Fresh hope of change...

Spring is around the corner. I saw a forsythia in full bloom today, and the pieris buds are starting to turn showy. My bulbs are 2-3" out of the ground, and my hellebores are in full bloom. After the winter we've had, these fresh groundlings are more than a welcome sight. Spring is inevitably a time of new beginnings, fresh colors...change happening before your eyes. This year more than ever, these March floral displays and the promise of more to come have a greater weight of hope. Nature is still somewhat immune to humankind and our deficits, stimulus, and credit crunches.

NW Garden Design & Consulting, however, is not. Luckily, I have been able to join an awesome team of horticulturalists at a large retail nursery co-op called Garden World (http://www.gardenworldonline.com/) south of Wilsonville, OR. With 'support your local grower' as its creed, Garden World is 10 acres of great plants and competitive pricing. I am the office gal and customer service forefront. I have been there 2 weeks and really love it. The inventory is expanding every week, and the website has up-to-the-minute inventory with wonderful pictures and descriptions.

I am still offering design services while on this hiatus of financial duty, but on a much more limited basis. Yet I am quite content in my new position and feel it is a great next step for me right now. So check it out, and I hope to see you soon! By the way, there is hope in every flower's face and every opening bud of spring. Look for it!

Winter garden

Snow transforms a garden into something more than summer flowers or fall color. The winter garden becomes form and shape, blanketed with monotonous white. Each plant declares its right to permanence, digging in and staying for the winter.

Some plants take it with a grain of salt. "We are built for this; we were born ready!" 'Tiny Towers' italian cypress stand at attention, decked in red lights. Green hellebores with their nodding heads bow to the cold. "Bring it on!"
Others, like my dwarf fuchsia 'Tom Thumb' seem caught off guard, still displaying blossoms now frosty and frigid. Phormium with its thick agave-like blades, now lined with snow sits there wishing for warmer days. The bare branches get their chance to shine. 'NO snow can laden me down...hahaha....I have no leaves!" What once was only brown sticks now are transformed to provide contrast with the glaring brightness of white. My neighbor's Forest Pansy redbud is absolutely gorgeous with snow on the branches...such layering can only be nature's handy work. And there are those who are hanging on to fall for dear life. The Japanese maple has ONE single solitary red leaf at the end of one branch absolutely refusing to senescence.

A winter garden is a whole different view of the plants we see all year. They are stripped bare, exposed, and raw...then covered, added to, dusted with precipitation that just may stay around for a while.

I appreciate every season in Portland because we get a little bit of it all here: beaches and mountains, lush valleys and high desert, winter snow and summer sun.