More Holland Gardens

I have traveled a fair amount over the past 25 years.
I love to visit different places & see how people live their lives. I enjoy walking in neighborhoods, far from the touristy sites. I want to see the similarities & differences of where the real people live.
Being a plant person, I always have noticed the plants people grow in their gardens or front doorstep.
It must be in our genes, our DNA to keep plants surrounding our living space.
Last year, I enjoyed Therese & Jeff's blog & photos of their trip to Italy.
My favorite photos were from Venice. The city is surrounded by water & yet everyone has potted geraniums on their balcony!
On my trip to Amsterdam this summer, I again was impressed on the gardens of this very urban city.

There were flower boxes on the pedestrian bridges!

Wisteria & climbing roses erupt from the cobblestone pathways in front of houses. They look ancient.

Flower pots hang from balcony railings.

Private courtyards provide respite from city life.
Inconspicuous doorways open to reveal lush gardens just for the residents of the townhouses.

The Civic building in the photo is awesome with hanging baskets & railing plantings of petunias.
Looks like a few buildings I know in Portland.

In smaller cities like Edam, I saw gardens with a bit more size than the small spaces of Amsterdam.

One garden was bursting with plants & adorned with whimsical pieces of Dutch nostalgia.
I loved the use of old wooden shoes & wash pans. It was funny & pure Holland.

The garden beyond the iron gate frames a beautiful home. It seems such a peaceful space.

All of these gardens make me think that the world over, we are all the same inside. Gardeners!

Take care,
Judy

Fall fun

Fall is a great time to get outside. When the rain and cooler weather is chasing everyone indoors you can still get outside and enjoy the garden and many other events around the area.

Right now there are lots of Harvest festivals happening around the area. In the past few weeks we have visited a bunch of cool ones including the one at Bauman’s Farm and Garden where they had the giant pumpkin weigh-off and tons of fun every weekend until the end of the month. This past week we found the really neat harvest festival at French Prairie Gardens. The French Prairie festival had the very fun and exciting pig races… something you can’t miss, but be prepared for the ‘pig’ jokes, there are some real groaners.

If you are not a ‘harvest’ type of person, you can still enjoy fall. Check out these pictures that we captured in our garden and at the local garden center.

The color is tremendous this season… check out the sumac. There are new varieties that are out there, but they all share this wonderful color.

The witchhazel is also showing off with striking color and even the hosta has one last blast of color before the leaves die off.

Finally we found this euonymus (also called Burning Bush) with its intense red foliage.

See there are lots of reasons for stepping outdoors and, after all, we are Oregonians (and Washingtonians) and a little rain never hurt anyone.

Jeff
Garden Time Producer

Holland

This Summer I was very lucky & with permission from the Garden Time gang, I went off on vacation to The Netherlands or as most of us call it - Holland. My family converged on my niece's house in Amsterdam. Not only was I seeing my sister & her family, but my Mom was along too.
Family & gardens what a combo. We had a blast!
Holland is a kind of the holy place for gardeners as it's where so much plant breeding is done today. It's also the birthplace of plant geeks. Tulipmania happened in 1637. Tulips were the newest flower in Holland brought there from Turkey. The wealthy class had to have the beautiful new flower bulbs & there was a spending spree. Where else in the world would tulips sell for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman of the time.
The bottom of the market eventually fell out. Another flower probably turned their heads.
Unfortunately, it is not tulip flower time in August but bulbs were for sale everywhere.
Someday, I hope to visit Keukenhof Gardens in April & see the 5 Million, yes 5 Million blooming tulips.
Holland is a wonderful country to visit in the summer.
It reminds me of Oregon with it's very green landscape & varied crops growing across the countryside.
On farms, canals are used for irrigation water. The beautiful windmills of The Netherlands were used to pump this water, mill grain & keep the sea at bay. There are few original windmills left in rural areas. We visited an historic village called Zaanse Schans that had several working windmills.
Amsterdam reminds me of Venice, Italy as there are canals everywhere.
The canals were the roadways of earlier days. Now they are for tourist boats
and resident's houseboats. How cool but to live on a canal in the heart of Amsterdam on a boat.
These houseboats are as varied as houses on a regular street.
There are brown & green, new & old houseboats and even floating wooden shoes.

My favorite houseboats were the ones that had gardeners aboard.
The craving to garden even hits these water dwellers.
Most house boats had a container of geraniums or potted palm. Many houseboats had whole flower beds.

There were even the busy gardener's bed of weeds. I felt at home!
My family was very patient with me & let me visit gardens and garden centers. I will have a few more blogs and photos in the next few weeks.
Take care,
Judy

Small Space Veggie Recap

Way back in May, I planted a mini-veggie garden in a hanging basket and herbs in containers. I was into small space gardening at the time and those containers were the space I had.
I have vegetable garden envy with William's beautiful garden. I know he blogged how disappointed he was with the production but it was still a work of art in my mind. (He's a perfectionist!)
I planted a Cherry tomato, leaf lettuce and onions in the hanging basket. The lettuce turned out great as it was cool and kind of shady where my garden hung. I used the leaves for sandwiches & a few salads. I just stepped out my patio door & clipped the leaves. The lettuce grew back a few times until the heat of June became too much for it. It was very easy & convenient.
The tomatoes & onions were more challenging. In June, the temperatures were up & down. That is hard on heat loving vegetables like onions & tomatoes. That patio did not get a sun until about 2PM but it was intense afternoon sun. I thought the PM sun, reflective heat off the cement & small container would equal out the shorter duration of sun. My experiment had not panned out as I had hoped. The tomato plant was just not very fruitful. I fertilized, watered & also trimmed off extra foliage to help produce more fruit. I got few tomatoes but they were very tasty. I was glad of that. The onions were OK as green onions. I had not expected them to grow too large as there was not much space.
The herbs fared much better. I planted Rosemary, Italian Parsley, Basil and Chives. Even though these are herbs that do well in the sun, they grew well on the patio. I think foliage plants do not need as much sun as fruit producing plants need. Well, Duh?
I think it was a good experiment. I was entertained most of the summer and enjoyed the
Cherry Tomatoes as they ripened. I went to the local farmer's market to feed my tomato addiction.
That was always a fun excursion. There is nothing like vine ripened tomatoes and Summer is not the same without them.
I agree with William about the trials & tribulations of vegetable gardening. We gardeners have good years & not so good years. We work with whatever space we have available.
Whatever your success or failure was, try again next year.
That's the fun of it!

Take care,
Judy

PS The photo is from Mid-July

Senior Gardening Day

Many of you may know that I am the store director of Portland Nursery on Division St.
Every year we have a Senior Gardening Day. Hundreds of senior citizens from all over are bused in and many that do not live in assisted living homes come in as well. It is a day filled with laughter, music, food and fun. For many, it is the only time a year that they get out. Seniors tend to get a bad wrap in our society. Many think that all of them are crotchety and mean. If that is true…there is no sign of it on this day at our store. Smiles are as ubiquitous as sand at the beach. There is dancing and conversation and remembering more youthful times in their gardens. It is very heart warming to be a part of as it both honors me and humbles me at the same time.
As everything in my life makes me reflect on nature, I couldn’t help thinking this year during the festivities how very connected to nature each one of us are, whether we realize it or not. For the people that live a long time life must be much like an oak tree. It starts out so small but as time passes, such strength and stamina abound and before you know it there is a behemoth tree in front of you that certainly will eventually pass on but for this moment in time, withstands everything that life can throw at it.
It is always with excitement that I listen to someone’s tale of their youth, what vegetables they used to plant or ‘wicked’ little tales of fruits stolen from some neighbor’s yard, only to become sick on the bounty from eating too many or ones that were not ripe enough.
Yes, we humans and our gardens are inexorably tied together, for better or worse.
If you have parents or grandparents still around you, ask them about some tales from their youth. Plant those seeds so that you can, in turn tell your tales eventually. Or perhaps donate a bit of your time to work in an assisted living home. They will appreciate it completely and what you grow will be as beautiful as anything nature has to offer.
Whatever you do, do it with the vigor of nature, because even a lifetime can go by too quickly…
Happy Gardening,
William

Veggie-blues

I was very disappointed with my vegetable garden this year. After a harrowing winter...spring and summer were not all that much kinder. As I walked thought my veggie garden today I was so frustrated. Powdery mildew, poor quality tomatoes, cucumbers and squash, peppers? I shouldn't even planted them this year!
As I was whining in my own mind about the dismal display in front of me, I was ok, as I knew that none of this was my fault. I can not control nature and nature was the major component of my less than admirable veggie garden.
And all of a sudden I thought, "I have done this for decades...I know it's nothing to do with my abilities" However, this year saw so many new gardeners trying their hand at home veggie gardens. And I have heard so many complaints about the lack of success with people's veggie garden this year. So I thought, I should blog about this and encourage people to not give up!
There are simply going to be years when veggie and other gardening attempts will not do well. It's just life. But when everything comes together...on those years...watch out. Because the success will go directly to your head. But then we have a year like this and everything comes into balance again. Nothing brings balance to us humans like Mother nature.
So if your gardens have been less than you expected...do not lose hope. It happens to the best of us!
Happy Gardening,
William

Big changes

Many of you are wondering about the recent announcement that Garden Time TV is moving to KOIN Local 6, in fact some of you may have noticed that you can watch the show on both channel 6 and channel 12. I can fill you in on some of the reasons for the move to KOIN. Gustin Creative Group, the producers of Garden Time, also puts together the Fusion TV show. Fusion is a home improvement, home design and cooking show that recently had a 13 week run on KOIN Local 6 during the spring. KOIN approached GCG about having Fusion return for the fall. We were very interested in having the show back on the air and we also wanted to have both Garden Time and Fusion together. Both KPTV and KOIN wanted the shows, and after negotiations we decided that KOIN was a better fit for us. KPTV has been a GREAT partner for us during the past 3+ years, in fact, producer/owner Jeff worked there for over 18 years and so it was a hard decision to make.
The key thing to remember is that the shows are products of my company and the decision to move them around is not the stations, but mine (i.e. if you have complaints, send them to me). Starting on the 12th of September you will be able to watch Fusion and Garden Time back to back from 8-9 am every Saturday morning. It will be a one-stop place for all your home and garden questions. We hope you understand and continue to support Garden Time, Fusion and the clients who make both shows possible. We look forward to being your local choice for home and garden information for years to come.

Jeff
Garden Time and Fusion
Producer/Owner