Gardening

Summer 2003

Emerald winters, brown summers

How dry it is! Understanding the summer climate west of the Cascades baffles lots of residents. The “emerald green” attitude extends to believing that summer months wrap themselves in rain and mist just as winter does. However, our “modified Mediterranean” climate makes water planning as important in Seattle as it is in Spokane.

Summer of 2002 brought only 4.6 inches of rain at Sea-Tac (May 1 through November 1). September and October, usually good planting months, totaled only 1.08 inches combined. Another way to get perspective on this summer rainfall total-just imagine you’ve planted hybrid rhododendrons in April. They require about an inch per week, … » More …

Spring 2003

Living and gardening in the Pacific Northwest — Spring 2003

Some gardeners work to change conditions in their yard to create havens of greenery and blooms with plants that wouldn’t grow there otherwise. They amend the soil to suit plants’ needs, they water a lot during the summer, and they give added protection to non-hardy plants.

More and more gardeners today are saying “No!” to extra tasks, choosing to work with nature instead of against it. They are using nature as a model in creating yards and gardens that reflect the natural beauty of the place where they live. They’re determining the aspects their yards share with surrounding natural areas-sun, shade, rocks, slopes-and they’re choosing … » More …

Winter 2002

Living and gardening in the Pacific Northwest

In Washington State, it has been over 200 years since indigenous peoples described where they lived as “the place where camas blooms” or “the place where wild onions nod.” In other parts of the country, it has been even longer.

Where Native Americans lived-and the plants and animals that lived there-determined if they lived. Survival required intimate contact with the natural world. Without guidebooks, maps or Internet access, they knew weather patterns, ocean tides, hydrology, topography, and the life cycles and habits of plant and animals in the places they lived. They had a very strong “sense of place.”

Now, most Americans are able to … » More …

Winter 2004

Plants of the Wild

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Summer 2004

Gardening on the Palouse

The area known to practically every Washingtonian as “the Palouse” is one of six large grassland communities in North America. The Palouse stretches from just south of Spokane to the Snake River valley, near Moscow and Pullman. Today, it is a fertile farmland, covered in wheat and other grain crops. But prior to the 1870s and the arrival of “new-world” settlers, these rolling hills were blanketed in perennial bunchgrasses and forbs, which had dominated the landscape for five million years. Those native plants are now found only in tiny pockets around old cemeteries, along creeks, and in other unplowable places.

Some gardeners in the area … » More …

Spring 2004

The Last Roses of Summer

Steve Smith has good news for those of us who like to satisfy more than one sense at a time. The domestic rose, bred too long for form and color only, to the detriment of scent, is regaining its fragrance. Smith ’76, the head rose gardener at Manito Park in Spokane, is showing us his charges, which in late September are still in full bloom, and we spend much of our time sniffing.

A visit to Smith’s All-American Rose Selection (AARS) display garden gives a portrait of things to come. Each year, Manito and the other 130 such gardens across the country display the new … » More …

Fall 2009

Greenscapes: Olmsted’s Pacific Northwest

Greenscapes: Olmsted’s Pacific Northwest book cover

Joan Hockaday
WSU Press, 2009

John Charles Olmsted, nephew and stepson of world-famous park designer Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. and half brother of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., spent much of his life in the shadows of his more famous relatives. Even so, on the West Coast he has had the greatest and most lasting influence of any single landscape architect.

Because of an invitation made to the Olmsted … » More …

Fall 2009

Master Gardeners

"Cultivating plants, people, and communities since 1973" is how the Master Gardeners explain themselves. The concept has worked well. Washington, where it all started, now has over 3,000 volunteer Master Gardeners, who in exchange for training in turn give their knowledge and expertise to others in their communities. These communities have now spread across the United States and Canada. » More ...

Spring 2008

The orphan flower

In a Washington State University greenhouse, on the roof of Abelson Hall, dwells an orphan. Sheltered by a translucent plastic tent that diffuses the sunlight, drenched in water that keeps the air heavy with moisture, a semitropical plant called Gasteranthus atratus unfurls its crinkly, dark mahogany leaves. Once a year or so it puts forth cream-colored, vase-shaped flowers. It doesn’t seed, however. Whether it needs another member of its species or a particular insect or bird to pollinate it isn’t known. For now, it simply grows, and waits.

Gasteranthus atratus is an orphan, because its home no longer exists. The species was discovered in the … » More …

Spring 2008

Through the Garden Gate

Invasive species--plants, animals, and microbes--have been estimated to cost American businesses and taxpayers at least $122 billion every year in damaged property, lost productivity, and control efforts. However, perhaps more costly in the long run is the damage done to natural communities. » More ...