My dispersed garden

I do the grocery pick-up once a week. Back in early June Andrew happened to be with me, I warned him that I planned to drive by a couple plants on the way, you know, as one does. I mean, you keep a running map in your head of the distinctive plants in your area, and if you're going to be near them then a detour of a few blocks is warranted, right? Right.

First stop that afternoon was a trunking Yucca rostrata that I'd noticed was sending up a bloom. My timing was perfect to see the flowers all open.

I was a little surprised at the (lack of) height of the bloom, for some reason I thought it would be taller, more clearance between the leaves and the flowers. Maybe because my Yucca filamentosa have such tall bloom stalks?

The blooming yucca is accompanied in the hellstrip planting with a fine Arctostaphylos and another Y. rostrata.

So what seemed perfectly natural to me, became a point of discussion that day. Andrew dubbed this visiting of plants around town my "dispersed garden". In addition to plants that I grow, but were behaving in a way that wanted to track (blooming for instance), there's also a collection of plants I visit that wish I were growing, but for one reason or another I am not. Like this Fremontodendron californicum...

It gets way too big to shoehorn into my garden, but since there's one growing at McMenamins Kennedy School (just 5 blocks from home) I feel like I don't have to grow it here, I can just visit it there.

Another example, I love Rhus typhina, the staghorn sumac and my next door neighbor grows it, so I can enjoy her plant(s) and don't need my own. Or Nolina hibernica 'La Siberica', which I no longer have growing in my garden, but Kennedy School to the rescue again. They have a couple of huge specimens I can admire any time I want to go for a short walk.

Photos from the next stop on my dispersed garden tour span the time frame of May 10th to June 14th. 

I first wrote about this fabulous garden back in 2021.

I was visiting again because I got a text from the garden owner (Scott) letting me know that his Agave ovatifolia in the hellstrip was blooming, and doing so with two bloom spikes. Perhaps it had been damaged (winter?) and had developed two growing points...

So nice with the orange poppies and orange truck...

I stopped back by on June 1st.

It was so hard to photograph only the blooming agave, of course my camera strayed again from focusing on just the star.

June 14th. This was the closest I got to actually seeing it in bloom.

The next time I drove by it was way past its prime so I took no photos that day.

This Agave ovatifolia is part of what once was a trio. The first one bloomed last summer, and now...

Doesn't that photo above look like the spike is coming from the grass? Here's a better shot.

Sadly I didn't make it back by this one to see any more of it's development.

This one however, it's been a regular stop on my drives about town. In fact it started to send up it's spike last fall, and then paused for the winter. Agave parrasana, photo taken June 1st.

And full bloom on July 22nd.

Wrapping up with a stop at what I call the desert on Ainsworth St. This is another hellstrip garden (a very wide hellstrip) that erupts in cactus flower every June.

It's a spectacle of beauty.

Back home I look at my large Agave ovatifolia 'Frosty Blue' and wonder how much longer I've got with them...

So do you have a dispersed garden? If not I highly recommend getting started...

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All material © 2009-2026 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude. 

Revisiting the Connall Garden

I first visited Kyle and Iva Marie Connall's garden in West Linn, OR, during last June's HPSO Study Weekend. I had so many other things to share though that I didn't end up writing about it until January (here). I returned this June, excited to see the updates I'd heard about from Kyle, and seen via his Instagram page. I was wowed!

Kyle and Iva Marie have been hard at work adding these new planting areas to the front of their property. In Kyle's words (borrowed from this Instagram post): "... a new garden area my wife and I have been pouring much sweat equity into this spring. We’ve completed four of the six raised beds, edged with Corten steel. We will complete the other two next spring. We’ve taken out an oval-shaped area of lawn that is 83’ long and 44’ wide. The primary emphasis for the two beds with the decorative gravel as a top dressing was to plant a variety of yuccas, agaves, opuntia and other cacti. For these beds, we blended pumice, gravel and top soil to insure excellent drainage." 

I heard stories of the work they'd put in here mixing soil and hauling it to the different areas. These are two dedicated gardeners! Or wait, make that a dedicated gardener and his hard working, supportive, spouse.

Kyle shared that part of his inspiration for this new planting came from the book Visionary: Gardens and Landscapes for Our Future by Claire Takacs and Giacomo Guzzon. Specifically the section on Coleson Bruce's garden which I had the privilege of visiting with Pam Penick back in 2021. It was wonderful to look at this new planting and see that vision. I look forward to seeing the new areas completed and the plants filling in.

When it came time to write about my first visit I remember being very disappointed in my photos of the lavender and eucalyptus that line the driveway (to the side of the new planting area, you can see them in the image at the top of the page). As much as I tried to capture the magic this time, I'm not sure I was any more successful...

Looking back on the new dry garden...

And over to a different section of the garden, where we'll be in a moment.

Now we've walked up to the home and taken a right from the driveway. We'll head down those steps in a minute, but first we're taking the jog to the left.

Where this enclosed courtyard space greets us.

Tall palms!

I'm not the only one who appreciates a good agave and fern combo...

The tall palms are at my back now.

Time to take the steps down...

Feijoa sellowiana (pineapple guava) on the left and Bupleurum fruticosum on the right.

Lush!

More agaves and Yucca rostrata...

Ah Kyle I feel your pain! (cleaning up an agave is not fun work) 

Other visitors admiring the tall Tetrapanax papyrifer (at least that's what I think they should be doing).

While there are lots of spiky plants in the garden there's also no shortage of color from a wide range of flowering plants.

Callistemon

Kniphofia

Moving on to another planting area...

Romneya coulteri

Phlomis of some sort.

And the Opuntia are blooming! This was perhaps my favorite section of the garden on my last visit, and it holds up this time around.

Metapanax delavayi and a fluffy little conifer.

More palms and Tetrapanax at the back of the house.

Heading back around to the front now... thanks so much for opening your garden again Kyle and Iva Marie. I am a huge fan of what you're up to!

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All material © 2009-2026 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.