Hens and Chicks

When I was a kid, I spent part of several summers at my uncle and aunt's chicken farm in Vineland, New Jersey. I helped feed and water the chickens. I collected the eggs, sometimes from under the bellies of the recalcitrant hens, placing them gently, one by one, in the enameled wire basket. I learned to work the simple but ingenious machine that candled the eggs -- shining a light through them to inspect for blood spots, embryos, and multiple yolks -- then chugged them along on a tiny conveyor that gently tipped each one into the appropriate chute, sorted by size and weight. On at least one occasion, I accompanied Uncle Sol on a trip to the slaughterhouse. Aunt Hansi was a fabulous cook and baker; most of the double yolks went into her cakes.

Though I loved going about my chores in their dusty midst, the chickens themselves seemed to me, for the most part, an undifferentiated white clucking mass, sometimes somnolent, sometimes excited. My vacation reading at the farm one summer was a thick, profusely illustrated manual of poultry diseases. I was particularly fascinated by the color plates of Newcastle Disease. I intended to be a doctor at that point, so the interest was professional.

Years passed. In the early '90s my friend Mary Carter wrote a charming series of essays about her small flock in Marin County. The "Chicken Lady" writings are archived as part of The Best of the WELL, and available to members of that pioneering online community (www.well.com). Chickens came in colors, I discovered; some breeds were temperamental in one direction or another; individual birds might have personalities as unique as humans.

Mary was a forerunner of the urban poultry movement. Now, at least here in Portland, it's a chicken on every plot. Actually, we're allowed three hens (more with a permit), though roosters are forbidden within city limits. Our back-fence neighbors have constructed what they refer to as a chicken Taj Majal; neighbors two doors up have a coop; a couple of houses up from them there's another. I hear telltale clucks from yards throughout the neighborhood whenever I take a walk.

Two years ago, my friend Jackie gifted me with the charming couple at the top of this page. They've been living in the southeast corner of the backyard, exactly where the coop is going now. I thought of them as mere garden ornaments, but it's clear that they've been placeholders all along.

Here's a shot of the coop in progress. I bought the plans from theGardenCoop.com and Mike, our builder, modified the design to fit our somewhat-constrained space.

The most labor-intensive part of the job was trenching the base around the perimeter, avoiding damage to major tree roots in the process. The bottom edge of the hardware cloth -- a sturdier, finer mesh than so-called "chicken wire" -- that covers the coop will be buried several inches, as a barrier to burrowing predators.

When the coop's completed, I'll do some exterior painting, cueing off the colors I used on this old and extremely tall wooden ladder I found a couple weeks ago, which I plan to place picturesquely... somewhere. After that we'll turn to the serious matter of acquiring chicks, pullets or full-grown laying hens. What and when depend on timing and availability. I'll keep you posted.

The giant ladder is currently sharing deck space with several container gardens I potted up last week, following a trip to Xera Plants, a remarkable local nursery that's generally wholesale-only. (Hardy Plant Society members got a special tour plus discount shopping opportunity; that alone is worth the price of membership.) Most of the plants I bought are succulents, a broad and fascinating family. One of the best-known species is sempervivum, which typically grows as a central rosette surrounded by smaller offshoots. Its common name is hens and chicks.

Thinking Outside the (Vegetable) Bed

Thanks to the towering Port Orford cedar in the southeast corner of our lot, and the mature pink chestnut that dominates the west side, our back yard has grown noticeably shadier in the five years we've lived here. Any given spot in the narrow herb and veggie bed along the south side of the house receives no more than a couple of hours of direct sunlight a day. The yellow climbing rose in the middle of that space is flourishing; it's as tall as the eaves this season, and casts its own shadow on the garden below.

The herbs, most of which are perennials, do fine here. We have more sage and oregano, especially, than we can use. This year I direct-sowed cool weather crops -- lettuces, spinach, beets and snap peas -- from seed in mid-March, and again in early May. I got poor germination from everything but the peas and, so far, very slow growth. It's been a cold, late spring. I'll go back to starts (a.k.a. plantlets) next year, or bite the bullet and find the room/rig up the lighting to start my seeds indoors. I've done it before; I've just gotten lazy (and space has gotten tighter) in recent years.

Given its iffy exposure, it's amazing that I even attempted to grow tomatoes in our backyard. The first year, I had beginner's luck with Brandywines and a couple of other heirlooms. Since then, I've had lackluster results, except from the cherry-type varieties. In retrospect, I realized that my veggie patch has grown progressively more shady over the years; do you think there might be a correlation?

Meanwhile, out front, the sweet gums on our parking strip dropped a few large limbs in various winter storms. Apart from the hassle of having to Deal With It, these losses were not unwelcome. They meant not only less raking, but more sun on the front garden. Last winter also vanquished several large ornamentals, opening up plantable real estate here and there. In early spring I watched the progress of light and shade across the garden, and realized: the tomatoes go in front this year. That's where the sun is; duh. Sometimes I'm a slow learner.

So here's what I'm trying for Tomato Season 2010: The huge black pot in the driveway contains three cherry-types: Sweet Million, Oregon Cherry, and Sun Gold. At this point the tomato cages look delusionally optimistic. The pot itself once housed a camellia that graced the back patio when we bought the house in 2005. I think it was placed there by the sellers to hide a crack in the cement. After we moved in, I transplanted the camellia to the west end of the yard, where it seems happy next to my Marathon Conifer, and stashed the empty pot next to the compost bin. (Sometimes it pays to hang onto stuff.) The pot should be adequate, I'm thinking, for three healthy, mature tomato plants. I set it on a wheeled stand (guaranteed to hold up to 500 pounds) so I can move it around, if necessary, to maximize solar exposure. At this point in the season, the driveway is sunny all day.

On impulse, I bought an EarthBox (tm) on my most recent nursery shopping frenzy. I'm sort of embarrassed about this. It's an expensive piece of plastic, albeit sturdy and well-made. It comes with bags of soil amendments, a watering and drainage system, and an elastic-edged rectangle of black plastic mulch that stretches over the top of the bin like a fitted bedsheet. Just add dirt, seedlings and water, and stand back for explosive growth. We'll see. It's on wheelies, too, in case I need to move it. On the far end, above, is a Siletz tomato, on the near side, a Stupice. Both are reputed to do well in the Willamette Valley. The latter looks a little peaked, though it is already bearing (a) fruit and might just be stressed by the rigors of early pregnancy.

I bought all five plants I've mentioned as seedlings from Territorial Seed Company, which has a fine reputation for breeding and selling varieties that do well in the Northwest. They were spendy ($5 and change each, once you factor in shipping); for the price, I was hoping they'd be larger. If they do well I'll hunt around at local nurseries and buy them in person next year.

I plunked a second Sun Gold, purchased at a neighborhood plant sale ($2 for a seedling already almost a foot tall), directly into the garden. We'll see how it does relative to the one in the big black container. A few feet to the east of that, I found room for another, smaller pot. This one (above) is a Black Krim, Russian in heritage and reputed to do well in our relatively short growing season.

A couple of weeks ago I started zucchini and yellow summer squash seeds (also from Territorial) inside, in the dressing-room garden window. They look vigorous and eager to get growin'. My plan is to colonize some of the bare spots in the front garden left vacant by my deceased euphorbia, kniphofia, ornamental grasses and the few not-hardy-enough phormiums that survived the snows of '08-'09 but succumbed to this past December's dry, windy arctic chill. Maybe I'll plant some squash among the irises on the west side of the house, which gets some afternoon sun. I'll have enough seedlings left, I'm sure, to plunk a few in the so-called veggie bed in my ever-more-challenging backyard.

April went where, exactly?

I want to talk about my birding excursion to eastern Oregon last week, but realized that more than a month has gone by since I last posted here. What the hell happened to April?

Well, I finished the coursework for my master gardener certification. The final was 65 questions, multiple choice, open book, with a week to complete. I, um, aced it. Now I'm focusing on logging the required volunteer "payback" hours. Besides my Monday gig at the Rhody Garden, I did a shift at the Hardy Plant Society's massive sale at Expo, which brought with it early (as in before the hall opens to the public) shopping privileges. I bought some shade plants to complement the hostas I've been plunking in to colonize the dim reaches of our backyard. My purchases included a tall, handsome Jack-in-the-pulpit, sweet woodruff in a 4" pot, two epimediums (epimedia?) to replace the one I killed last year, and a couple of species new to me, a brunnera and a pulmonaria, a.k.a lungwort. The latter is much prettier than its name suggests. It had an abundance of flowers, both blue and coral-pink, when I got it. I subsequently heard that the blue blossoms turn pink, and vice versa, when the flower is pollinated. Kind of like a home pregnancy test. That's it in the pic just below. The tiny woodruff specimen has already tripled in size, which is what you want in a ground cover, since I planted it three weeks ago.

Gail Langellotto, our OSU Extension online instructor, was the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Multnomah County Master Gardeners, where they feted this year's crop of interns with a potluck, so I got to meet her as well as some of the local MGs en masse. Gail is much more petite and funny in person. She gave an entertaining and informative lecture that included weird facts about insect sex and great closeups of her favorite spiders, the Wolfs. The MGs seem like a friendly, down-to-earth (pun intended) bunch. I'll attend a couple more meetings, at least, and see if I want to get more involved with the group.

April was a good month for live music. We heard Arlo Guthrie in a magnificent venue, Beth Israel synagogue in NW Portland. Our tickets were for the very last row but, due to a screwup involving actual vs. theoretical chairs, and the fact that the expensive patron section down front was apparently not sold out, we ended up with seats in the third row. What a treat. He didn't do Alice's Restaurant, but it was a joy to see ol' Arlo (oops; he's younger than me) still ramblin' along. The following week was Portland's own Storm Large (who started out as a club rock 'n' roller but did a credible job last season as Sally Bowles in Cabaret) in Crazy Enough, her autobiographical one-woman show at Portland Center Stage. She was stunningly good -- funny, raucous, touching. The week after that we went to Carvlin Hall, the regular venue for the Portland Folk Music Society's monthly concerts, to see the Berrymans. We first heard them when they were in town a couple of years ago, and I promptly bought most of their CDs. Lou and Peter play accordion and guitar, respectively, and write some of the funniest, most verbally complex songs I've ever heard. I'm a sucker for clever lyrics; what can I say? A full concert is almost too rich, like eating a box of See's chocolates at one sitting, but I can stand pigging out on the Berrymans every once in a while.

Speaking of eating, although we've cut way back on expensive restaurants, we did manage to score some noteworthy meals out last month: the fun and funky Porque Non? on Hawthorne; the bunker-like Alexis at the corner of 2nd and West Burnside, which turns out to have tasty, reasonably-priced Greek food, friendly, efficient and adorable waiters, and an authentic but not over-the-top atmosphere; the big-deal Heathman, where we'd never been before but used the occasion of our 27th wedding anniversary to investigate. Another, unexpected, treat was dinner (at Pastini on NE Broadway) with John Bryans, my longtime publisher, who was in town for a conference and remembered, just in time to connect, that I live in Portland, now.

Toward the end of the month, my art quilt group went on its annual retreat. This was our third trip to the Tillamook area, which offers both beach access and ice cream for lunch. Our rental this year had a spectacular ocean view, with Three Arch Rocks positioned just so. Terry and Gerrie both did a great job blogging our stay; so just click on their names if you care to read all about it. They got some good photos, too.

Two days after I returned from retreat, Jer's daughter Lauren and her partner Annette arrived for a quick overnight visit. They were en route home to Michigan from Bandon Dunes, on the southern Oregon coast, where the movie Golf in the Kingdom -- in which they have, comme une dit, an "interest" -- is being shot. Jer got to hang out with them the following morning, while I reported for duty at Taste of the Nation. This was my second year volunteering for TOTN, a benefit at which some of the best restaurants, wineries and micro-breweries in the area (fewer this year than previously, thanks again to the wretched economy) dish up tasty morsels and sips. I'd told the organizers that I wanted to be kept busy this year; last time, there seemed to be too many hands for too few jobs. Be careful what you wish for; I spent hours wrangling pipe and drape (picture those curtained partitions in exhibit halls) to help transform a cavernous auto showroom into a warmer and more elegant space. I worked alongside folks a third of my age and three times my strength; it felt good, though, and I had just enough energy left to hook up with Jerry when he arrived as a paying guest and make the food and drink rounds with him.

April is income tax month, of course. The good news is that, thanks to faithfully paying estimated quarterlies, we got a chunk back this year from the Feds. It's not as if they gave us a gift, but it kinda feels that way. When my brother Larry was here in March, he allowed me almost unlimited playtime with his iPhone. Shortly after he left, a piece of trim fell off my own perfectly functional, if unexciting, cell phone, rendering it painfully tacky-looking. That, plus the prospect of a tax refund, was slim but sufficient justification for Gadget Girl to indulge in an iPhone for herself. I love love love it. If I were still toiling in infotech and traveling as much as I used to, I would have bought one "for the business" months ago. As it is, I had to work hard to rationalize the purchase, but (as you see) I managed. Jerry got a new phone, too, to replace the hand-me-down StarTAC I'd nominally reassigned to him five or six years ago. It's a plain vanilla generic model, but much easier to operate than his old one, and he's actually getting into the habit of using it. Let me know if you want his number so he can practice answering.

A small dinner party or two, an art exhibit, Frost/Nixon at Portland Center Stage, chats with neighbors, my usual weekly volunteer gigs... I think that about covers it for April. Sometime in mid-March my dear friend Libbi and I tried to find one morning that would work for both of us for brunch. The first possibility was May 8th, this coming Friday. That's the kind of month it was.

In the few days I was out of town this past week, our modest veggie patch burgeoned into edible-size spinach and butter lettuce, and most of the trees leafed out (the photo at the top of this post is our backyard pink chestnut, bare just a few weeks ago). Those so-called April showers are lingering into May. At this very moment, though, there's a sunbreak. I need to get out and garden. Whoops; rain again. I missed last Saturday's reportedly spectacular windstorm, but saw some of the damage -- a big elm down at SE 36th and Ogden (Jer was out the next day taking photos) and, around the corner on Knapp, a house where a tree fell and badly smashed a corner of the roof.

The mail arrived a little while ago, including a Penzey's Spices catalog labeled "Early Summer." Who are they kidding? I'm just grateful that spring has finally arrived.

When love's in bloom, the whole world's a pistil

You know how teachers have their students write thank-you notes after a field trip? The volunteer coordinator at the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, where I'm now working a few hours a week, showed me some she'd saved, including drawings depicting what the kids had learned during their visit.


The fact that you can tell azaleas from rhodies by counting the stamens -- azaleas typically have five, rhodys ten -- apparently made a big impression on one group of 3rd graders; every illustration featured prominent stamens. I grabbed a couple of shots with my cell cam.

Ah yes, spring is here, and romance, botanical style, is in the air. The amaryllis that came back to life last month, following a winter of total neglect, is now in full bloom. Check out the stamens on that baby.


My work at the Rhody Garden counts toward fulfillment of the Master Gardener volunteer practicum I mentioned in my paean to herbaceous perennials earlier this month. We're now down to the last couple of weeks of coursework before the final exam. I have no specific plans for putting my certification, once I earn it, to use. I've always loved gardening. I learned to weed before I could walk, at my green-thumbed mother's knee. Now that I have the time, I liked the idea of picking up some theory to go along with what I've experienced and intuited over the years. Plus, focusing on growing things seemed like a pleasant coping mechanism for getting through a Portland winter. And, I must admit, I was curious to see how much my brain could retain, at this point, in a structured learning situation. To that end, I'll just say that I'm really, really glad that the final is open book.

One thing the course hasn't covered in detail is plant identification, as in "What is this and where should I plant it?" and variations of that question. But I've joined the Hardy Plant Society, whose exhibit at the garden show impressed me so much, which should help address that deficit in my knowledge base.

Funny, I've had three small fiber-arts projects gathering dust on my design wall all winter. Has this garden thing taken over? Is that why I'm not doing art?

Lessons from herbaceous perennials

As both of my faithful readers have noticed, I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been reading, cocooning, trying to keep up with email, generally feeling more like taking in rather than putting out. I haven't shot many photos, either, in the last six weeks or so. I certainly haven't spent any time in the studio, unless you count mending clothes and teaching myself how to knit cables. I've felt like an imposter at the last several art quilt group meetings I've attended; you mean darning socks isn't a form of creative expression? Maybe it's just the late-winter blahs, but my creative impulse has been at what feels like an all-time low.

But I have been going to school. In January I began a master gardener certification course, offered online through OSU Extension. We're about two-thirds of the way through; this week's module happens to be herbaceous ornamental plants, both annuals (the single-season dealies) and perennials (the ones that come back on their own).

In addition to 12 weeks of coursework, including lectures, readings, discussions, quizzes, assignments and a final exam, we're required to put in between 60 and 70 hours of volunteer work. Last Friday I logged a couple of hours just handing out literature at the Yard, Garden and Patio show. Unlike last year, when I staggered out of the Convention Center under the weight of a Meyer lemon tree-let, a witch hazel sapling, and the mother of all aloe vera plants, my takeaways this time were modest: a pair of $2 gardening gloves and an a-ha! moment.

When we first moved to Portland, I noticed several low plants with ratty-looking dark-green leathery leaves growing on the east side of the house. In late winter they put out inconspicuous drooping blossoms in muted shades of pink, purple and cream. Eventually I learned that they were hellebores, prized hereabouts as shade plants. Whatever; they seemed happy on their own, and I was glad to see something thrive on that semi-neglected portion of the lot.

The Hardy Plant Society had a major exhibit at the garden show, several tables of specimen plants and cuttings, with identifying tags. There was a lot to see and absorb. On my first pass through, I noticed some exquisite, tropical-looking blossoms floating in a shallow bowl of water. On my second pass, I read the tag: Hellebores. Wow.

How could I have overlooked these stunners? Easily; the flower faces hang downward, coyly, on hook-shaped stems. From above you'd never know. I wonder how long it would have taken me to discover their beauty on my own. Thank you, Hardy Planters, for the inspiration. Sometimes you have to go beyond the obvious, make an extra effort, place things in a different context, look at them from a new perspective. All clichés, but true -- in art and in life.

Yesterday was gorgeous; it felt like a foretaste of spring. I spent a couple of hours out back at my potting bench, transplanting and fertilizing house plants. The pushy amaryllis that died back to an inert bulb after its flamboyant show last winter has suddenly extruded -- overnight, it seems -- a pair of fresh green stalks. Plants know when it's time to start growing again. People sometimes need a reminder.

OMG, free orchids!

Despite the cool, wet weather, it's been another exuberantly glorious nonstop flower-show of a springtime in Portland. For whatever reason -- perhaps because they're such drama queens to begin with, but possibly because I'm finally learning to slow down and pay attention -- I've been noticing the irises in particular. Like everything else in the plant kingdom, they've grown taller and lusher than usual, eventually collapsing under their own load of blossoms. I've been going out once or twice a day with the pruning shears, snipping the toppled stalks and sticking them in a vase. For me this is the answer to a recurring dilemma: Do I bring all this gorgeosity inside, or leave it out there, au naturel, for the neighbors to enjoy as well? (This is not a problem with the roses, which are ridiculously prolific.)

Watching irises bloom might be a step or two up from watching grass grow. What an unlikely configuration for a flower. Does it really take all those ruffles and crenelations to attract a little pollinatin' action? After a couple of days the older, full-blown flowers curl in on themselves like little fists, and the tightly-furled buds further down the stem unfold, sometimes overnight. I've been doing iris micromanagement, clipping off the spent blossoms, assessing the stalks to see whether any buds are left, and rescuing new fallen stems when I notice them outside. I am an iris co-dependent.

Speaking of overachievers, there's a climbing yellow rose vining up the downspout on the back wall of the house. Last fall I had to lop off the rose hips because they drummed so furiously, when the wind blew, right below our bedroom window. This year, the topmost blossoms, brazen hussies, are peering right in. We have no secrets from the roses.

Meanwhile, on the east side of the house: orchids! I'd noticed these fuchsia-colored little beauties last year, but apparently I was looking elsewhere when they burst into full bloom. First they were buds and, next I saw, very elegant elongated oval seed pods that looked stunning in a dried arrangement. This year, though, I paid attention; it's so obviously an orchid, isn't it? According to my good ol' Sunset Western Gardening Book, it's Bletilla striata (B. hyacinthina), or Chinese ground orchid. I'm grateful to the former owner who, in planting them, paid joy forward who knows how many seasons. I'm also grateful that they're "Bletilla", with a B, which spared me from having to look through the whole damn alphabetical volume. They're definitely spreading, which makes me very happy.

Greenery overload

Last Sunday afternoon I took myself on the Sellwood Garden Tour, a benefit for the Sellwood Middle School PTA. Two of the six gardens were within easy walking distance of our house, one was on the east side of Sellwood, south of Tacoma, and the remaining three were in Garthwick. Garthwick? Why, yes; you follow SE 13th Avenue south, across the railroad tracks, and there it is, just a stone's throw from the notorious Goodwill bins. Yes, this is the "other side of the tracks" all right -- the upscale side. Garthwick is like the choicer chunks of Eastmoreland grafted onto Sellwood's funky charm. Who knew? Obviously not I.

One of the Garthwick estates belongs to a gardening writer for The Oregonian. Her columns always make me smile. But I will never again feel the slightest twinge of empathy when I read that she's made yet another impulse nursery buy and now must find room to plant it. Poor dear; this woman has acres. A vegetable garden. Ponds. Fountains. Gazebos. Multiple benches and resting places. Herbaceous borders with plants grown to Findhornian proportions. An expanse of flawless lawn. And two potting sheds, a real one and a larger, charming studio-like space labeled Pouting Shed. I could just move in.

The Sellwood-proper garden butts up against, and has in places colonized, the banks of Johnson Creek. That was my second favorite, on location alone, though I suspect it reaches flood stage with some regularity during winter storms.

I came home from the tour exhausted but inspired, and only a teeny bit envious of what I'd seen. I think I've fallen in love with epimedium, which loves shade and looks glorious. I saw some other beautiful shade-lovers, too, which I can't begin to identify.

Monday turned out to be a garden-tour day as well. It's so much easier to look than to, you know, do. Besides, with rare and precious exceptions, the weather these last few weeks hasn't been that conducive to doing.

I'd been promising Jer a trip to Lake Oswego. Yes, we lead such exciting lives. In the three years we've lived here, he'd never been. So we drove down (it's all of 15 minutes away), walked around town a bit, had lunch at St. Honoré Boulangerie, and stopped, en route home, at the Elk Rock Gardens of the Bishops Close. The Bishops Close is the headquarters of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon. A Sea Ranch friend, a big Episcopalian, had told me about this place, and I'd tucked the info into my copy of Wild in the City, thinking "I should just bop down there one of these days; it can't be that far." It's not; it's shamefully nearby -- just two miles south of the Sellwood Bridge. The gardens, thirteen acres overlooking the Willamette, are unbelievably lush and peaceful, especially on a Monday afternoon in late spring. Some sections are manicured, English style, while others feel like nature barely tamed. Another incredible spot, tucked away so close to home.

I've put up a few more botanical porn shots, including prurient closeups, on my Flickr page.

Rolling stones

When we bought our house, the front entry was graced with a brick planter full of rocks. It did nothing for the curb appeal of the place, and I imagine it didn't betoken much good, either, from a feng shui point of view. The following year we decided to add a porch, which would cover and enclose the planter. Before construction started, I rescued the rocks, many of which were, in themselves, quite handsome and substantial. The smaller ones were of two types, jagged and smooth. Compulsive that I am, I sorted them as I went. Smooth: More pleasant to walk on. Jagged: Better for fill. Yes, reader, I handled every stone. It gave the neighbors plenty of opportunity to speculate on what that crazy woman down the block was up to.

I spent several sweaty hours toting rocks to the back yard, and then arranging them along the south end of the garden, in the shadow of the rhodies, where nothing that doesn't love deep, dry shade would grow. The previous owners hadn't even tried, just blanketed the area with bark mulch. The rocks added visual interest, and that end of the yard looked fine until our new deck was completed, when I saw that the undulating brick border defined by the original owner, and emphasized by my pebbly filling-in, suddenly was All Wrong. The gentle curves clashed with the straight sides of the deck and left awkward and oddly-shaped no-plants'-lands, undefined patches of ground between border and deck that just looked... stupid.

What to do? After a series of 3 AM ponderings, I decided to obliterate the meandering border, remove the stones I'd so laboriously laid down, and edge the far end of the deck with greenery -- ferns and hostas and trillia and whatnot, plants that do tolerate deep shade. Additional suggestions are welcome.

So, yes, I'm handling these rocks, one by one, for the third time in two years. I'm beginning to recognize some of them. Once more, I'm sorting them into sharp vs. smooth. I do have my reasons: Phase II of the plan is to re-deploy the bricks in a pathway that will border the deck on two sides and, not so incidentally, eliminate most of what's left of the so-called lawn. I'm visualizing some artsy brick-and-smooth river rock combination that will be as easy on the eyes as on the feet. What will become of the garbage can full of jagged not-so-pretty rocks, hidden back by the compost bin, I do not know. Right now I'm all about smooth.

My husband pointed out yesterday that, in the context of geological time in which most minerals exist, these stones have led a very active and exciting life.

Out of one, many

I mentioned my good deal at the garden show -- a deceptively top-heavy aloe vera for $12.95. Aloe is an amazing plant; pinch off a portion of a leaf, spread the gel on your owie (it's especially good for kitchen burns), and you heal, miraculously, sans blisters or terminal bleeding.

Today I separated and repotted the monster plant. When I bought it, it was in one of those tall black plastic (half-gallon, maybe?) pots, and incredibly root-bound. I now have thirteen pots-full of aloe vera. Want one?

Spring Tease

I see signs of spring everywhere. Chalk art on the sidewalk. My colorful sock drawer. Even the compost bucket looked particularly beguiling this morning. It's supposed to start raining again tomorrow, but this weekend has been glorious.

Friday morning Jer and I went to the yard and garden show at the Convention Center. Our official mission was to scope out deck builders and get answers to a few existential questions, e.g., which comes first, the hot tub or the lumber. My own sekrit, stealth mission, though, was to score some plants. We were successful on both fronts, though I'll poke around some more in Angie's List for contractor recommendations.

I found primo specimens of all three of the plants that I wanted, including an aloe vera for kitchen emergencies (I brought several from California, where they thrived, but all of them mysteriously turned to slime in Portland); a tiny witch hazel with adorably weird winter-blooming whirly-birdy flowers (I'd noticed a couple around the 'hood in the past few weeks and was completely taken with them); and, eternal optimist that I am, a Meyer lemon. It has two ripe lemons on it already, so even if the tree-ette doesn't make it, we'll still have had a crop. At $22.50 per lemon.

Saturday I pruned the "big" rose bed, which I didn't get to last weekend, and yesterday I spent a couple of hours on the stepladder, loppers in hand, trying to tame the out-of-control climbing-rose arbor on the east side of the house. It's President's Day weekend and I got the roses pruned; I feel like part of some vast and ancient tradition.

Today I planted the little witch hazel (shown here on the kitchen table). I'll probably try the lemon in a container, at least for this season; I have a beautiful pot that's just the right size. The aloe is top-heavy; it desperately needs dividing and repotting -- I got my money's worth on that one -- but another day. I also cleaned the grill and the grill cover, which has been off most of the winter because, duh, the grill was too greasy to put it on. One small gesture in the face of entropy.

Another highlight of the weekend was hearing the great Michael Smith in a small venue up by Ladd's Addition. He's a low-key yet utterly compelling performer. If you like singer-songwriter-type stuff and don't know Michael's work, you're missing some wonderful music. (note: He's Michael Peter Smith, not to be confused with the "Christian music" Michael Smith.)

Just one nice day

Local lore dictates that Presidents' Day weekend -- a mashup holiday, you young'uns, created many years ago from Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays -- is the time to prune roses in Portland. I'd been hoping for a few hours of sunshine, or at least not-rain, to get a start on the job, and yesterday, after what seemed like weeks of unrelenting cold and wet, the window of opportunity opened.

The entire neighborhood seemed to have gotten the "Yardwork!" message. I chatted with neighbors I hadn't seen outdoors in months. The little girls from next door hauled over their miniature gardening tools and helped me for a while, though with one tiny glove between them, I had to direct their efforts away from the roses and toward the ongoing chore of picking up those obnoxious sweetgum seed pods, aka sticky balls.

Pruning is a satisfying task, deciding as you snip what stays, what goes, where to make the cut. I have only a vague notion of how it's supposed to be done, but the roses have always tolerated, or worked around, my efforts.

The afternoon went by quickly. I filled three large bags, plus the yard debris can. Just as I finished the row of miniatures by the driveway, the sky turned hazy and the temperature dropped. It was a good stopping point.

I was hoping for another break in the weather today, so I could attack the roses on the other side of the house, but it doesn't look like we're going to get one. No worries; it's still a week til Presidents' Day.

Another busy day

My day started by discovering that somebody, probably Stella Luna, had knocked the cat drinking fountain askew. The adjacent chair and dressing room rug were soaked. Good morning!

After breakfast I went to the Lloyd Center DoubleTree to register for tomorrow's BridgePedal. Talked a while with Sharon Wood Wortman, who wrote The Portland Bridge Book. I had plenty of time left on the meter, so I walked up to Broadway and stocked up on Peet's French roast. Decided to window shop a bit, taking a different route back to the car, and ended up in Goodwill. My, my; the Irvington store is a good 'un. I scored big: A tan lightweight linen Flax-like short-sleeved blouse (collarless, buttons up the front) for $4.99, a black lightweight linen Flax-like long-sleeved shirt (also collarless) for $8.99, and a muted, medium green Agnes B long-sleeved shirt, in a soft fine cotton, for $6.99. Great condition, well-made, lovely detailing on everything. Given Portland's excellent second-hand stores and the fact that I can sew and alter fabric in various interesting ways, I might never buy a new item of clothing again. Well, there is underwear.

Then Office Depot for printer cartridges, and the Aladdin box office for tickets to Richard Thompson's show in September. An efficient morning: Two hours door to door, and I accomplished everything I wanted and more. But that's not all. After a bite to eat (I'm still working on those salads from Thursday lunch) I planted the crocosmia and sedums I got from Jeannette yesterday. No sooner had I stuck one of the orange-flowered crocs in the dirt than a hummingbird zoomed up to check it out. A good sign. Then I deadheaded the roses and did a little weeding. Now I'm tired.
It's amazing how much the garden has grown. Compare these pics (taken before today's additions) with how it looked just a couple of months ago. Note in particular the left porch column, which was bare and is now completely entwined by wisteria, and the light blue-green eucalyptus to the left of the flagstone path, which has at least quadrupled in size.

No mow lawn

Yesterday was a dramatic day, weather-wise. Bright sun, then -- suddenly -- dark gray clouds followed by fifteen minutes of heavy rain. Then sun. Rain. Sun. Showers. Sun. It was an amped-up version of the changeable climate we first experienced two years ago, right around this time of year, when we came up to house-hunt. It reminded me then of Hawai'i -- rainforest weather, only temperate rather than tropical. I wondered if things grew as well in Portland as they did in the islands. Silly me.

Grace came by last week to install the last couple of plants and to give us a guided tour of what she'd done. In preparation, I'd systematically taken photos covering the entire garden, and printed them out on regular paper so I could easily make notes. I annotated while Grace unerringly spelled out the Latin names. The walk-through took about two and a half hours, at the end of which, with perfect timing, Jer offered a champagne toast. We'd had a bottle of Gloria Ferrer in the fridge for weeks, and this turned out to be the occasion. Salud!

Fair warning: If plant lists make your eyes glaze over, you'd be well-advised to skip the next couple of paragraphs. But for any gardeners who might be interested in the particulars: We have several varieties of phormium (New Zealand flax) with beautiful shadings (one is called Maori Sunrise), numerous dots of dwarf acorus (they look like goldy-green sea urchins), crocosmia, fescue, and several other grasses, including my favorite-named, Black Mondo.

In no particular order, we're also responsible for the survival of an obsidian heuchera (a.k.a. coral bells), a blue-flowering ground cover called pratia peduncularis, a very delicate, purple and ferny acaena purpurea, a couple of ajugas, sedums, a cynara, club moss, cimicifuga, three or four different euphorbias (which I suppose only Jerry and I call Flying Saucer plant), some hebes (proven butterfly attractants), a dianthus (in the carnation family, but the flowers are reputedly much more interesting), rubus pentalobus (a.k.a. creeping raspberry, though it's not known for its fruit), firefly and sundrop heathers (erica), a dwarf conifer called chamaecyparis, brass buttons (leptinella), corokia cotoneaster, myrtle berry, and the knockout-foliaged trachelospermum jasminoides something-Japanese. Obviously, I am merely parroting back most of these names, but perhaps eventually some of them will stick in my sieve-like brain.

But that's not all! There's a mock orange, which we're not to expect edible fruit from, but also gooseberry, salmonberry, blueberry (two plants) two kinds of strawberries, huckleberry, and a dwarf pomegranate, which we are. Herbs, too: variegated sage, lemon thyme, pennyroyal, a pretty oregano called Kent Beauty and, in a major role as groundcover, wooly thyme.

We also have a Silver Dollar eucalyptus that could get 12 feet tall, and, making friends with the front porch, a golden-leafed jasmine (jasminum aureum) that's flowering already, and a hefty wisteria.

Given a choice, Grace will go for the odd and unusual cultivar every time. "Weird Variety" is her middle name. Her last name is Constantine and her and Micha's business is Rejuvenation Artisans. They aren't cheap but they're geniuses and great fun to work with. The last of the plants she had been waiting for, and planted that afternoon, were juncus effusus spiralis, known as corkscrew rush, and juncus effusus 'Unicorn,' or giant spiral rush. I get a giant spiral rush just thinking about all these weird and wonderful plantlets whose lives are now in our hands. Live long and prosper, y'all.

Up the page are a couple of shots of the front of our house as it looks now, followed by one that demonstrates its "curb appeal" on that sunny-rainy-sunny day when we first saw it.

What hasn't changed are the rows of roses on the west and east borders of the lot, flanking the gorgeous but relatively austere -- let's just say it's a different aesthetic -- new garden. Grace did transplant three red rose bushes from the back yard that had been languishing for lack of sun; when they leaf out and blossom again, they'll form a visual bridge between the roses on each side. I pruned both rose beds, mercilessly, in February. They obviously didn't mind; they're back with a vengeance. Everything grows in Portland.

Lawn time comin'

Work got underway this week on transforming our scrabbly front lawn into some kind of horticultural paradise, or at least an attractive garden with interesting and sustainable plants. Here's how it looked at the end of the day yesterday. The new path defines the route that most people already take to and from our house. It'll be flagstone, and the pavement in front of the stairs has been stained a subtle terra cotta to go with the warm colors of the stone. The project will probably still be in high gear when we leave for Kauai this weekend; our friend who's house-sitting will have a front-row seat as the landscaping drama continues to unfold. All going well, Jer and I will return from the Garden Isle to a new garden of our own.

Speaking of tropical flora, a particularly weird and gangly rescue cactus I took off a friend's hands at Sea Ranch has bloomed spectacularly, proof that the sun does shine in Portland.

And speaking of vacations in Paradise, I've been meaning to blog about my soujourn on the coast a couple of weeks ago with five of my art quilter friends. It was new territory for me -- Oceanside, OR, a few miles from Tillamook -- and I really enjoyed seeing the ocean again, as well as getting better acquainted with these interesting and creative women. I posted some of my artsy beach photos on Flickr, but I can't add much to Gerrie's and Terry's excellent accounts of the weekend itself.