I have done all I can do in the garden for 2025. The roses are mulched, the peonies have been dead-headed, and the rains have begun the relentless parade of clouds, downpours, wind, and occasional sunbreaks whereby we build a fire in the fire pit and sit outside with our hands in fingerless mittens, hovering close to the warmth.
It is time to think about a different tack on the blog. But before I switch gears, here are the newest residents of my garden: the fungis. I don’t know my mushrooms well enough to identify them (beyond the panaeolus).
Welp, the rains are here for the duration. I’ll still get in some gardening on the few days of sunshine and dry that intersperse the gray, depressing, and very, very, wet days. The rain isn’t what is depressing: the cloud cover and long, gray, days is. I tried those blue anti-depression lights, once. Blah. I’d rather coerce my husband into building a fire in the fire pit and bundle up in layers on those days that are dry (the clouds can still be there, but a fire, the outdoors, and wood smoke alleviate depression better than a lamp that pretends to be the sun).
Microsoft Word doesn’t like that I refer to our winter weather as “the rains” (plural) but it is an accurate description: it isn’t one single rain but many such storms and sprinkles that come overhead throughout October to June. Rains. Multiple rain storms. With lots of thick, gray, clouds. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a snow storm tossed in there. If we’re unlucky, it will be an ice storm that comes down in the guise of rain: freezing rain. Fun times.
Before the weather turned and the cloud pattern changed, I finished up my second water feature. It needs a little fine tuning that won’t get done until the weather begins to warm back up, but I’m still pretty proud of what I created.
The rock that is the centerpiece came with the house. We live on top of a rocky bluff where tons (literally) of these sedimentary rocks formed when volcanoes were young and glaciers were receding. Boulders atop layers of lava rock, bluffs upon bluffs above the Willamette River, Our yard was cleared and farmed in the early 1900’s and most of the very large rocks were removed or sit buried under several feet of topsoil and clay. The corner of yard where my newest water feature is happens to be an area least developed and used as a rock and concrete dump for at least thirty years. I still find fat pieces of asphalt and broken concrete in the ground when I dig.
The native rocks are red, like the clay that makes up most of the earth around here. We just happen to be blessed with at least a foot of good topsoil atop that clay due to the farm that was established here in the 1930’s. At least everywhere except in this particular corner where everything was dumped before we moved in.
We removed most of the large chunks of concrete and asphalt and I started turning the area into a small garden. Don moved this big concave rock in the hopes of “someday” building a water feature in the corner. Twenty some years later, I built that water feature. I could say I got tired of waiting for him but the truth is more nuanced than that: he has his projects, the vegetable garden, a new shed, and more. I love to garden flowers, dig in the dirt, build walls, and rearranged things. It is only natural that I should take on the task of building a water feature after waiting for him to find time to do it.
I have the time and the will; he has neither.
I bought the round rubber animal trough at the local feed store. I ordered the solar pump. I dug the hole in the ground.
I didn’t find a lot of rocks in the way: I found the roots from the neighbor’s tall pine tree running through the ground, none of them larger than 1.5” diameter. I cut them out knowing they wouldn’t impact the life of the tree (which is dying anyway, but slowly, and due to a beetle infestation). I leveled the ground and installed the trough, planted the yellow flag irises in tubs, and filled the crater with water.
Oh, and sometime along the road, I made the semi-solid concrete feature that forms the second rock in the waterfall: concrete and a rhubarb leaf.
Me, me, me. And I’m only bragging about it because I will be 69 years old in a week and I’m still playing in the dirt and digging holes. Also, the birds already love it.
And, yes, I took a couple days off to recover after all that work.
Here we are, less than 24 hours from a massive rain storm and I am writing about sprinklers. It’s not like we’ll need them for the next eight to ten months as all the water will be coming from the skies. Well, tomorrow they say it might be coming in sideways with gusts up to 60MPH (that’s 96+ KPH for my friends who use the metric system, or 52+ knots per hour if you speak nautical). It’s going to be gusty and very, very, very wet.
We collect vintage sprinklers. One of those is homemade – can you identify it?
They aren’t worth a lot according to Google Lens, but some of them (and they aren’t all shown here) are worth a little bit of money. I doubt we paid more than $5 for any one of these and some were outright freebies. As to whether or not they work… Well, some better than others.
Those are the ones that don’t work well. Bad design, just old, or they don’t work in the space I have. The one on the top row that is heart shaped can be found on eBay or Etsy selling for around $65.
Nope, doesn’t work. Homemade, just didn’t make the cut.
These are some of the best sprinklers we have. The green one (top left) sells for around $30, center top row for about $20, the older yellow (top right) for around $10 (and it work so-so). The yellow one on the bottom row is one of my favorites and I found it selling for $20. The owl-eye sprinkler works in small spaces and I found it for around $30. The pot metal with brass center works quite well but it pretty much worthless as a resale item, plus I broke one of the points.
These are the last three. I never use them. Modern technology has given us better hand sprinklers although modern technology has given us spray wands that break easily and dies after a couple years of use. The two on the outside of this trio still work and will work for years to come. The red one might be worth $10 – $15.
The middle item is the most interesting to me. You may have already noticed it is not a sprinkler, but is a siphon. A heavy duty brass siphon that sells for around $30. I think I paid $0.50.
There you have it: our sprinkler collection (sans the all metal yellow oscillating sprinkler which was probably in use when I was busy taking these photos).
I’m ashamed: I have not kept up on the blog. Well, I’m not really ashamed, but I am a tad bit regretful that I haven’t kept up. I think of things to write during the day when I am elbows deep in something, but evening comes, and all that inspiration has evaporated. Poof! Gone! Dissipated into the Nether.
We put in a new shed, replacing the homemade one that came with the house when we moved in here over 20 years ago.
I have been busy canning enough for the two of us: salsa, compote, conserve, chutney. Herbs have been dried or are drying for herbal teas. We foraged huckleberries and elderberries from the National Forest (those are in the freezer, awaiting a moment of inspiration).
We also foraged some more native plants for the yard, some of which have already been planted in the ground and some which are waiting for me. They won’t have to wait long: I have been busy moving plants around and tilling new sites for more plants. I’m waiting for the next round of rain to pass through and will use the ensuing dry days to my advantage.
I have filled the hummingbird feeders and hung them out: I took them down during the hot days of late August when honeybees get lazy and swarm the nectar. I melted and mixed up a new batch of bird suet. That came down when the weather warmed up and the starlings started coming around. The starlings are gone now, moved to parking lots. The weather is cooler and the suet won’t melt or mold now. We’ve started feeding the corvids and small songbirds again. (Corvids: California scrub jays, Steller’s jay, and crows.)
I have cleaned up the space between our shed and the neighbor’s lawn. That’s a bit of a sore point: our garage is set back three feet as per the law, but the yard maintenance person insists on mowing our portion, including over my ferns and day lilies. ARGH. I have tried little fences, cardboard, and now I am merely tilling up the strip to plant more flowers. When we first moved in, the elderly woman who lived in that house asked me to do that so her lawn person wouldn’t have to mow that (because we aren’t the best at keeping up the lawn mowing, preferring to let our yard go “natural”). I wasn’t in a place to do it then, but I am in a place to do it now.
Too bad that Selma died several years ago and we have had renters living next door since. Renters who did not mess with our three feet until the landlord hired this current lawn guy. I have even posted a sign on the side of the garage: DO NOT MOW OVER THE FERNS, PLEASE. He still hits them. So I am in a passive-aggressive war with him (and by extension, the landlady to the property). Yes, I could make a phone call, but it is infinitely more fun doing it this way. Don’t judge me.
(If you’re thinking I’m afraid of confrontation, you’d be very, very wrong. Most people are afraid of confrontation with me. When I come into a confrontation, I come with both barrels loaded and a back-up cannon. The world is much safer when I resort to passive-aggressive flower planting.)
I hacked my poor hydrangea back by at least two feet. It used to be planted under the pine tree (Nature rest its branches and rotting roots). The pine tree fell over some seven or eight years ago. The hydrangea is now in full sun, and summers have heated up the past five or six years. I have covered it with umbrellas, sheets, and tablecloths, but it still gets sunburned. The flowers fade too quickly. It has grown spindly. I could either kill it outright or prune it way back and see if it survives.
A woman walking her dog by the house commented on it. I told her I hopes I hadn’t killed it by my merciless hacking. She said she’d watch it and if it lives, she’s hacking back her overgrown hydrangea next fall. That’s me: inspiring neighbors to bush cruelty.
I also cut the Rose of Sharon back quite a bit, the forsythia, and the mock orange. They aren’t as noticeable a hack job as the hydrangea that was five feet tall one day and less than three feet tall the next. Turn me loose with pruners and a saw…
I meant to do a blog on sprinklers, highlighting our eclectic collection, most of which we don’t actually use. I may still do that. It sounds like a wintertime post. Meanwhile, I am considering this post finished.
My oldest grandchild is coming for a week-long visit in just a little over a week from today. He wants to visit before he gets too busy with his Senior year of high school and basketball, and, I think, he wants to check out his mother’s alma mater. It’s hard to believe we will be driving to Newberg to tour the campus of George Fox University again: wasn’t it just yesterday that we made the trip with our daughter? I secretly hope our almost-18 year grandson will decide to attend college there instead of Anchorage. Sure, the latter is closer to his parents, but the former is closer to us.
Z’s arrival means I have to create space for him in our little house. The “spare bedroom” is now my studio and cluttered with what my husband refers to as “the detritus” of my later life career as an eccentric. I have sculptures, paintings, canvases, paints, sewing, and more stacked up waiting for cooler weather and my attention.
Gardening takes up the good weather season, and I have herbs hanging and drying up here as well. Herbs I have forgotten to label: sage, betony and bee balm, feverfew, self heal, horehound, peppermint, and nettle. I can smell the peppermint. The sage and horehound are easy: sage has a distinct aroma and horehound is also soft and grey. The feverfew is obvious with its white blooms as is the self heal with its purple ones. The bee balm and betony are probably the same, just one was labeled as “betony” and one was labeled as “bee balm” when I purchased the plants.
The nettle is the easiest to identify: despite being dry and the same color as the bee balm, nettle still retains a “sting” to its leaves. The sting isn’t close to what nettle feels like when it is alive and bare skin brushes against it; it is just an irritating little prick felt when stripping stems of leaves that soon disappears. I have more nettle than any other herb, mostly because I do not allow it to go to flower or seed: the plant I am growing is safe within the confines of a planter where one cannot accidentally brush up against it without protection.
Because, yes, I have experience with stinging nettle and it wasn’t pleasant. I once crawled on my hands and knees into a mess of it growing in an aspen grove on the side of Chocolate Mountain. The full-face effect was… well, stinging! (Why would I do such a stupid thing? We were at a large camp-out with many families, I was a preteen, I was probably hiding from a sibling, and I wasn’t thinking about the ever-present rattlesnake danger of my childhood in the high desert of Nevada. Maybe I was pursuing a garter snake? Or pretending to be a coyote or mountain lion. Who remembers such mundane details?
I remember the facial.
(Cover photo: Betony in Bloom) (All photos are mine unless otherwise noted. Just FYI)
We’re in the middle of a hot three days, possibly reaching triple digits. Rather than try to write something, I decided to post pictures of sprinklers, the last one spouting water. Enjoy and stay cool.
I planted it many years ago. It never sprouted. Four years later, there was a tiny plant that looked suspiciously like a milkweed growing next to some peonies. I clipped a leaf off to see if it would ooze the sticky white sap that gives milkweed its name: it oozed. Excited, I let it grow. The milkweed plants are limited to a “triangle” between the garage and two sidewalks. I cut them down when the seed pods appear: I don’t need more plants. Also, I don’t want to wait another four years for the seeds to sprout when the plant does just fine by sending out runners from those very sturdy rhizomes.
I was afraid the milkweed would crowd out the peonies and the asters. It doesn’t. The three plants grow together happily. What the milkweed did affect was my arum, dracunculus vulgaris, or “Dragon Lily”. The milkweed runners take up the space the lily’s bulbs are in and I’ve slowly lost many plants in that tiny garden space. There are a few left and this fall I will dig them up and move them to a better location, free of water- and space- hogging competition.
Unfortunately, milkweed does nothing to impede the growth of grape hyacinth, I don’t think anything short of a heavy-duty herbicide affects grape hyacinth (and I refuse to go that route). Every year I pull several hundred bulbs out of the ground and compost them. (Sometimes, I will give them away to a desperate gardener who doesn’t know better than to start them in their yard. I’m pretty sure I’m digging up bulbs to send to my brother in Reno this fall. “Hey, Bro, your yard needs some early spring color. I promise you won’t hate me in ten years…”)
Now, when the first purple grape flowers begin to bloom, I do my first – and only – weeding of the space. I cut hyacinths for a bud vase. I toss the ones that pull up with the ever-present grass. I do my best to rid the space of grape hyacinth bulbs while enjoying the aroma and color. Of course, I fail and the hyacinth prevails.
In the Spring, I cut back the old stalks of peony and aster just as the first new stems begin to push their way skyward around the fading hyacinth. Purple stems of peonies, green stems of aster, the spotted stems of Dragon Lily rise above the fading green and brown stems of faded hyacinth. Buds form on the peonies and soon the area bursts with pink and red peonies so thick I have to tie them to stakes to keep them upright.
The peonies fade and drop their petals just as the aster and the milkweed stalks begin to mature. The green of the aster is first to top out at 2-3’ tall. Milkweed will soon tower over the asters and all one will see will be the green stalks of milkweed.
But before it does, at the end of May and always on our anniversary on the 7th of June, the aroma of rotten hamburger wafts in the air: the Dragon Lilies have opened. Flies and beetles rush in to await their demise in bowl of this carnivorous beauty. The smell lasts a couple days. The flowers wilt and the entire plant begins to wilt and turn yellow.
Now it is the milkweed’s turn.
I have two varieties: Showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa – native to Oregon) with pink florets and California milkweed (A. Californica) with white florets. The latter isn’t a native to Oregon, and it doesn’t grow as prolifically as the Showy milkweed does, but the blooms are pretty and the aroma is the same: sweet and enticing, the polar opposite of the faded Dragon lily.
I planted milkweed thinking I could attract migrating Monarch butterflies. I didn’t know then that this part of the lower end of the Willamette Valley is not on the migratory path for these beautiful and endangered butterflies. No worries: the value blooming milkweed has for other pollinators outweigh my misplaced intentions. Every early bee, butterfly, and tiny wasp brave the sticky edges of the flowers to get at the pollen inside. Occasionally, a honeybee will get stuck and will have to struggle free. A few plants wilt and die, host to the milkweed beetle which does exist in this half of the valley.
Below the tall stems that now tower between four and six feet, a junco might build a ground nest. The nests are soft grass circles, now much larger than the palm of my hand. We won’t know there’s a nest there until a fledgling bird hops out of the cover while the parent birds hover nearby.
The bloom of milkweed lasts a couple weeks giving us quite a show of pink and white, and busy pollinator insects. But then the flowers fade and the few that were pollinated will start developing seed pods. These are green and soft, and quite edible if you are not allergic (I am). When the pods ripen, they turn brown and hard then pop open to release thousands of sees hanging from wispy “umbrellas”. The wind catches the seeds and like the dandelion – well, you know the rest of the story! The ground is soon covered in tiny, milkweed parachutes looking for a home.
But I mow down the milkweed, not simply to avoid the parachutes, but because the milkweed towers above the asters. And the asters put on a late show of color lasting through August and into September. The tall asters are a riot of magenta pink. The aster that grows in the crack in the sidewalk puts out lilac-colored flowers. The tiny bees – those mining bees and other ground dwellers – love the asters.
The milkweed is gone now, and I wait for that last eruption of color. Too soon, the rain will come and everything will turn brown. (Photo is of a year I did not cut down the milkweed stalks and the seeds flew everywhere.)
I don’t remember when I first planted oregano in my yard. We moved here in 2002 and I started carving out the “island” in 2003, so it was probably 21 years ago?
The “bed” of oregano has gone through some changes over the years: choked with that pesky grass, fenced off from dogs and to keep it upright, and it’s current incarnation that is 10x the original plant. I didn’t bother to rein it in this summer, but I did get rid of (most) of the pestilence grass.
We don’t purchase dried oregano in jars. Sometimes, I cut a handful of sprigs before it blooms, hang them upside down to dry, and scrape the dry leaves into an old jar that still has the original label on it: “Oregano”. We use it fresh during the spring and summer months when we can step outside and clip what we need off the plant. By Autumn it is fading and come winter, only dead stalks remain that I cut down and compost.
In spring, the cycle begins again.
I find new plants growing everywhere in the yard: oregano is self-seeding. I pull it with the other weeds, savoring the aroma as I do. I could allow it to grow everywhere and some day when I am too old to do my weeding by hand, that is probably what will happen: it will grow around the peonies, the rosemary, the lavenders, and the evening primroses.
I wouldn’t mind and the pollinators would certainly benefit from the profuse tiny purple blooms. I wonder what oregano honey tastes like? Some honeybee keeper must know: as soon as it begins to bloom, the bed is covered with honeybees and other pollinators.
Our dogs (one at a time over the years) will stand with their noses deep in the aroma, snapping at whatever bees they see. They get stung and jump back, shaking the head furiously before wading back in to snap at another bee. Our mantra is, “Leave the bees alone <Ruger, Murphy, Harvey, Sadie>!” They leave, but they always return to the scene of the crime.
I wonder if the bees taste like honey or like a good Italian dish spiced generously with oregano?
I have a surprising number of herbs growing in my garden, some wild and treated like weeds, some I have purchased with intention, and some that I purchased but didn’t have a clue they could be used medicinally or otherwise. I knew there were four herbs in the picture, but when I started looking up the different plants and uses, I discovered that ALL the plants around the fountain bird bath are useful herbs. I’m always learning new things in the garden and often kicking myself for the mistakes I make. But mistakes and learning are what make gardening an adventure!
As a side note: the plants in pots won’t always be leaning like that: we’re staining the deck and I had to move them temporarily. What we do for a photo op, right?
Bugleweed (Lycopus europeus) (Ajuga is another name). I bought the Bugleweed as a ground cover a couple decades ago and have been trying to get rid of it ever since. I had no idea it was an herb and had medicinal uses: hyperthyroidism, coughs, sleeplessness. I’m still on the fence about eradicating it entirely as a mistake or trying to fine a place where I want it to work its magic of crowding out other plants. It has a pretty blue/purple flower in the spring.
The tickweed (bidens)was purchased for color and length of blooming period. I’d never noticed them before at plant sales but when I was shopping for plants to put around the birdbath, it stood out for color and the fact it will bloom all summer, no dead-heading necessary. It apparently has seeds that cling to your pants like ticks cling to deer. I didn’t know that when I bought it, but it’s only one plant… Right? As an herb it has antibiotic properties. I probably will never use it.
Serbian bellflower (Campanula Poscharskyana). I just recently traded it out of a pot where it wasn’t doing well and put it in the ground by the birdbath. I learned the flowers are edible along with the leaves, making it more than just a pretty blue flower: it is a salad green! Of course it isn’t blooming right now, but maybe I can revive it! (The bloom is from another bellflower in the yard.)
Curry plant (Helichrysum italicum): We bought that for the aroma, the sage colored leaves, and the pretty flowers. Curry plant is not the same as the spice curry which is a blend of spices, but it smells like the spice. It has minimal uses in the kitchen as an edible as it only imparts a very light curry taste to food.
I purchased the blue hyssop (hyssopus officinalis) a few years ago thinking I would use the leaves in tea some day. It grows scraggly, rather like an English thyme, and the leaves are tiny like the thyme. I currently have some drying – not enough to make a cup of tea, but it is a start. It has little blue flowers and is a great addition to a pollinator garden. There are a variety of kitchen uses for this herb as well as the medicinal uses (hyssop is mentioned several times in the Bible as a “cleansing” herb). It can be used to treat ulcers, asthma, and head colds. It is a great antioxidant!
Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). Medicinal uses are antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory. Culinary uses include teas and as a spice added to soups. It is also a pollinator plant and it is a native to North America. The bees and I are waiting for it to bloom.
Last is the Mystery Plant. I was looking for a ground cover at a garden sale and this one jumped out at me: it blooms all summer, giving me the color I want. So I bought it, brought it home, and discovered the identifying tag had been removed at the point of sale, presumably for the seller’s inventory purposes, but now I had no idea what I purchased! I had to wait for it to flower to key it out. “Mystery Plant” is Self Heal (prunella vulgaris) is also known as Heal All. You can use the leaves and flowers in salads or tea. It has much the same properties as the Blue Hyssop. Pretty all summer AND useful!
Finally, a disclaimer:
I do not know enough about herbs to encourage the reader to use them and as with any new thing you add to your diet or healing regimen, do so with caution. I am writing about these herbs as much to learn about them as to show off my garden. ALWAYS research first. And certainly don’t trust ME. I’m only in it for the pretty flowers.
This is not about herbs. I know I promised to write about herbs, but in typical ADHD style, I got sidetracked. Again. Subconsciously I think I am avoiding writing about herbs and my “new” adventure in growing and using them. I mean, what do I honestly know about herbs except how to use them in cooking?
This post is about rocks. Rocks, my back, and being 68 years old doing things as if I was still my younger self. Because, Baby, I am going to sleep well tonight.
I’ll blame my husband on the digression: it all started when we went out to lunch for a belated anniversary date on the 14th. We had been tossing around ideas for a walkway made of flagstone, but how far would we have to travel to find the rock now that the local rock and gravel place is shuttered? We were traveling south on I-205 with a destination just off Stafford Road and I thought to myself that there used to be a rock place there… Great minds think alike (so they say) because Don said, “Didn’t there used to be a rock place right there…?”
Well, it is still there. And we stopped there after lunch to browse. GEM Rock and Landscaping. Quaint place with little wood buildings, lots of chickens, more pigeons, and plenty of rocks for landscaping. One can purchase sourdough bread when it is available or a dozen eggs, all on the honor system. The woman working when we arrived also grows and sells heirloom vegetable plants (we picked up one tomato and two dill plants). The whole vibe is laid back hippie which is quite unexpected from a place selling landscape rocks.
We returned on Thursday in a friend’s big ¾ ton pickup and loaded up 219# of “Pennsylvania blue” flagstone at $0.44 per pound. The men did most of the heavy lifting on Thursday, but the actual lay out and creating was left up to me. And today, I set out to put the puzzle pieces together.
We’re short about 5-6 rocks. And I want some smaller pieces to put around a water feature I am building, so – another 5 or six smaller rocks. We can just use my car to make that load.
Since that was a dead-end and I was all set to work with rocks today, I decided to just finish the retaining wall. The portion left is outside of the vegetable garden, in full shade, and in the part of the yard we do the least with. We still have tree stumps and branches stacked there from the big ice storm of 2021. The pallet of rocks that have been sitting in our driveway for the retaining wall have been there almost as long.
75 rocks. I already had ten in the yard, and I made two trips with the wagon before taking a break and having lunch. I could only manage one more trip before I simply could not pull that damn wagon another forty feet with a load of rocks in it, so I asked my husband to please make the last trip for me. I did all the other work, just not that one last wagon pull.
And then I fell into my Adirondak chair and just sat. The wall is done. I have about 45 rocks left over. Don brought those into the yard, too, and I helped a little bit with that just to get the pallet off our driveway. It’s only been there for three years.
My only other gardening act today was to put up one more homemade birdbath: a tin bowl glued to a funky stand someone else welded together (I got it for free at a yard sale last year).
Jaci Dawn 