...and the kitchen sink

This is a space for any post that doesn't quite fit in to any one garden, whether it be travel-related, about multiple gardens, or just general Fling musings.

Portland Fling Round-Up!!!

The Fling is over now and all of us on the planning committee had a great time...we hope you did too!

As in the past, please put links for your own posts about each garden in the corresponding post on this site. To make things a little easier, we've implemented the same linking system used by several Memes...if you've participated in Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, it will be very familiar. At the bottom of each post, you'll see the graphic below followed by a simple form for submitting your own links...hopefully this will be easier than posting in the comments section.



Also, to make it easier to navigate, here's a list of all the gardens, just click on the name to go directly to that page, we can't wait to see all your posts!!!

Pre-Fling Event
Pomarius Nursery

Day 1 - Friday, July 11
Timber Press
Lan Su Chinese Garden
Cistus Nursery
Joy Creek Nursery
Old Germantown Gardens
Westwind Farm Studio

Day 2 - Saturday, July 12
Portland Japanese Garden
McMenamins Kennedy School
Danger Garden
JJ De Sousa Garden
Chickadee Gardens

Day 3 - Sunday, July 13
Ernst/Fuller Gardens
Rhone Street Gardens
Floramagoria
John Kuzma Garden
Bella Madrona

And a spot for any other miscellaneous post that doesn't quite fit into these categories
Miscellaneous Posts

Also, just an FYI...the linking widget used is sometimes almost instant, other times, it might be a few minutes before your link shows up.

Fling Preview: Chickadee Gardens

What exists today is a relatively new and small urban garden on a typical Portland lot (50 x 100 feet).

I am proud to be certified “gold” by the Backyard Habitat Certification Program (which is a collaboration between Portland Audubon and the Columbia Land Trust).

In the garden, you will find some 200 species of Pacific Northwest natives, plus dozens of species of hardy perennials arranged mostly by color, none of which are invasive.

The garden is cram-packed with plants (a bit of an addiction, especially living so close to so many great nurseries) and also contains many enticements to attract wildlife: bird baths, thistle, sunflower and suet feeders, brush piles, mason bee houses, a bat house and many pollinator flowers.

My primary interest is balance - visually balancing the many garden areas and maintaining a pesticide-free, healthy habitat for our native birds and insects, as well as for family and friends. I love experimenting with textures and colors and freely add to the garden when I feel it contributes to the big design picture.

In my attempts at balance, like any other gardener, I have experienced many mistakes. I am quite happy to toss out the old and go with the new—if it fits within the parameters set forth by the Backyard Habitat Certification Program and enhances the garden in some way.

Fling Preview: JJ De Sousa

Our garden has two distinct personalities with one common goal. One personality is lush, soft and shady while the second personality is hot, dry and spiky. Both serve to expand indoor living space into outdoor areas with a focus on entertaining.

The shady front garden is a space to get out of the sun and appreciate the lush plantings including grasses, hydrangeas, gunnera, bletilla, hellebores, conifers and a collection of 30-plus varieties of hostas.

The back garden is a place to soak up the sun in an architectural space featuring a collection of over 40 varieties of agave and cactus and a small orchard of olive trees. Entertaining spaces include a courtyard with a fireplace, numerous dining areas and an outdoor living room with emphasis on beautiful, colorful furniture, outdoor textiles and great lighting for the evening.

Our garden is truly unique and we are excited to share it!

Fling Preview: Danger Garden

I am a proud practitioner of the “crammit” style of gardening, bare ground = room for another plant. This is a collector’s garden with little attention paid to what style- purists might think. The hardscape helps to control the chaos, however in the words of Amy Stewart, my garden is just the place where I put my plants - meaning design principles lose out to plant lust every time.


Little remains of the garden we inherited, which was primarily lawn with narrow planting beds. The front garden you see today dates to 2011 when I was forced to start over after losing the structural plantings (phormium and cordylines) in back-to- back horrible winters. This part of the garden is designed to require minimal water and maintenance, while summer brings more color, it’s meant to largely be the same no matter the season.

Work in the back garden began summer of 2007 with construction of the retaining wall and patio. The shade pavilion (which doubles as a sort of greenhouse in the winter) was added in 2009 and more lawn removed (to expand the planting beds, again) in 2013.

This spring, 2014, several over-grown shrubs (small trees) on the north side of the property were removed and a new fence built – changing the entire feeling of the space. The exposed “openness,” as well as the loss of several established plants (winter) has me struggling to feel connected to the garden again. As usual I’ve responded to the challenge by over-planting...

Fling Preview: McMenamins Kennedy School

Since its 1915 opening, this historic elementary school has been a beloved fixture of its NE Portland neighborhood. Shuttered by the school district in ’75 (due to declining enrollment and age of the building) McMenamins launched its renovation in the spring of 1997, infusing the 80-year-old structure with new life, and reopened Kennedy School in October 1997. Now it’s OK to sleep in class and smoke in Detention, a unique and fun lodging, dining and meeting experience.

The property had very little growing on it before McMenamins began creating a garden. The plants could almost be counted on 2 hands:
4 Maples (2 Norway and 3 Bigleaf), 3 Western Red Cedars, 1 Douglas Fir, 2 Japanese holly, 1 Rhododendron sp., 2 ancient and near dead Kwanzan Cherry.

The most mature “new” shrubs and trees were planted in 1997 and 1998 with layer after layer of new garden space or paved space (courtyard, bike rack, etc.) added bit-by-bit at the expense of existing lawns. A second driveway into the parking lot was removed and converted to a xeric planting in 2009.

A new hotel wing and surrounding garden space (including a roof-runoff collection swale) was completed in late 2012.

The edible plant collection continues to expand, but diversity in a small space is the goal. McMenamins gardens, not just at the Kennedy School, but Edgefield, Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, Grand Lodge, Rock Creek Tavern, Anderson School (soon), and Wilsonville, to name a few, are meant to inspire, entertain, soothe, nourish, and embrace everyone who visits them!

Fling Preview: Westwind Farm Studio

Westwind has breathtaking overlooks and undulating movement of grasses which combine to bring you a feeling of serenity and connection to wind and earth.


The garden features a meadow with deer resistant plantings close to the house. The desire was to make an attractive setting for birds, bees, deer and coyote.


Enjoy an entire mile of paths cut through pasture and woods recently installed by John Greenlee.


A new flower bed near the front door replaces the children’s play structure.


We cultivate some plants in our tiny nursery for sale, especially cactus and succulents.

Fling Preview: Old Germantown Gardens

Tucked away on a wooded parcel near Forest Park, Old Germantown Gardens is a nearly 2-acre hillside garden that is a wealth of garden diversity, including ponds, bog gardens, perennial beds and borders, woodland plantings, rock garden, dry hillside garden, and a greenhouse full of unusual tropical plants.


Each garden habitat is stuffed full of plants - rare, unusual and common ones, too.


Beyond the various types of gardens on this hillside property, visitors will discover a French/Italian-style patio- terrace adjacent to the house.



The terrace includes small decorative pools, a fountain, rill, and waterfall, all contained within hand-chiseled stone walls.


The garden is always evolving and changing - both naturally and by the owners’ guiding hands. Indeed, the past two years have witnessed much editing and renovation of this 23-year- old garden.


After exploring the extensive hillside trails, visitors who may need the added sustenance are welcome to refreshments on the terrace or upstairs deck while taking in a bird’s-eye view of Old Germantown Gardens.

Fling Preview: Joy Creek Nursery

After years of being frustrated by their inability to find the plants they wanted, the owners of Joy Creek founded the current nursery in 1992.


What started out as a mail-order nursery soon grew to include both retail sales and garden design and installation.


The nursery is located 18 miles north of Portland, Oregon, on a ridge overlooking the Joy Creek canyon and the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers.


The nursery proper occupies about seven acres of a forty-acre farm. Nestled between wooded hills, the site can very fairly be described as 'idyllic'.


Four-and-a-half acres are devoted to gardens and stock fields, a half-acre to retail sales, and three acres to growing space.


Many of the plants for sale can be observed in mature states in the display garden...in fact, your visit is best started in the display garden to get ideas for plants, plant combos, and design ideas.


The staff at Joy Creek is very excited to meet you all...and, of course, so is the resident feline, Yowler!

Fling Preview: Cistus Nursery

Cistus Nursery is a unique micro-nursery, offering plants found virtually nowhere else in the industry. Founded in 1996 by Parker Sanderson and Sean Hogan, the nursery has a strong botanical foundation drawn from the pair’s professional backgrounds; Parker having been Horticulturalist at the Arboretum at University of California at Davis and Sean a Curator at University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley. 

Their exciting collection of treasures, gathered around the globe with brilliant plantspeople, quickly outgrew a 100-year-old greenhouse in North Portland so the nursery opened to the public on Sauvie Island in 2000, expanding in 2003.

Visitors are invited to wander the all-season, display gardens showcasing West Coast natives and Mediterranean plants, architectural desert plants for the “dry garden,” Asian specimens, shade plants, and a dazzling mixed border of summer showstoppers – gardens that echo the pavilions and courtyards in retail itself.  

Eucalyptus, olives, evergreen oaks, many delicious items from the southern hemisphere, myriad magnolias and asian delights, tropicals and mature palms, the prickly, pricky plants of the desert - these are only a few of the many enticements for gardeners of all stripes. 

The nursery staff is always willing to assist and answer questions.