I’m going to break the tour into sections, because it’s a big garden.

Tour One—Previewing the Land of Oz:

The Land of Oz Garden was created by Annie Rose Favreau (age seven).

Before you even go through the entry gate, you can see this area from the driveway. This is a child’s garden. Like childhood itself, we adults can only stand on the outside and look in.

This twenty-by-twenty-foot Land of Oz garden was designed by our daughter, Annie Rose, when she was seven. It is sized small because she made it to fit herself and her friends at that age.

Annie Rose (on left) with her best friend Martha.

Without any prompting from me, she drew up a classic circle in a square. As a designer, she had very specific demands. She wanted a circular yellow brick road, with the four lands of Oz in each corner, represented by plants in that land’s color.

For the Open Day, Lou downloaded a map from the web and tacked it to the fence to explain the Four Lands of Oz.

The whole garden room would be surrounded by a white picket fence. The Emerald City would be in the circle’s center, represented by a weeping Japanese bellflower tree (Styrax japonicus ‘Pendula’) she had chosen from a lineup of my new nursery purchases.

As is typical of any garden installation, Annie the  designer had some disagreements with her  contractor (me).  I tried to talk her out of the color conformity, “Don’t you want to mix it up a bit?” I asked her. She shook her head. No, it had to be single-color areas.

Yellow represents the Land of the Winkies.

I tried to talk her out of the Styrax. After all, it was the most expensive tree I’d bought, and I had other plans for it. No, it had to be the bellflower.

The weeping Japanese bellflower tree  is part of the Emerald City, surrounded by  repurposed bricks in the yellow brick road.

Under the tree she and I added moss that we had collected from our woods. However,over time, raccoons or turkeys kept digging it up, on the hunt for worms and bugs. So this year, I pinned it all down with chicken wire, which, I hope, the moss will grow through.

Her loving father–a much more amenable contractor–had read all fourteen of the Oz books to her (over and over). He crafted every single picket from a nearby downed fir tree. But I balked at painting the pickets white. I knew enough about the scouring action of Northwest rains and I didn’t see Annie out there every year, repainting the pickets. When faced with the choice of her own labor or no paint, she went along with unpainted.

The bench sits between the blue Munchkin land and the red Quadling country.

I found the yellow bricks at my next door neighbor’s property, part of a razed chimney. (Thanks, Marcia.) Annie added the tiny bench for talking with friends, and decorated a post with several frogs because her best friend Martha liked frogs.

I don’t remember frogs in the Oz books, but they are here because Martha was fond of them.

Annie and her brother discovered this representation of the Tin Man somewhere in our woods.

The image for the Tin Man (he ruled the Munchkins) rests on the post behind blue Hydrangea ‘Mimi Penny’.

I’m afraid it sounds like Annie Rose was a spoiled rotten princess about all this. She wasn’t. But she took her creation seriously. And therefore her father and I did too. If you’re going to let a kid design something, you’d better give her enough authority to see it through the way she wants it–with some room for compromise.

Annie’s now twenty-three, and grown and flown. I miss her. So it’s with a certain melancholy each year that I choose the colored plants for the lands of Oz. It’s the only place where I actually bed out. I’m adding more small shrubs and perennials as the years go by for less work. Finding the proper colors for a tiny semi-shaded spot is always a challenge. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I know now Annie’s design sensibility was  spot on. A Midwest white picket was exactly what was required for a story that starts in Kansas, although I’m glad we agreed to no paint. And as for the Styrax? I’ve never regretted giving it to her. The kid ‘s got great taste. # # # #

“It is what it is.” That’s what my husband Lou tells me.

The nine-foot tall meadow rue (Thalictrum something—the tag, which declared it would grow six feet tall, is buried at the base) was gently waving in the early morning breeze.

Purple clouds of nine-foot meadow rue float in the early morning light.

Lou and I opened the front gate of the deer fence and hung up my theoretical deer scarer. I made it from bird scare flash tape. The long ribbons were stapled onto a strand that we stretched across the opening and tied around nails on the top of the posts. I sprayed the shiny ribbons with deer repellent and dumped repellent on the driveway as well.

The dancing tapes hang in the gate opening and (theoretically) deter deer.

The luminescent tapes dance and flash in the slightest breeze. In theory, no self-respecting deer should go near it. In theory. Our deer might do anything. So far, it has worked when we need to leave the gate open for long stretches in the day, but I’ve never had to use it at night. It’s fun to drive through.

Sonji and Andy arrived at nine and Sonji dove into the rose bed, madly deadheading what she could. Andy rolled up hoses.

I put out a big jug of mint lemonade. This is our house specialty. I dunk a large bunch of mojito-type mint into any lemonade and let it sit from 2 to 24 hours. Fresh and fabulous. My neighbor Marcia (lender of all that DR equipment) arranged a platter of cookies for the table under the grape arbor.

We set up an umbrella-shaded check-in table where we would take money and distribute handouts about the garden.

Lou is our greeter.

Then the cars started crunching down the gravel driveway.

Our guests arrive.

Some were old garden writer compatriots like Rachel Foster, a superb garden designer.

Rachel Foster and Marcia Swisher converse by the grape arbor.

Rachel and I walked around together. I pointed out how information she’d shared years ago had ended up in my own designs. For instance, my clematis climb on a wire panel railing. That stiff paneling, Rachel had said, was the perfect size opening for clematis. I never forgot that tip.

Clematis on wire panels.

Other folks I greeted and watched them as they moved off slowly from bed to bed, pointing out plants and talking to each other.

Guests gathered under the grape arbor for lemonade and cookies.

Early on, a Garden Club woman commented, “You use the same plant material we all do in the Northwest, but you do it in different ways.”

Thank you.

One visitor extravagantly declared it was, “The best garden I have ever seen.”

I appreciated her enthusiasm.

Actually, I appreciated everyone who came and explored. Most of them stayed at least 45 minutes. I watched the clock on that because 45 minutes of interest is the minimum standard for British home gardens to be considered for inclusion in their famous open day “yellow book.” Our Garden Conservancy doesn’t have that requirement, but I was absurdly pleased to see that my garden met it.

What I liked best about the Open Day is that I could enjoy being in my own garden until the sun was slanting through the Douglas fir trees, without once pulling a weed, or a hose.

At closing time, Lou and Marcia and I were seated under the arbor, drinking the last of the mint lemonade. Marcia asked me if I was happy. I was. This Open Day was the culmination of a garden 20 years in the making. But I was also aware that no matter how hard as we try, growing a garden means much is out of our control.

S**t happens. Sometimes literally.

That morning, just as the guests arrived, I was strolling up the lawn feeling all welcoming and proud of how everything looked. I was carrying a little purple watering marker flag that had been left behind in the clean up of one of the beds. People were standing all around, studying the plants, reading their handouts.

But before I could greet anyone, I discovered, in the middle of the greenest grass we’ve ever had, (Spring this year was incredibly rainy and we added cotton seed meal as a bonus.) there was a perfectly huge dog dropping.

Last night, when my friends brought us dinner in the garden they also brought their dog. I planted the purple flag in the grass next to the deposit so no one would step on it and went off to get a spade.

There it is: What’s the first act on her Open Day for the woman who had worked for six months to prepare her garden? Shovel a dog turd.

A garden, a dog, or your children will never let you get too high-hatted. You really can’t take credit for it all. Too many other factors come into play. But for gardeners everywhere, part of the fascination is dealing with all those variables. “It is what it is.”

It’s over.

# # # #

Our marching orders

The last three yards of fir bark was dispatched by the team of Stephen Hoyt and Farrell Parsons, thanks to my generous next door neighbor, Marcia Swisher’s loan of her DR Powerwagon. She also leant us her DR brush cutter that Stephen skillfully wielded to tidy up the verges on the driveway. This is like having your neighbor lend you her Rolls Royce for the day. (If that’s what your neighbors drive.) Thanks, Marcia!

Stephen with the Powerwagon.

Andrew Morse was back with his dad’s truck and flatbed trailer, distributing two more yards of gravel. Sonji and Andy madly hauled the last three yards of mint straw into various corners of the beds.

I was doing the signage, which took far more thought, time and energy than I had counted on. First I had to figure out where the official Garden Conservancy signs would do the most good.

Good signage takes time to create.

Then I had to figure out where to place signs that directed folks to park along our newly widened driveway. Thanks to Wendell Diltz and his heavy equipment and many many tons of rock, our driveway has been renewed for the first time in 20 years.

Wendell discusses the machinery with Lou.

Lou cleaned up the moss on the arbor patio. Most of it—this is Oregon, you have to live with some. He dislodged it with our surprisingly powerful electric blower.

Lou tackles the moss. The electric blower is not quite as loud as gasoline ones,but it’s effective.

We were all plowing along when we confronted another adage–”Nature always bats last.”

In the early afternoon, Sonji came up and said, “Can you smell that? I think something’s died in the garden.”

Oh no. The arum (Drancunculus vulgaris)had chosen this day to bloom. It grows in the entry garden, right by the driveway. I put it there because it was given to me by an acquaintance who didn’t bother mentioning its most salient feature—its scent is overpoweringly putrid. Flies were swarming around it.

Dracunculus vulgaris stinks.

I made up a sign.

A sign for the contingency

Our friends, Phyllis Helland and Ray Morse (Andrew’s parents) brought over a dinner so we wouldn’t have to cook. We ate in our usual summer dining room under the grape arbor, with wafts of dracunculus scent accompanying the wine.

Earlier, Sonji had already scarfed down three take-out tacos, while sitting on the new driveway—”Why not, it’s a beautiful place to sit,” she said while talking to Andy who was finishing laying cobbles in the front bed. Now she wheeled her barrow of mint straw into the bed behind us—which was decidedly weird—but Sonji understood better than I what still needed to be done.

Andrew, Phyllis, Ray and Lou. Sonji’s in the bed behind.

The Helland-Morses also brought their dog Shai. They wanted to keep her on a leash, but Shai is a good old beast and one of my favorite dogs—we have dog-sat her at our house in past years.

Shai at home under the hammock.

Sonji left at nine, still fretting over the undeadheaded roses.

Lou and I were taking a more relaxed approach. Sure, we had a lot more last-minute work to do, but as we sat in the growing dark, and looked at our friend’s faces lit by candles on the table, we said to them the new adage Lou created for this whole process: “Whatever it is, it is.” # # # #

Sonji—her business card says “The Garden Nanny”— will be here every day. She’s been working on this garden for three years now. She’ll bring Andy on Friday. He’s a computer guy who has just discovered the outdoors. He likes to build, so I put him on the entry circle construction.

Andy created the entry circle.

Then there’s Andrew, who has worked in my garden in years past. He has been pressed into service with his father’s truck. He’ll haul the last mulch that isn’t fir bark. We use a local product called “mint straw.”

Black mint straw mulch gives a uniform look and makes even scant plantings stand out.

It’s a by-product of the Oregon mint growing fields, what’s left over after the plants have been cut and heated to 160 degrees to distill the essential oils. It’s black and crumbly, already partially broken down, and it has some nitrogen and other essentials available to the plants. It makes a handsome mulch—except with black plants, which tend to disappear—and a good soil amendment for heavy clay.

In my walk yesterday morning, I was thinking about what I’ve learned about getting a garden ready for an open day. God or the devil, whichever you prefer, really is in the details. Cameras notice what our eyes usually glance over, and as a garden writer, I’ve worked with photographers like Robin Cushman and Allan Mandell. So I have a pretty good idea of how it’s supposed to look. (Whether my garden will or not, that’s another story.) I’ve discovered four areas of quick attention and will make any garden will look better.

Go for Strong Edges: We’re assuming your plants are well-grown and fairly well-groomed. The easiest job that makes a difference? Edging a lawn. Even if the grass is scruffy, a clean edge makes it look sharper.

Cutting a neat edge or building a mowing strip will make a rough lawn look better.

Use Mulch: Aside from all the benefits mulch brings—retaining water, adding nutrients—a smooth layer of organic or rock material between plants brings order to the most chaotic arrangements. Nature doesn’t do bare ground.

Mulch retains water, adds nutrients and ties together disparate plantings.

Make TidyTransitions: The ease with which you can move from one garden room to the next or from one vista to the next is accomplished with tidy transitions. Be firm and clear about how you accomplish the changes. You can design thresholds that keep different paving materials separate. Don’t let the bark path slop into the rock one. Keep the mulch off the patio. If you must use a blower, electric is quieter than  gasoline, and of course, brooms really are best for this.

When creating transitions, keep materials separate for a tidy look.

Add Details: Little crafty surprises that catch your eye have a soothing effect and convey that the garden is cared for, even if weeds are lurking.

Edging with these square-cut cobbles allows gives a crafty feel to the industrial look of a stamped concrete sidewalk..

I had been searching for cobbles like these and couldn’t find any in Eugene. Last February, I spotted them in designer Pamela Richards display garden at Seattle’s Northwest Flower and Garden Show. I knew Pamela because I’d written about another of her display gardens for Sunset’s Secret Gardens–153 Design tips from the pros. She sold me the cobbles and Lou and I hauled them off the show floor during tear-down–another perk for being a garden writer.

Lou prepares to haul the cobbles off the show floor.

Here’s some other quick crafty ideas that Sonji has done.

Sonji made this stone edging that works to keep the mulch from shifting during heavy rains.

She created a fun fir bark edge between the bed and the driveway..

What cheap and cheerful ideas do you use to quickly spruce up a garden in no time? # # # #

The display floor of the 2012 Northwest Flower & Garden Show.

The first idea actually was inspired by a display garden in the 2009 Seattle Northwest Flower and Garden Show. It was a moon window, and I loved the idea of the perfect round framing a view.

This moon window from the 2009 NWF&GS inspired me to have one as well.

Mine is fashioned from a metal rim of a wagon wheel that our kids found on our property. Sergio Millan, who has done so much in the garden, welded legs on it, and we erected it under the kiwi arbor.

My moon window frames the round patio.

I painted the chairs to complement the color of the ring of red bricks in the paving.

Another idea came from the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. The rectangular pavers seem to float in the gravel.

These pavers caught my eye at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show.

In my garden, Sergio came back again to help me finish the patio that holds the fire bowl. One of his finest qualities is that he listens to my ideas, looks at my drawings, and never tells me what can’t be done. You’d be surprised how many contractors don’t do that. And he adds his ideas to mine. Even if privately he thinks the project might be goofy, he never says so. At least until after it’s completed successfully.

Sergio firms the sand underlayment. Husband Lou is hauling the pavers.

I had all these square pavers left over from the round garden paving job, but not enough to lay a whole patio. So Sergio and I devised a sort of rectangular carpet in the stones that would hold the fire bowl and some chairs.

The patio finally gets the fire bowl that started it all.

Then, next to it, we made these stripes of pavers, like the solid ones at the show.

The paving stripes in the gravel relate to those on the steps.

It really worked. The stripes echo the deck stairs, and the repetition of the shapes gives calm and order.

The rock garden breaks through all those horizontal lines.

But not too much order. I had started the rock garden when Sergio first built the step down. Now I expanded it, so it appears to be playfully bursting out of the regimented paving. It also feels like it has been there forever. Every plant I’ve put in has, in quiet slow rock garden fashion, taken off.

I’m really pleased by this newest addition. I hope our visitors will be as well. Just one more reason to visit flower and garden shows.# # # #

Steller’s jays in the gazebo feeder

The conflict centers around the bird feeders and the squirrels. I don’t mind sharing bird food with squirrels, but the problem is that they scatter far more seed than the birds do. The plants below my feeders get trampled by the seed seekers on the ground. I have devised several methods to keep both the non-native gray squirrels and our native Douglas squirrels out of the feeders.

Devices that don’t allow the critters to climb to the top of the pole, while ugly, are usually effective. The torpedo-shaped obstruction hanging on the pole permits the gray squirrels to climb up inside—you see just their tails poking out the bottom—and then they find no place to go.

This feeder is protected by the torpedo that hangs loosely on the pole.

The torpedo foils raccoons as well, mostly because it’s loose on the pole and they’re spooked by the erratic movement. Before we installed it, I came out one night and discovered a raccoon perched on the roof of that gazebo bird feeder, casually reaching under his feet to dine on black oil sunflower seeds.

The witch’s hat, also ugly, and sometimes, ineffective.

My other device, a metal witch’s hat, is mounted on a thinner pole—gray squirrels are too heavy and just slide back down this one—the wide lower edge is supposed to prevent the smaller Douglas squirrels from reaching the feeder. However, it needs adjustment on a regular basis because one squirrel shows great determination to beat the system.

Cheeky wins this round.

There are two Douglas squirrels, but one of them has always been so noticeably bold that I dubbed him Cheeky. I have no evidence of gender for either of them, so we’ve arbitrarily assigned sexes. The other one I call Cheeky’s wife, like Noah’s wife in the Bible who had no name. Cheeky’s wife is properly wild-animal nervous when we approach. But Cheeky hangs out on the deck and the new patio all day long, coming up to investigate my sneakers if I stand still.

We don’t purposely feed them. Cheeky figured out how to climb the pole, surmount the witch’s hat with a little body swing that allowed him to reach around with his front paws and hook the perch on the feeder. Then he neatly hauled himself to food heaven.

Cheeky swings over for lunch.

I keep lowering the hat  so he can’t reach out to the birdfeeder above. But it’s a fine line. If I adjust it too far down, he’ll launch himself above it—he’s a mighty leaper. When the feeder was near the three-foot round Chamaecyparis shrub, he used those wobbly branches to project himself over the witch’s cap. I’ve had to relocate the feeder into more open areas several times.

While I was adjusting the hat this last time, Cheeky stood on his hind legs on the lawn, his head cocked, clearly trying to solve the problem I was presenting. Would he get annoyed and try and bite me? Right now, the height of the cap is working and Cheeky hangs out underneath. However, I’ve learned not to underestimate his smarts and persistence.

Dining in the flat feeder with “Rose Glow’ barberry below

It’s the dropped birdseed that causes the real trouble for plants underneath it. The only place the plants are not destroyed is at the flat feeder. ‘Rose Glow’ barberry bushes grow underneath. The squirrels all jump into that feeder from the branches of the crab apple and eat, rocking it madly with their weight and dumping seed, which falls below but is never wasted. Ground feeders scour the soil clean in the relative safety of those prickly bushes. It’s the perfect system.

With the gazebo feeder, it’s another story. I am growing a tall grass, Calamagrostis‘Karl Foerster’ in the box to at least obscure the pole. I have flowering annuals around that, but everything gets trashed in the hunt for seeds.

Plants in bondage.

So I’ve devised a sort of cage out of hardware cloth and chicken wire. Theoretically, the plants can grow through the raised wire. Right now they’re struggling. When they make it up through they’re a bit worse for wear because they;’re still getting trampled by critters, both birds and squirrels and an occasional chipmunk, walking on the wire. But the tougher lantana and heliotrope seem to be doing the best. No tender-leafed plants need apply.

It helps that I’ve switched from black oil sunflower seeds to the less attractive mixed seed in this feeder. Now the black oil seeds occupy their own container—the one Cheeky lays siege to.

If any of you have successful solutions to this chronic (and chaotic) problem, please let me know. Just like Cheeky himself, I’m willing to entertain all ideas—except to stop feeding the birds; that’s too much of a pleasure. # # # #

It’s only in the last two weeks that  I can now add the heat lovers to my garden. With our cold rainy Oregon spring, if I planted them earlier, they would sit and struggle in the sodden ground. We’re still having 45 degree nights.

Ferguson's Display Garden

I was standing by the hoop houses at Ferguson’s Fragrant Nursery when my friend Jane Souzon came by, her arms loaded with four-inch pots of my favorite filler—Euphorbia‘Diamond Frost’. Its airy white flowers perform in the garden beds the way baby’s breath does in bouquets, adding sparkle to all the more hefty blossoms around it, and blooming from the time you put it in the ground until frost.

Low-growing Euphorbia' Diamond Frost'brings sparkle to garden beds.

I extolled its virtues. Jane said, “You mean it’s an annual? I’m putting it back.”

I was surprised. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Annuals are a waste of money. I want perennials. They come back. That’s good value.”

This gardening prejudice is widespread. I did my best to counter it.

Yes, perennials present good value. However, if time is also of value, annuals can give perennials a run for their money. Let’s compare time spent on each:

I have garden borders loaded with perennials.

Perennials:I visit every perennial in my garden—and I have a lot because I love them—at least three times a year. Maybe four times if you count staking for some. In spring I bestow a feed on each (organic 4-6-5) and renew the mulch. Throughout the summer I deadhead or cut back for a second show of blooms. At the end of the season, either fall or early spring, I bend over each and every one and cut it down. And then every few years, many must be divided—more time and a lot of energy.

I like annuals that need little care like this Calibrachoa hybrid Superbells Cherry Star

Annuals:In decent soil—I do have some—I dig a hole, throw in a handful of organic fertilizer, tuck in the annual and mulch it. Containers are even easier. And I’m done. That’s it. I don’t touch it again. I favor those that don’t need deadheading and that bloom all summer. And annuals tend to depart without a fuss. After frost, they either slime away or leave behind a little skeleton, which I can pluck out of the ground or cover with mulch to rot (and renew the soil—every bit helps).

Annuals die well.

At the nursery, Jane hesitated. Marietta O’Byrne, owner of Northwest Garden Nursery was also shopping with us. She came by carrying a tiny but incredibly colorful fuchsia, an annual for sure in Oregon. She told Jane, “The best thing about these new annuals is I tuck them in among my perennials and visitors to the garden don’t recognize them—’What is that exotic plant?’ they say.”

That clinched it for Jane. She kept her Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’. And I know she’ll enjoy it as much as I do. This year, I have it planted in almost every bed.

Which annuals could you not live without? # # # #

The new lawn is making an appearance.

Last week, Nathaniel Sperry, my arborist returned for more consultations. He glanced at the growing lawn surrounding the round paver pad and said, “Looks like a destination resort.”

He wasn’t talking about the bird scare tape. And that was not a compliment.

I wondered what got his back up to make such a sneering comment. Then I realized—it’s the grass itself. Lawns have such a bad name now. The over-watered, over-chemicalized, over-manicured prima donna greensward should be canned. It’s de rigueur for gardeners to at least consider, if not act, to dig it all out.

And here am I, putting more in. So let me tell you why and how I can justify this wanton act of horticultural contrariness in the face of contemporary garden wisdom.

#1. I’ve considered the lawn’s purpose.My home features four bedrooms. Most likely it will always be a family home. So everyone will need a place to play.

We've set tables on the lawn for dinner parties.

That includes kids and pets.

Our lawns gets enjoyed by everyone--including Skipper, the Papillon.

Our garden has seen raucous games involving nets, frisbees, croquet mallets, soccer balls, flag capturing and a brief spate of bows and arrows. During the August meteor showers, we blow up air mattresses and sleep on the grass to watch the night sky show.

#2. I’ve lowered my expectations.This is a lumpy country lawn. Watered some. Fertilized with cotton seed meal occasionally. Allowed to go brown in the hottest summer days. It’s a mix of anything low and relatively green, including daisies, and crab grass. And considering #1, that works well.

A spring-roughened lawn blooms with fairy circles of crocus and narcissus.

#3. I have fewer garden chores with grass. One time I was weeding the rock wall bed, and I sat back, imagining the lawn as more beds. No matter what kind of nifty plants I might grow there, the thought of weeding that whole expanse on a regular basis was daunting.

I always say a lawn is low-maintenance if your husband mows it. And my Lou does just that. He also digs out broadleaf weeds with what we call “the ponker.” It has four long metal teeth on a pole.

Lou makes short work of dandelions.

Ponk it in on top of a dandelion, and rock back. The teeth clinch the weed and out it comes. Fiskars makes a fancy one that allows you to snap the handle and launch the hapless weeds a couple of feet—a debatable form of gardening fun, because I have to go around and pick them up. Even so, once you follow #2, grass does mean less work.

#4. My new lawn is a design place-holder. In 1993, this garden started out all lawn, with few beds and borders. Over the years, I chipped away at the grass as the design I wanted became clear.

In 1993 the garden was mostly grass.

My now grown children return home to visit and complain that more lawn is missing. (But neither of them has offered to do the mowing, so their votes count for little—I’m kind of Henny Penny that way.)

Now I keep chunking away at the lawn.

I have plans, but I don’t know how they will play out. I might ring the pavers with a low-growing salal border, or with cranberries—it’s a wet area.

The grass emerges like green stubble.

The grass is simply holding the place for my next idea.

I might make the outer mowing strip the edge of a pathway that circles around to the center pavers.

Gardens are always shifting, either from weather, growth habits, or the gardener’s whimsy. I’m not done yet. # # # #

My recent purchases are waiting to get in the ground.

Some day is here, and I now have to deal with a mistake I made all those years ago—weed cloth. You know the stuff, black spun fibrous material sold on rolls that allows moisture to go through but blocks weeds’ roots from getting down in the soil. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Weed cloth seemed like the perfect solution for the large beds where I knew I wouldn’t be planting for a long time. But here’s the catch: I mulch. I mulch a lot. Mulch helps those tree and shrub roots to stay cool in summer. Mulch controls weeds. Saves on water. Looks good too. Over the years, I piled on the mulch, mostly chipped fir, because in the Northwest, it’s cheap.

Now, when I make a hole for a plant in those beds, I dig through inches of new mulch and below that lovely black decomposed mulch duff. Then I hit the weed cloth. In some cases, weedy roots have embedded in the cloth and continued their journey to regions below—so much for really blocking. The whole mass is a hideous tangle—much harder to pull up than the weed roots alone would have been.

I cut the buried weed cloth with these heavy duty Fiskars Take Apart Garden Shears--a gift to us garden writers from Fiskars at a Garden Writers' Symposium. They work well.

In other spots, the cloth lies pristine. But below it, the heavy clay soil is in the same shiny sticky condition it was on the day I put the cloth down. The worms and all the other critters that love mulch and would have carried pieces of it down and mixed it throughout the layers of clay have been blocked. I know this mixing action occurs because in other areas of the garden where I have no weed cloth, I come back to find the mulch well incorporated below the surface.

So here’s how I have to dig every hole. Remove the mulchy top layers. Locate the cloth. Cut it out, or wrestle it back—this takes amazing amounts of time and energy, depending on the size of the hole. Then fork up the terrible clay. Add amendments. Throw in a handful of organic fertilizer—usually 4-6-5. Mix together in the hole Take out enough amended soil to position the plant. Back fill. Pull the mulch around it. Whew!

I hate weed cloth.

What works better? The good old New York Times, or my local Register-Guard newspaper.

A newspaper stash makes a great weed-blocking mulch.

Any paper will do if you have enough for thick layers. Depending on what I want to block, I use a quarter to a half inch thick. When I make new beds, I layer  the paper to kill the grass. Or I put it down any place where I won’t be digging for a while. A layer of fir mulch over that holds and hides it.

Newspapers do a great job of slow decomposition—I can scrape back the mulch a year later and still read the headlines. But eventually, they will sog away. Then I simply put down another layer (with mulch to hide it) right on top. The worms are happy—if we go by the numbers I find. The microbes (I assume) are happy too.

I don’t mulch with newspaper in vegetable beds because of the inks. I know it’s soy-based, which sounds safe, but until I talk to someone who can assure me with authority that the inks won’t be taken up by something I want to eat, I’ll leave it alone. Besides, as the seasons go by you constantly turn over most vegetable beds, so long-term weed blocking isn’t needed there.

But this  garden will have the legacy of my weed cloth mistake long after I’m gone. I can’t get rid of it all. Some day, some gardener will be digging through the wonderful top layers of duff and come across that hidden peril. And she or he will curse me. I know it. All I can say is, sorry in advance.# # # #

Ann Murphy at home in her garden.

Oregon is blessed with specialty nurseries—thank you, thank you, all you passionate horticultural professionals! Every owner I met on our tour had started down their hort career path because of their own insatiable interests.

The Cascade Nursery Trail makes it easy to track down seven of these unique growers’ establishments. In one day, cruising around the back roads east of I-5 near Salem, we hit six—a 10-hour (including lunch) plant marathon limited only by how many containers we could actually stuff into the back of Ginger Aarons-Garrison‘s giant Ford Excursion.

Note: when doing any part of this trail, you should give yourself two things. Number one is more time than you think you’ll need—you won’t want to rush through your favorites. And number two, more vehicle space. I advise dumping everything out that’s usually in your car but the spare tire and your wallet. The choice and unusual offerings will seriously tempt you.

Actually, some of the fun for me was watching Oregonian newspaper columnist Kym Pokorny wrestle with not buying plants. She’s moved to a new home and is doing it right this time, design first, plant later. Could she hold out for an entire tour of incredible nurseries?

If you’re in another part of the country and getting frustrated with plant envy, read on. You can click on the nursery links that interest you—several of these establishments do mail order.

Ann with Highland Heather owner Janice Leinwebber

First stop: Highland Heather. Nursery owner Janice Leinwebber cleared up my perpetual heather/heath identification confusion: If it only blooms in late summer—it’s likely heather (Calluna vulgaris). Rest of the year—heath (Erica).

Heathers or heaths? They all look terrific.

I took home: Erica x stuartii ‘Irish Orange’ for the rusty maroon new foliage, and Calluna vulgaris ‘Nana compacta’ a rounded mound that spreads a foot—eventually.

Second stop: Secret Garden Growers. Here designer and writer Lisa Meddinand I wandered the shade display gardens together. We tried to ID all the beautiful plantings designed by owner Pat Thompson—sometimes we got it right.

Beautiful shade plants on display at Secret Gardens Growers

I took  home: Zingiber mioga ‘Dancing Cranes’, a three-foot tall variegated ginger.

Third stop: Sebright Gardens. Hostas, epimediums and ferns, oh my! Great display gardens almost kept me out of the buying houses. But not quite.

Ann spots the Hosta 'June Fever' at Sebright.

I’m coming back for Sebright’s own hosta introduction “Gentle Giant’.

Hosta 'Gentle Giant'

I took home: Six epimediums, three deciduous and three evergreen. These low-spreading perennials are the gold standard for dry shade. I have plenty of that, so I’m starting a collection.

Fourth stop: Garden Thyme. Any future visit to Silverton will include a stop here—it’s just down the road from The Oregon Garden
entrance and features choice herbs, perennials, shrubs and trees.

A wide selection of choice ferns at Garden Thyme Nursery

I took home: Astilbe ‘Younique Lilac’ a compact ( sixteen to twenty inches) form with pale lilac (what else?) flowers.

Fifth stop: (Are you hanging in there with me?) Out in the Garden Nursery. A group of heritage oak trees were a delight at this point in the run. Owner Carol Westergreen is building a sumptuous display garden around the grove.

A grove of western oaks, Quercus garryana

I took home: Hydrangea ‘Little Honey’, a compact three-by-three-footer with golden oak leaf foliage.

Sixth stop: On the home stretch we traveled out to Wild Ginger Farm, where we were greeted by owners Emma Elliot and Truls Jensen, along with various border collies—my favorite brainy breed. Yes, I was lured into throwing a few tennis balls for the retrieving obsessed.

Emma Elliot and Truls Jensen,of Wild Ginger Farm

But all kinds of obsessions get nourished at Wild Ginger. I always love walking into a nursery where I can’t identify the plant material—and this went way beyond my experience with alpines and rock garden plants. I purchased several enticing plants to fill in some spaces between the stones in my new rock garden.

A mounding display of long-blooming Lewisia

I took home: Delosperma davyi, a hardy iceplant (to 10 degrees) that grows an inch tall with an eight-inch spread, with teeny red bronze succulent leaves, Eriogonum arcuatum v. xanthum, a mat-forming buckwheat with gray-green foliage and yellow flowers and Scleranthus uniflorus ‘Olive’ my favorite—a tiny three-inch half mound of dense olive green leaves.

And yes, by the time we had visited this nursery, Kym gave in, although with admirable restraint. Here’s the proof that plants did go home with her.

Intrepid plant purchasers, Mary-Kate, Lisa, Kym , Ann and Ginger

Here’s what Kym took home: