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Hellebores for Late Winter Color
The glorious hellebore ‘Painted Doubles’ is one of many outstanding selections in the Winter Jewel™ Series from Terra Nova Nurseries. It has been unseasonably cold here in the Pacific Northwest. In...
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New Garden Flower Favorites for 2014
Tangerine orange flowers grace Agastache ‘Kudos Mandarin’ through the hottest summer months. (photo care of Terra Nova Nurseries) I do not believe I have ever met a gardener that isn’t always looking...
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Gravel Gardens
This gravel garden is creative and bright! Succulent gardening can break beyond the traditional rock garden model. Take, for example, gravel gardens. These unique garden spaces support most plants...
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Container Gardening: 148 Containers & Counting
Sometimes a stand-alone pot in the garden is like a work of art. I knew that I had many containers around my garden, on the deck, on the patio, in the flower beds, at the entryway, along the driveway,...
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Spring Garden Soil Amendment
Amendments help garden and container plants perform better all season. In a perfect world, we might be able to dig into the soil at any place in our garden and have it be like reaching into a bag of...
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Cool Weather Gardening in the Pacific Northwest
For those of you that have followed my monthly web articles, you are aware that I live and garden in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. While we are probably famous for our rainy weather, this year seems...
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Edible Gardening Everywhere in the Garden
My neighbor Ron removed a large section of his front lawn and created an attractive series of raised beds for vegetable gardening. It was not very many years ago when gardeners had distinct areas for...
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Hummingbird Gardening with Black Gold
Look closely and you’ll see a delicate hummingbird enjoying the fresh water of this fountain. In addition to enjoying summer color from my plants, I always have an assortment of plants that will...
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Maintaining Soil Health for Plant Health
The more you can do to make plants healthy and avoid stressful conditions, the likelier they are to thrive. In many of these web articles, I have often stressed the importance of soil health. Whenever...
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Reviving Late-Summer Flowers
Despite the high heat here in the Pacific Northwest, the roses have done well. Perhaps we have been through the “dog days of summer” here in the Pacific Northwest with our daytime temperatures reaching...
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Tips to Make Gardening Easier
Staking dahlias at planting time will support plants all season and keep the tuberous roots from being pierced by stakes. When visiting other gardens and with other gardeners, I find that people enjoy...
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Trick or Treat Gardening
“Oh, noooo!” Plants are a great way to add to the Halloween fun! The gardening season we experienced this past summer and early fall has been one of the best that I can remember. Vegetable gardens...
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Holistic, Healing Gardening
Anna’s hummingbird feeding on Salvia ‘Amistad’. (Photo by Doug Barragar) For those of you that have read some of my previous Black Gold articles, you will know that one of my recurring themes is to...
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Winter Flowering Plants
Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ adds delightful fragrance and color to the winter garden. (photo by Leonard Foltz) Recently a friend asked me what my garden looks like during the winter months. I replied...
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Which Witch Hazel Should You Grow?
The coppery flowers of Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena’ are very fragrant and pretty. (Image by Jessie Keith) If you were to take a random survey of ten of your neighbors and asked the question: “When...
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Winter Indoor Gardening with Mike Darcy
We have a lot of orchids in our home that bloom throughout the year. While house plants are not generally something that we have many of in our house, we do have several, one of which is a very tough...
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Choice Flowering Crabapples
Beautiful pink spring blooms, lovely red fruit, and outstanding fall color make ‘Prairifire’ a choice crabapple. For many years, flowering crabapples have gotten a bad rap. This has been especially...
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Pacific Northwest Drought Takes Its Toll
Mike Darcy’s garden in happier days. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have had a summer with some of the highest temperatures and least rainfall on record. I believe that we have had more days with...
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Kids Gardening Fun in Fall
Kids love to learn about composting and the importance of worms in the garden. As gardeners, I believe that one of the most important things we can do is to encourage young children to garden. With our...
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Native American Plants of the Pacific Northwest
Not only are the bulbs of Camassia quamash edible, the plants are beautiful and highly garden worthy. (photo by Walter Siegmund) History seems to indicate that Native Americans living on the west side...
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