Tuesday, August 13, 2019

A few good links...

My blog reader used to be filled with new posts from blogs I follow, at least 20 + when I checked it in the morning, and another 10 or so at night, as I read on my iPad before falling asleep. Those numbers have been steadily dwindling for the last few years. The offerings are getting quite thin. Thank god there are still people like my friend Gerhard who are writing and sharing interesting things.

He recently visited Mountain Crest Gardens, a nursery in Northern California, just 40 miles from the Oregon border in Fort Jones. He wrote about it here, "Fort Jones is in USDA hardiness zone 7b, i.e. its average annual extreme minimum temperature is between 5° and 10°F. According to BestPlaces.net, “there are 136.7 days annually when the nighttime low temperature falls below freezing.”...yikes! That's a lot of cold, but look...

These plants are all growing outdoors, in the nursery's display garden. The big attraction for me is their amazing collection of labeled sempervivum...

Check out Gerhard's blog post. He has dozens of  fabulous photos from this visit, so many gorgeous sempervivum! (and thanks Gerhard for letting me steal a few of your photos as teasers)





The next link I want to share is to an column Mike Darcy wrote in the Oregon Association of Nurseries magazine. Sometimes I wrestle with just how honest to be in a blog post. Writing something negative that serves no purpose other than to offend or hurt someone's feelings is to be avoided at all cost. But constructive criticism like Mike wrote is valuable. Read his story: "Where gardeners turn for answers" here.

This next link may have a limited appeal, but I'm thrilled to jump in. Someone named Rebecca Alexander shared a link to archived Pacific Northwest Plant and Garden Society Publications (from Northwest Horticulture Society, Hardy Fern Foundation, U of W Arboretum Bulletin and more) on our PNW Plant Geeks Facebook group. Check it out here.

The last link for this post is to the German edition of Architectural Digest and a story they ran on the Ruth Bancroft Garden. Since I don't know German it's a fun read via Google Translate. A few lines are oddly repeated and some things are definitely lost in translation, like this quote from Brian Kemble (curator at the garden) that I've heard many times. The German AD version: "Once I wanted to get Ruth a blindfold after her agave bloodied her arm "However, she just said, 'If I had stopped working with any scratches, I would never have done anything." Ha! A blindfold. So she could hurt herself some more? He really wanted to offer her a band-aid. Read the story here, there are several beautiful photos from Marion Brenner.

Weather Diary, Aug 12: Hi 83, Low 59/ Precip 0

All words © 2009-2019 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

17 comments:

  1. And thank you for you, still writing.

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  2. Thanks for these links! What a treasure trove that archive of publications is. I liked the Mike Darcy article too.

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  3. Thank you! This will be great reading.

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  4. Thank you for sharing the information, Loree! I always enjoy reading and seeing your blog posts, even though our gardens and locations are very different.

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    1. Oh so very different! I read your blog faithfully, but I am bad about commenting.

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  5. What Jane said--we'd all be lost without your posts!!!!

    Thank you for "syndicating" my post about Mountain Crest Gardens. I love nurseries like that: hard working, customer-oriented, and focused on quality plants.

    The Ruth Bancroft article was a nice surprise although it contains some exaggerations, like describing the climate of Walnut Creek as "extremely hot in the summer and bone-chillingly cold in the winter." Considering they don't typically go below 25°F, that make me laugh.

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    1. Ya yes, that weather comment. I'd like that kind of bone chilling cold every winter.

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  6. In garden terms, you delivered a nice box of chocolates here. Thanks!

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  7. Time to add a few more blogs to your Reader to replace your lost ones! I wish I had more time to follow more blogs, there are so many good ones.
    136 days of frost sounds pretty good to me...we're closer to 180-200, ugh!

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    1. I try! Sometimes I think I found a really good one, and then see they haven't published since 2017. Or someone new starts a blog, and they only make it three posts...

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  8. A big thank-you to all who continue to post. I love to start my day reading them. My first introduction to the blog scene was through Gerhard, then yours and on to many others listed. I feel like I have made many new friends along the way. Please keep up the excellent work.

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  9. Mike's article was superb. When you just consider all the mislabeled pix of plants on Pinterest, you can easily understand the broad sweep of misinformation that is being shared out there.

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