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Gardening

Fall 2023

Tranquil gardens lead to a Master Gardener

He sought solace in the garden.

In the early 1990s, when he was going through treatment for cancer, Tim Kohlhauff found the time he felt “the best and connected or healthiest and most relief” was when he was in the garden—specifically the Japanese Garden at Washington Park Arboretum at the University of Washington.

“I was not as worried when I was there and that had a sort of longtime effect,” he says. “I recovered, but I found I wanted to spend more and more time in the garden.”

Cancer brought him to gardening. Gardening brought him to Washington State University Extension » More …

cover of How Plants Work
Summer 2017

How Plants Work

Cover of How Plants Work

Linda Chalker-Scott

Timber Press: 2015

 

Anyone interested in how plants do what they do will enjoy How Plants Work. Washington State University associate professor of horticulture Linda Chalker-Scott has brought the essentials of plant science together and made them entertaining for gardeners and the otherwise curious.

Chalker-Scott digs into the science of plants while keeping the narrative rooted in successfully growing a garden. Along the way, she evaluates a variety … » More …

Carol Miles
Spring 2012

Mulch ado about garden plastics

In 2001, Carol Miles certified WSU’s first piece of organic land, a three-acre parcel at the WSU Vancouver Research and Extension Unit. It was a landmark moment, leading the way for organically managed land at all of WSU’s research facilities.

But one thing kept nagging her: the plastic.

In the absence of conventional herbicides, weed control was her number one issue, and laying down a layer of plastic took care of the problem handily. But it’s nonrenewable and not recycled.

If it’s going to be used in an organic production system, reasoned Miles, now a vegetable horticulturist at the WSU Mount Vernon … » More …

Video: Build a Bouquet of Local Flowers

Diane Szukovathy from Jello Mold Farm in Washington state’s Skagit Valley puts together a bouquet of locally-grown flowers and offers tips to gardeners on building their own bouquet of blooms. Diane and her husband Dennis Westphall grow cut flowers. They have teamed up with Washington State University researchers Bev Gerdeman and Lynell Tanigoshi to build a community of local, seasonal flower growers in the Pacific Northwest. The growers sell at markets, directly to farmers, florists, grocery stores, and local businesses. Read more in “Business is Blooming.”

Spring 2010

Brian Carter ’06—On the same garden path

Brian Carter ’06 is a natural resource specialist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but he often uses a shorter description.

“I’m a curator,” he says, while offering up the Latin name for a tree at Seattle’s Ballard Locks. “I make sure your grandchildren will see the same garden you do, just in a different life span.”

Carter is talking about the life span of trees and shrubs in the Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Garden next to the locks that link lakes Union and Washington to Puget Sound. But he could also be referring to the life span … » More …

Winter 2003

Pacific Northwest sagebrush steppe

Though it is the most widespread of plant ecosystems in eastern Washington, covering 24,000 square miles, the sagebrush-steppe is probably the least understood, and therefore the least appreciated, especially among gardeners. By nature, gardeners like to make things grow, and by the looks of things, not much grows in that desert-like region, except sagebrush. But the sagebrush-steppe region is home to some of most adaptive and intriguing plants on earth, and gardeners can learn much here to apply to eco-friendly rock gardens and xeriscapes.

The region is most strongly defined by its dryness. Lying entirely east of the Cascade Mountains, it receives only eight to12 … » More …