says. “I liked the big blooms and so I went from there. They’ve done a lot with the newer varieties, introducing dark leaves, cut leaves, and maple-shaped leaves.”

‘Summer Storm’ is his overall favorite, for its dark leaves and radiant flowers that practically glow with inner light. The flowers are pastel pink with deeper pink veining and a bright magenta eye. The only reasonable response to this plant in bloom is, “Oh My God!”

“At Hardy Plant Study Weekend a lot of people admired it even before it was in bloom, just for the foliage alone,” Doug says. Many of these hardy hibiscus share the best of both worlds, but for green-leaved ‘Tie Dye’, it’s all about the flowers, which are bright pink, with a white central area, and a red throat. To see it is to crave it.

Shopping at local garden centers and on line, Doug became an ardent hibiscus aficionado. When we’d visit a nursery he’d always manage to find a new variety or two hiding amid the perennial tables, especially at the end of the season when they were on sale. Even without any

A Shot of Brilliant Summer

Color: Perennial

Hibiscus

NOTES FROM A MEMBER’S GARDEN

flowers on the plants, he could spot their leaves from a distance, and score.

Pretty soon I caught the fever, especially after Doug gave me a division of his ‘Summer Storm’, and it flowered beauti-fully in my own garden. When I took a trip, Doug would volunteer to water my pots, and I would bring him another hibiscus that I hoped he hadn’t yet discovered. One for him, one for me. It was only fair!

When Doug’s ‘Moy Grande’ hibiscus blooms, traffic screeches to a halt and walkers stop to ogle it. Hybridized by the late Dr. Ying Doon Moy at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, this one is a superstar with pink-red flowers up to a foot across. “It rises eight feet if I could get it to stay up straight,” Doug says. But even though the plant leans and spills over the bank in his front garden, it’s simply gorgeous.

How straight these perennials stand depends partly on how much sun they get. “The ones that get plenty of sun don’t tend to need staking, but those that are crowded need some support,” Doug says. Packing as many plants as possible into his third of an acre means that he stakes and ties some of his taller varieties with great care. Often he pounds a short length of PVC pipe into the ground ahead of time,

by Barbara Blossom Ashmun

Hibiscus moscheutos ‘Summer Storm’


Hibiscus moscheutos ‘Moy Grand’

inserting a metal stake as the plant rises up, then tying the stems to the stake.

Even so, one advantage is that he can plant earlier bloomers in front of each hibiscus because of their relatively small footprint—they emerge late and grow up late. “You don’t need to have a blank spot,” Doug says. He is adept at covering every inch of soil with plants, enjoying a continuous flow of color from late winter into late autumn.

If you’re short on space, he recommends ‘Eruption’, which grows three to four feet, with hot pink flowers that are still plenty big, and dark leaves. Hybridizers are accommodating to smaller gardens, which are becoming more plentiful.

Native to the east and south regions of North America, and commonly called rose mallow, or swamp mallow, Hibiscus moscheutos commonly grows in moist places like marshes and the edges of lakes. Ideally it grows

Hibiscus moscheutos ‘Tie Dye’

Photos by Doug Barragar

best in full sun with plenty of water and rich soil. Despite its deceptively tropical appearance, it’s hardy to zone 5, and will actually grow well enough in ordinary garden soil and even some shade, as long as it gets plenty of deep watering. You can cut it back to 8 to 10 inches in fall and down to the ground in spring, but be careful to mark them as they emerge later than many perennials, typically in May. I usually put small twigs around the plant to stop my feet from accidentally stomping on the crown during spring cleanup.

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Barbara Blossom Ashmun wishes she had written an essay on Hibiscus in her new book Love Letters to My Garden.


WHY I GARDENAnother way of putting it is, “Why I engage in this crazy behavior that regularly pits me against the whims of a capricious climate, has prompted me to spend untold thousands of dollars over four decades, has filled much of my brain with Latin plant names, and has been singularly unkind to my lower back.” So let’s begin.

Heredity. I firmly believe that a loveof plants and an addiction to gardening are, at least in part, genetic. I call it “phytophilia.” My maternal grandfather, for whom I was named, was a profes-sional estate gardener in Yonkers, New York, before the Great Depression hit. Although he died ten years before I was born, the garden he created at our family’s house remained, filled with dusky heirloom bearded irises, blowsy peonies, and brash Oriental poppies. I loved them all. And my mother was a serious and skillful gardener, although she couldn’t be bothered with botanical Latin. The apple did not fall far from the tree.

Imprinting. Certain early experienceslodged themselves deeply in my develop-ing consciousness. The house we lived in until I was nine stood alone on the very edge of town, and was surrounded by woods and meadows. The Saw Mill River flowed through our backyard. On one of my solitary rambles, I came upon a clump of Mertensia virginica decked in pink and blue bells; at its base was a clump of Asarum canadense. I was transfixed. From that moment, I knew, with unshakable cer-tainty, that the natural world could feed my soul with beauty, and that plants were one of the main embodiments of that beauty.

Variety and complexity. The fas-cination of the plant world is inexhaustible. When it comes to botanical love affairs, I must confess to being somewhat slutty. But what ecstasy has flowed from each one of these delirious entanglements! There was the blue bliss of delphiniums, gentians, and penstemons; the rainbow rapture of Pacific Coast, spuria, and aril-bred irises; the splendid splurge of salvias. And currently there’s the infectious infatuation with agapanthus. Each of these episodes has been enriching—educating me about how plants interact with their surroundings, refining my eye for color and combinations,

Equally thrilling has been seeing plants in the wild—memories I will cherish until I draw my last breath: gemlike bulbs and sheets of glowing annuals in South Africa; the forest floor gilded with thousands of Iris innominata in southern Oregon; cliffs in northern California turned scarlet and azure with delphiniums; shell-pink primulas clustered beneath a waterfall in central China.

In my younger years as a gardener, I wanted to own all this beauty—to grow every plant that caught my fancy. But more and more these days, I am content to know simply that it exists, somewhere in the world. I don’t want to own it anymore, but I do want to protect it. In fact, the pres-ervation of our few remaining wild places seems to me now an absolute imperative.

Books. Gardening has produced a vastbody of great writing, and I am a wordy person. During the waning days of my graduate school career, I encountered two books that propelled me into the arms of the Goddess Flora. One was Graham Stuart Thomas’s Perennial Garden Plants; the other was Eleanor Perényi’s Green Thoughts. Thomas revealed a world I never knew existed: I had never heard of hellebores, blue poppies, or Asian aris-aemas. Each page was tantalizing, each held new revelations. Perényi, with her tart, taut prose, showed me that garden

by Tom Fischer

The back garden border in May.

writing could be literature—infused with humor and opinion, stimulating to the intellect but rooted in basic human needs and passions. And of course those books were just the beginning of a journey that has included Henry Mitchell, Christopher Lloyd, Russell Page, Louise Beebe Wilder, Elisabeth Lawrence, and countless others. I have heard that other activities—base-ball and fly fishing, for example—have provoked a modest body of writing, but I can’t imagine that they compare with the scope and majesty that reside in the best gardening books.

The wider world. Gardening isabout connections: with nature, with other gardeners, with one’s neighborhood, city, and country, with the entire cosmos, for all I know. Working in the garden has brought me into intimate contact with scores of creatures, creeping, skittering, slithering, flying, all of them fascinating and worthy of study. The great rock gardener and writer Geoffrey Charlesworth once said that a garden would be worth cultivating for the spiders it contains. I agree.

Gardening has brought me some of my most precious friendships. Whenever I’m tempted to conclude that humanity is a botched experiment, I think about the generosity and kindness I’ve encountered among gardeners and I repent my harsh judgment.


new wall

Photos by Tom Fischer

The back garden in early spring.

Gardening has drawn me into admirable organizations, including of course HPSO, and has given me opportunities to speak to groups both large and small. It has provided me with a forum for my writing, and has enlarged my life incalculably. How poor and shrunken I would be without it.

I am not a religious person, and I scoff at anything that smacks of the supernatural or woo-hoo New Age quackery. But I am nevertheless convinced that gardening is enduring, meaningful, and of supreme value, in ways that perhaps exceed our limited perspectives.

Beauty, variety, complexity. That’s my mantra, and that’s what gardening has given me.

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The back garden border in July.


“A garden is never the same, but its characteristics should be preserved, even though the availability of plant material always changes.”

Edith Schryver

Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver were the first two female landscape architects in the Pacific Northwest to own and operate their own firm. Their designs were strongly influenced by European styles and they are sometimes credited with popularizing boxwood hedges in the region.

The Lord & Schryver firm was founded in 1929 and operated out of the upstairs studio of their Salem home until they retired in 1969. They designed ap-proximately 250 projects in Oregon and Washington, including several in the Portland area. Sadly, few of their gardens remain intact. Deepwood Museum & Gardens and Gaiety Hollow are the only Lord & Schryver designed gardens open to the public. Today, the Lord & Schryver Conservancy is working to rehabilitate the gardens at Gaiety Hollow and to make the site a cultural center.

Gaiety Hollow—their home, studio, and garden—is seen as the best example of Lord and Schryver’s design aesthetic. They designed the garden in tandem with architect Clarence Smith when they

constructed the house in 1932. Their garden was a showcase of their talents and a place to experiment with new plants and color combinations.

The garden is made up of sections or “rooms.” The Entry Garden, with a taller boxwood hedge and white flowering plants, is a respite from busy Mission Street. The Evergreen Garden features a small pool surrounded by deciduous and evergreen azaleas and early spring bulbs in shades of white, yellow, and soft orange. The West Allée is dominated by spring flowering shrubs like lilacs, rhododendrons, and camellias. The Flower Garden is an exuberant seasonal display of cool season annuals and bulbs in the spring, and annuals, herbaceous peren-nials, and roses from early summer to late

The Lord & Schryver Conservancyby Lindsey Kerr, Curator & Garden Manager

Gaiety Hollow is filled with tulips in April


Historic photos give visitors glimpses of the gardens in years past.

Guided tours of the Lord & Schryver gardens at Deepwood Museum & Gardens and Gaiety Hollow are 8/20, 9/23.

The Gaiety Hollow gardens are open 8/13, 9/10.

Admission to the gardens is $5 for those over the age of 16.

Gaiety Hollow is located at 545 Mission St. SE in Salem.

More information, visit lordandschryverconservancy.org

Lordandschryver on Instagram

fall. The Drying Garden, meant for drying clothes, was enclosed by a collection of magnolias and smaller shrubs. Standing on the back porch, overlooking the Lawn, no one would guess that the property is less than half an acre. Edith and Elizabeth’s garden is a masterpiece of residential design.

The design of the garden did not change over 40 years, and the shapes of the beds did not change. Like most gardeners, however, Edith and Elizabeth were constantly changing out plants and they had their fair share of gripes. In July 1938, Elizabeth wrote, “Gardens a mess after June bloom. Phlox died out. Sweet William a failure and Canterbury bells indifferent. Must plan for more shady things.”

Elizabeth passed away in 1976 and Edith in 1984. The property was sold to a family who cared for the garden for 30 years, changing very little. When the Lord & Schryver Conservancy acquired the property in 2015, trees and shrubs had died, and a few were added, but the bones of the garden were all there. The decision to open the garden to the public was obvious. In late September 2016, a Curator/Garden Manager came on board to facilitate the Conservancy’s effort to rehabilitate the gardens.

The goal is to return the gardens to their glory, as Edith and Elizabeth maintained them between 1932 and 1969. Rehabilitat-ing a garden is not an easy or simple task.

The Conservancy must fully understand how the garden looked in the past, what is growing in the garden today, and what it will look like in the future. Volunteers have gathered photographs, letters, journals, newspaper articles, and other research materials. A team is inventorying all the trees and shrubs on the property. The next step is to distill the information into treatment plans for each garden room.

The plans will create a clear path forward for work done by staff and volunteers.

In the meantime, some changes are taking place. Additions to the driveway were removed this winter and grass re-installed. A terrace in the Drying Garden was also removed, stepping stones laid, and lawn re-established. Recently planted trees and shrubs are beginning to come out as we find historic plant material to replace them. And the Flower Garden has been planted with some of Lord and Schryver’s favorite plants for the enjoy-ment of visitors this season.

The Gaiety Hollow gardens are a work in progress, but the Conservancy is excited to welcome visitors to see the changes taking place.

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The gardens are enchanting in the evening light.

Photos by Lindsey Kerr


Isn’t It Time You Visited Wildlife Botanical Gardens?

I know you’ve seen it in your Open Gardens book: NatureScaping of South-west Washington’s Wildlife Botanical Gardens. Why haven’t you visited it? Maybe, like me, you envisioned it as more of a nature preserve than a garden. Well, I’m here to report that it is most certainly a garden, and a wonderful one at that.

Although the emphasis is on nature at Wildlife Botanical Gardens, you’ll find all of the components that make up a traditional garden. There are gazebos and arbors, benches and water features, raised beds and well-maintained paths. And of course, there are the plants. You’ll see a broad mix of trees, such as ‘Forest Pansy’ redbud, serviceberry, and blue spruce, and shrubs both native and exotic, like evergreen huckleberry, fothergilla, and twinberry.

GARDEN PROFILE:

photos and story by Amy Campion, amycampion.com

Hundreds of varieties of perennials and annuals make up the ground layer. Columbines, bleeding hearts, snap- dragons, phygelius, fuchsias, sedums, and asters take their turns upon the stage over the course of the year.

How did NatureScaping come to be? I recently spoke with the group’s president, HPSO member Meredith Hardin, about how this non-profit organization and its gardens developed. “We’re celebrating our 25th anniversary this year,” Hardin said. “The group began in 1992.” She explained that it all started when a home-owner named Jeff Wittler and a group of volunteers saw the rapid urbanization that was happening in Clark County and noticed the harmful effects that it had on wildlife. They wanted to offset that damage

by creating a space where homeowners could learn how to make their yards more wildlife-friendly.

After a false start with a property in downtown Vancouver that was repeatedly vandalized,

The gardens in July. Wildlife Botanical Gardens also hosts an annual Art in the Garden event during this month.

the group found the garden’s current site. About 20 miles north of Portland, it sits along 149th Street in Brush Prairie. The Department of Natural Resources owns an 80-acre parcel here and leases it to the Battle Ground School District, which runs an outdoor learning lab for high school students on the property. Called the CASEE (Center for Agriculture, Science, and Environmental Education), the campus consists of a pond, a mini- arboretum, a greenhouse, a small orchard, woodland nature trails, and classrooms. Wildlife Botanical Gardens has been allotted three acres next to the CASEE.

Wildlife Botanical Gardens is divided into nine smaller gardens. Each has its own theme, but all emphasize wildlife-friendly plants and practices.

• The Entrance Garden showcases morethan 200 varieties of perennials.

• Hummingbird Place shows visitorshow to make a hummingbird paradise.An excellent hummingbird gardenguide and Pacific Northwest plant listis available here.

• The Collector’s Garden featuresold-fashioned favorites along withnew varieties.

• The Cottage Garden proves that bigeffects can be achieved on small plots.

• The Manor Garden is formal in natureand utilizes many non-native plantsthat are attractive to wildlife.

NatureScaping president, Meredith Hardin, poses among doublefile viburnum flowers, which will later become fruits for birds.


Above: Maltese cross (Silene chalcedonica) entices hummers in June with its scarlet blossomsAbove left: Native western columbine draws in hummingbirds in May.

• The Flying Flowers Garden is abuzzand aflutter with hummingbirds,butterflies, bees, and other pollinators.

• The Northwest Natives Garden ismaintained with a minimum of pruningand fuss.

• The Northwest Bird Haven attractsfeathered friends with natives, exotics,and even some bird feeders.

• The Homestead Garden is a demon-stration garden that shows food cropsgrown in raised beds with plants forwildlife around the margins.

• In addition, a grant from the HardyPlant Society of Oregon in 2016 hashelped to fund a new garden that isunder construction: the Rain Garden.It will show visitors how to collectstormwater runoff in an attractive andenvironmentally beneficial way.

Besides receiving grant money, Nature Scaping raises funds through membership dues. More than 200 people are Nature-Scaping members, at $20 per year. The biggest perk of membership is free admis-sion to monthly classes held in the CASEE building by local gardening experts, such as a class on lasagna gardening in August. Classes are normally $15 for non-members. The group also raises money from an annual bareroot sale in the spring.

Labor is done by volunteers. Each individual garden is tended by a garden coordinator, who gets additional help from

other volunteers, when they’re available. A church group sometimes helps, as well as members of the Clark County HPSO study group, Master Gardeners, and high school students from the CASEE program. Hardin told me of an intergenerational program they started in February, pairing CASEE students with senior mentors in the garden, which was a big hit with both the seniors and the youngsters.

As you can imagine, a three-acre garden is a lot of work, and Hardin says they are

always looking for additional volunteers. If you want to pitch in, they would be happy to have you—whether you want to work just one afternoon or make a long-term commitment. At the very least, you should get in the car and check out this place you’ve been passing over in your Open Gardens book for so long!

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Call to mind the zipping flight of the dragonfly, the erratic hop of a surprised grasshopper, and the mesmerizing buzz of our bees. The movement of these flying wonders is as diverse as the wings them-selves. Wings are so important that many insect classifications are named for their form.

We have the beautiful butterflies—Lepidoptera—named for the thousands of scales (lepido-) that give them their shimmery colors and dramatic forms. The friendly lady bug is a Coleoptera or sheath-wing—a reference to the stiff and colorful covers that protect her delicate flying wings folded beneath. Flies are Diptera or two-wings (most of our flyers have four). And those pesky thrips are fringe-wings (Thysanoptera).

Why wings at all? Spiders, silverfish, and centipedes do just fine in our yards and gardens without the ability to fly. What advantages did early insects find in rudimentary wings even before full flight came along? These wings were camouflage either in color or in form to confuse a predator. Rough brown coloration hides a moth on tree bark. Green wings conceal an insect against a leaf. A leathery set of protowings can protect body and legs or become a glider for a fast get-away.

But, independent flight made the insect the formidable critter it is today. With wings, they were not so dependent on the resources avail-able within the distance they could crawl. A honeybee can search for food up to two miles away to feed her hive. Of course, two miles is nothing to the Monarch butterflies, some of whom travel over 1,800 miles to escape on-coming winter. Wings helped to establish the migratory patterns we see in many insects today.

Insect wings are fascinating even apart from their benefit to an indi-vidual insect. A network of veins brings fluid and oxygen to the wings. These veins then provide sensory information back to the insect. This netted arrangement also restricts the damage a tear could do, if left to run the length of the wing. The stiff wings and strong muscles of the dragonfly enable the quick, darting flight this airborne predator needs to catch its prey. Beetles are able to fold their rear wings up under stiff front wings. With this protection, they can burrow into forest duff or garden soil without damaging their wings.

Gardeners are not the only ones taking note of the insect world’s impressive flying abilities. Humans have always envied the creatures of the air and tried to imitate their ways. Today, engineers working with drones and other aircraft continue to study the insect world. Over millions of years these tiny garden denizens solved the puzzles of lift, drag, and turbulence to maneuver effortlessly through the air. If only we could do the same.

So, next time a housefly hums by, you swat at a mosquito, or take aim at a cabbage moth, stop a moment to appreciate the beauty, diversity, and engineering marvels that allow insects to take flight into our gardens.

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Insects Take Wing:Winging into our Gardens

WHAT’S BUGGING YOU NOW?

The complex venation of a Common Bluetail damselfly (Ischnura senegalensis).

Wings provide camouflage for insects.

Claudia Groth is a technical writer, horticultural lecturer on soils, integrated pest management, and beneficial insects, and a member of HPSO.

by Claudia Groth

The flight wings of coleoptera fold neatly under more rigid covers.

photo by Laitche; public domain

photo by Siga; public domain

photo by Pizzy from Germany; CCA 2.0 Generic


Grant to the Leach Botanical Garden The HPSO Board of Directors responded to a unique opportunity earlier this year to support Leach Botanical Garden by making a $1,500 special gift from the HPSO grants fund in connection with a challenge grant by the City of Portland. As part of a capital campaign, Portland Parks & Recreation will provide $7 for every $1 donated until June 30, 2017. If success-ful, Leach will have nearly $5 million to execute its Upper Garden Development Plan, which includes a visitor and educa-tion center, an aerial tree walk hovering over a sloping forest garden, a pollinator and a native habitat garden, and improved trails and access between the upper and lower gardens.

Originally centered on the estate of John and Lilla Leach, botanical explorers and collectors, the garden was bequeathed to the City of Portland and now comprises over 70 acres. Leach Botanical Garden is a hidden gem, nestled in the southeast corner of Portland near Foster Road and SE 122nd. Admission is free, although donations are greatly appreciated. For more information, please visit the garden’s website at www.leachgarden.org.

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GRANTS NEWS

by Jim Rondone

Pollinatator Garden & Native Habitat Garden

Tree Walk


Small-Space Vegetable Gardens by Andrea Bellamy

Small-Space Vegetable Gardens explains how to grow a bounty of delicious edibles in a minimal amount of space. Andrea Bellamy, author of the award-winning blog Heavy Petal, shares all the knowledge she’s gained from years of gardening small: how to assess a space, how to plan and build a garden, and how and when to harvest. Bellamy also highlights the top edible plants for small spaces and offers complete information on how to sow, grow, and harvest them. (Timber Press, 2014)

by Carol Gaynor, HPSO , Library Committee ChairFROM THE LIBRARY

We often forget that many of our HPSO members prefer smaller, well-contained gardens—not like my barely controlled one! Therefore, I want to remind them of the many books in our library that address the issues and advantages of smaller gardens, whether about roof and balcony spaces, veggie gardens, or just traditional, but smaller garden spaces.

Roof Gardens, Balconies, and Terraces by Jerry Harpur and David Stevens

This inspirational yet practical book shows you how to create your own roof garden, colorful balcony, or terrace. A chapter on design focuses on details such as using available space effectively, siting screens, incorporating special features, and choos-ing appropriate materials. This is followed by an outline of the practical issues, from laying flooring to erecting trellises, sup-ported by clear full-color images. (Rizzoli, 1997

Big Ideas for Northwest Small Gardens by Marty Wingate

Transform your too-small yard into a beautiful, textured, and colorful garden with this new book! Master gardener and Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Marty Wingate details design, planning, and planting ideas that will bring a bounty of flowers, variety, and volume to small yards, tight spaces with limited sunlight, decks, and balconies. This colorful book of great ideas proves that garden-making pos-sibilities for small spaces are enormous! (Sasquatch Books, 2003)

Small Garden Design Bible by Tim Newbury

Designing a garden to accommodate the often competing desires of the entire family can be difficult, and in a small plot the challenge may seem even more overwhelming. That’s where this inspiring collection of gardening plans can prove invaluable: it features comprehensive advice for choosing different features and planting arrangements that suit a limited area, and shows how to evaluate the char-acteristics of your own backyard for the strongest results. (Octopus, 2008)


RECENT HPSO ACTIVITIES & EVENTS

This is peak season for visiting the gardens of HPSO members. Check out what gardens are open in our Open Gardens book and in the weekly emails, then mark your calendar to visit. If you get some great photos you’d like to share with us, contact Annette Christensen at [email protected]

HPSO’s Seedy Characters recently met at the home of David Rodal for a potuck lunch and tour of the amazing garden that he and Dorothy have created (see page 3). Bottom photo—Clematis ‘Lambton Park’

Many HPSO Members attended Study Weekend in Victoria, BC., in late June.

Rodal garden photos by Linda Wisner. Study Weekend photos by Nancy Goldman


We’re pleased that you have recently joined our ranks. We hope HPSO offers you the same gardening inspiration, guidance, and camaraderie that has sustained so many of our longtime members, and we look forward to meeting you at programs, plant sales, and open gardens.

Gail AdamsRachel AdamsChristine AlexanderJohn ArcherKathy BakerDenise BarteltSteve BartonLaurie BaumMickey BeckerJack BernhardsenJulie BevanSuzanne BishopRichard BishopBryce BlegenSheryl M BonnerCathy BradleySarah BradleyReta BrayAustin BridgenWalter BrooksCarolyn BrooksDiane BrownSue BrunkowDiane BuchCorynn BuckholdtHolly BullinsVenita CaldwellFred CaldwellGerry CaplesMelissa CarmichaelRaevyn CarneyKevin CarrBeth CarrSusan CassidyDavid CastleCecille ChabotLee ChandlerBrenda CharpentierDeborah CleaverRobert CoDahlia CoLia ComerfordKrista ConnerlyKate CookWarren Cook

Laurie CraigTim CramerKen CravenRuth CurtisJim DarrowDavid DeanJulie DeanMegan deBoerGreg DeBoerOwen DellDeborah DineenAl DodsonKate DresherMargaret DruseJohn EarleOliver EdeElizabeth EdwardSharton EmfingerNancy ErwineRandy EskelinJohn EvansJoan FarishFlynn FedorczakAdrianne FeldsteinLisa Fithian-BarrettAnna FoleenSusan FosterChristian GabrielSusan GilbertSusan GoetzJonathan GordonJoe GreearAnn GrotzTim GutfleischStephen HaberJames HagermanBrenda HamiltonTimothy HarrisNancy HartNancy HartSydney HatchRichard HatchHeather HavensLinda HawleyKathy HaynesDavid Heim

welcome! TO THESE NEW MEMBERS March 1, 2017 to June 30, 2017

Michelle HelzerBrian HemphillJan HerbsterKatie HiltonLarry HippleEthan HochsteinSandra HohfDaniel HoyerJayna IndeckLori IsmachKorinne JamesEric JankowskiRaymonde JankowskiElaine JerauldMichele JohnsLisa JohnstonSuzanne JohnstonCathy JonesJohn JonesAnthony KasziewiczNatalia KeaneJudy KeeneNancy KellyLisa KeyFrancine Key GreenFrank KildersSidne KneelandCharles KonsorJim KriegKT LaBadiePatricia LackaffSandy LearySteve LearyStephanie LebenVikkie LeonardoWerner LeupoldNancy LeupoldTeresa LewisBill LewisJudy LipskiNancy LoebMary LyonsJill MacyNikki MandellDavid ManfieldRichard March

Katherine MartinGina MattiodaSylvia McGauleyLeigh McilvaineMeryl McKeanKate McKearnanSusan MeadowsDonna MeinhardDeberon MerrittGail MikkelsonCarol MorgaineMarcia MullensJoe MullensMerlyn MuseLinda NeffLydia NeillMary Ann NewcomerJoanie NutterMary O’DonnellCheryl O’LenicDavid OlszykAmy PaaschRob PaaschRachel PapkinRobert PapkinKenny ParkJoen W. ParksLisa ParsonsMary PinsonJan PollockAnna Potoczny-JonesIsaac Potoczny-JonesCraig PruittBrian Quinn-DowlingRobin Quinn-DowlingRuss RattoKris ReedKathy RobinMegan RothsteinRaquel RuizJohn RushongJaime M. RussellDebbie SachetBarb SandersonAlex Schabel

Jo ScheerSuzanne SchoenfeldAlexander SchoenfeldMeghan SchreinerConnie ScottMark ScullyPatricia SelbyRobert ShawConnie SheilsEric ShrinerJerusha SimmonsDavid SleethKendall SnowChristina SommersKrystal SouthRoger StarrHeather StatenMeganne SteeleJackie StraussMichael StrubelBabs SuhrPatricia ThurmondHeather TongaNancy TuccoriLeo TuccoriKazuki UekiDeanna VazquezBrenda VolonteDavid VolonteBarbara VorlopSharon WattDon WeirCarly WilliamsDebra WoodwardRobin YordeElaine YoungVasiliy ZubanovJulle Zwack


PROGRAM: 10am-11am Sean Hogan’s Top 40 (Plants)Mr. Hogan has a passion for plants – usual and unusual. Come see the treasures loved by Sean. He will regale us with information and details on his top 40 plants, from West Coast to Mediterranean settings to woodlands and lush tropical areas.

Sean Hogan is a design consultant, author, and owner of Cistus Nursery. The nursery, located on scenic Sauvie Island, features Mediterranean climate, southern hemisphere, hardy tropical plants, and much more!

As Sean says “Fall is the best time to plant.”

Sean is providing door prizes so you won’t want to miss the opportunity to win a new, exciting plant.

HPSO Members $10; non-members $20; students $5

www.hardyplantsociety.org to register for the program or for more details. 503.224.5718

11am - 2pm FREE entry and FREE parkingSpecialty Nurseries Plant Sale Great plants for fall planting! Vendors will have many plants that can only be seen and purchased in the fall, including fall and winter bulbs, perennials, shrubs, and plants for winter interest and varieties that will perform well in our gardens next year.

Saturday, September 16, 2017 — PCC Rock Creek CampusFall PlantFest

AN HPSO GRANT PROGRAM SUCESS:

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HPSO Annual MeetingSunday, November 5, PSU Hoffmann HallFeaturing Allan Mandell

Allan Mandell shares his career photographing gardens in the Pacific NW and Japan— “Soft Light and No Wind: Thoughts of a Garden Photographer”

The Annual Meeting is open to HPSO members and is free; doors open at noon and program begins at 1:00pm. Register on hardyplantsociety.org

Save the date...


Crocosmia ‘Hellfire’

Excessive caution is as great a blight in the garden as powdery mildew or anthrac-nose. It keeps us from unleashing our most daring, creative impulses for fear that we might have gone too far. The worst thing we can do is to heed the counsels of that malign muse, Restrained Good Taste. Yield to her, and our gardens will be perfectly presentable, and perfectly, fatally dull.

I can think of no better antidote to caution than the flamboyant tribe of the crocos-mias, especially some of the more recent hybrids that offer bigger, brighter, more long-lasting flowers. Whether orange, scarlet, or piercing yellow, they deliver an electric jolt, proclaiming their presence joyfully and unabashedly.

Today’s crocosmias are the offspring of species native to the summer-rain areas of South Africa. Members of the iris family, they sprout from small corms that might remind you of their kin, the crocuses. But there the resemblance ends. Crocosmias produce fans of tall, flattened, spear-like leaves, and the flowers are borne in arching cymes or racemes. The individual blossoms are sessile, meaning they are attached directly to the stem. This makes for a highly graceful appearance, as long as the flowers aren’t too crowded (a fault of some cultivars).

by Tom FischerPLANT PROFILE

photos by Tom FischerCrocosmias

The one crocosmia that everyone seems to know—and that crops up in many a Northwest garden—is the bright scarlet ‘Lucifer’. Selected by British nurseryman Alan Bloom back in 1966, it’s not a bad plant, but it has a tendency to flop, and its bloom period is early (usually in June) and relatively short. Other “heirloom” crocos-mias you may encounter include orange ‘Emily McKenzie’, yellow ‘Jenny Bloom’, and apricot ‘Solfatare’ (the latter of which has bronze leaves). On whole, I’ve found these plants to have weak constitutions and a tendency to be stingy with their flowers. But I make an exception for ‘Star of the East’, dating from 1912, because of its enormous, pale-throated, apricot-yellow flowers, which draw the eye even when only one blossom on the spike is open.

You’re better off, I think, concentrating on the more modern hybrids, which are of astounding vigor and floriferousness. Rather than planting boring old ‘Lucifer’, why not try the searingly scarlet ‘Hellfire’ or ‘Lana de Savary’? For oranges, there’s ‘Fandango’ and the super-long-blooming, red-centered ‘Bright Eyes’. And among yellows, ‘Walberton Yellow’ and ‘Paul’s Best Yellow’. But there are dozens to try. (Far Reaches Farm, in Port Townsend, Wash-ington, has a mouth-watering selection of these newcomers.)

For the best display, give your crocosmias well-drained, rich soil in full sun. A bit of organic fertilizer early in the season won’t come amiss. And bear in mind that they’ll need supplemental water during the dry months of summer—at least once a week, I’d say. Drought-stressed crocosmias are subject to spider-mite infestation, which can be severe at times. (If they appear, wash them off with the hose.) And don’t, for the love of everything holy, be tempted to plant the old primary hybrid Crocosmia × crocosmiiflora, which now infests untold acres along the West Coast. In fact, many, perhaps most crocosmias will increase over time, though not usually to the point of becoming a nuisance. (‘Culzean Pink’ is an exception—stay away.)

As for border companions, choose anything that goes well with bright, hot colors. In my garden, I’ve paired ‘Hellfire’ with the long-lasting chartreuse flowers of Euphorbia ‘Dean’s Hybrid’, and ‘Fandango’ with the midnight-blue Agapanthus ‘Marchants Cobalt Cracker’. But I can envision all sorts of toothsome combina-tions with purple foliage and boisterous drama queens like dahlias, which can easily match the crocosmias’ intensity.

Be bold. Be brave. Throw caution to the winds.

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Crocosmia ‘Star of the East’

Crocosmia ‘Fandango’

Crocosmia ‘Walberton’s Yellow’

The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon 4412 SW Barbur Blvd, Suite 260 Portland, OR 97239

www.hardyplantsociety.org

The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose purpose is educational and whose mission is to nurture the gardening community.

Sunrise with fog at the Rodal garden on Sauvie Island, 1995—David Rodal.

UPCOMING 2017 EVENTS

PLANT FEST with Sean Hogan Saturday, September 16 (see page 19)

GEN(I)US PROGRAM Hardy Cyclamen with Robin Hansen Sunday, October 8

ANNUAL MEETING with Allan Mandell Sunday, November 5

OPEN GARDENS from April to October.

For more program information visit www. hardyplantsociety.org

Tom Fischer’s garden—page 8

Wildlife Botanical Gardens—page 10—photo by Amy Campion

theHPSO quarterly · 2017-09-13 · from people like me, whom she decided were writers. She clearly...

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Transcript of theHPSO quarterly · 2017-09-13 · from people like me, whom she decided were writers. She clearly...