Part One of my 2019 visits to the Kuzma-Halme Garden

Longtime readers may recall my annual blog posts on this Portland garden, since 2011. A lot has changed in eight years, and the garden now has a name: Hummingbird Garden. Visit on a sunny day in June and you'll see why. Speaking of June, that's when the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon held its 2019 Study Weekend event—garden touring, lectures, a plant sale. Lots of people got to wander through this garden and marvel at what the garden's owners John Kuzma and Kathleen Halme—along with Sean Hogan (Cistus Nursery)—have created. I took this photo as I entered the garden that day.

Here's almost the same perspective on a cloudy day in August.

Again, August.

I visited the garden multiple times last year, and so I'm doing something a little different with my coverage. Instead of a organized walk through the garden on just one day, I'm going to jump from May, to June and on to August. It won't be quite as comprehensive as the posts I usually do, but I think will be interesting to see how particular areas change throughout the season. Today we'll spend time in the front garden.

Here we stop to admire the peeling bark on a stunning arctostaphylos, in August.

My May visit was the morning, around 11am. The sun was illuminating the yellow stripes on this agave.

Also in May the Magnolia laevifolia was in glorious bloom.

As well as the Embothrium coccineum, aka Chilean firebush...

The blooms on my plant are so high I never get good photos of these.

Now it's June and there are a couple of blooms on the opuntia beneath the Yucca rostrata, see the pink? I have no idea why I didn't get a close up.

Nearly the same scene, just a bit to the left, in August.

Also in August these Yucca, with their subtle yellow stripes, got my attention.

I wish I could remember their name.

I wanted to call this Rhododendron pachysanthum...

But it's not. Nor can I remember what it is! In August it was looking especially lovely with Fatsia japonica 'Spider's Web'...

And on its own.

August was also when I spotted this pretty little roscoea.

And these emerging aspidistra leaves.

Here's that same agave I shared above, only from the other side, and in June.

Looking back across the front garden (May).

And a little further back, in June.

The Nolina ‘La Siberica’ (June)

The same, but back a little bit, in May.

June

And the Grevillea victoriae in August...those buds have probably been open and tantalizing the hummingbirds all winter.

Come back tomorrow for a look at the back garden!

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Weather Diary, Feb 23: Hi 52, Low 42/ Precip .07

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