Sunday Parkways

This last Sunday, the 19th, was the City of Portland’s NE Portland Sunday Parkways event. The first Sunday Parkways was held last year in, June, with 6 miles of streets closed to vehicle traffic in North Portland. Loosely based on a weekly event CicloVia in Bogotá, Colombia, Sunday Parkways is intended to get city residents out and about in their neighborhoods, walking and biking, and hanging out with neighbors. The Bogotá event sees over 70 miles of city streets closed to traffic, the NE Portland version had 7 miles of streets closed. Since the event passed within 1 block from our house we needed to check it out.

Besides the people watching (which there was plenty of, and would be a great topic for a whole new blog) this was a great opportunity to walk lots of streets that I usually only drive. Of course those of us on foot were a pain in the ass to the bikers who thought they owned the event, which made me just want to walk right down the center of the street. But since the great garden photos required me to be on the sidewalks (and occasionally in the yard or driveway) I didn’t get to irritate the number of bikers that I would have liked too. This Silk Tree, Albizia julibrissin is just around the corner from a street I frequently drive, however I never noticed it. Beautiful…but messy.

I believe this is a Rose of Sharon, although I have never seen a flower quite like this one. Love the buds as they are opening.

I should have got a better picture, but this is the gate I want to replace the chain link one we currently have (to keep Lila in)...you have to look really close, it's rusted metal in the center of the picture). I made a mental note of the location so I could go back and ask them about it (later when the husband isn’t with me and won’t be mortified at my doing so).

Poor little palm. Maybe they thought it would go summer dormant like the grass and come back when the fall rains do. Not so lucky I am afraid.

Ah…getting rid of sod the “right” way, a modified lasagna method of killing the sod and building up a planting medium.

We stopped at Wilshire Park and listened to a band. They were young and full of energy, keeping the crowd entertained.

Because I am tree dumb I can’t tell you what this tree is. But I love the pealing bark!

Do you think this homeowner is terrified of plants?

Don’t understand this method of pruning. They want to make it easier for cats when they climb the tree?

A collection for sure.

I would love to know how long it took them to make this fence and gate!

I am seeing this around town a lot. These yellow tubs were our paper recycling bins before the city decided to change it up to a huge metal/paper/everything but glass rolling bin. Guess they are being recycled now.

Stock tank planters are showing up everywhere these days. I’ve never seen this version before with the painted logo.

Interesting edging material…I would be afraid kids would need to play with them. Rolling them down the center of the street perhaps?

Just when I think I've kicked my desire to have a Cotinus I see one like this and the yearning kicks in again.I love the deep color of the Globe Artichoke and really like seeing the later stages after the bloom has faded.

It was a great day to get out and walk around and snoop in the yards of my fellow NE Portlander's. If you live in Portland there is one more Sunday Parkways event planned for the year, on the 16th of August in Southeast Portland.

Trying to see the beauty

What I want is a nice little rectangle of lush green grass. A place for your eye to rest and to pull the backyard garden together. What I have is a patch of clover with a little grass mixed in. Most of the time I can overlook this, after all the little leaves are nice, kind of like a tough ground cover. But this time of the year, when the clover blooms, the lawn gets messy, visually busy with white dots all over it. I hate it!

I realize that clover helps to maintain the health of the garden soil by fixing the nitrogen and attracting animal life and healthy microorganisms that flourish in a clover lawn. Plus the bees love it and it doesn't require nearly as much water as grass does to remain green. But it's just so darn messy! I don't do well with messy.

Goings on in the veggie garden

I think I am going to finally have the tomato harvest of my dreams! Barring any unfortunate attacks or disease that is. We’ve got over 100 tomatoes ripening with more blooms everyday, there are 5 different varieties. Below, on the left is the Patio tomato, bred for growing in a pot on the patio, on the right is the Early Girl. Same growing exact conditions, it’s remarkable how small and compact the Patio variety is compared to the Early Girl. I wished I would have known about this one when I was an apartment gardener.This is the other group of 3 tomatoes - yellow pear in the middle and 2 heirlooms on the sides.

The basil is finally taking off too! I was determined to grow it from seed this year, no store bought starters. I’ve got purple ruffles and Italian large leaf.

I’ve already celebrated the first mini-harvest of two ripe pear tomatoes with basil and a sprinkle of garlic salt. Delicious!Our corn in a container experiment is having its ups and downs. It’s tasseling which means no more height, and as you can see it is rather diminutive. That is ginger mint growing at the base…which smells divine when I water or rustle the leaves.

On the up-side we have ears starting to emerge…yea!

The peppers are doing fabulous, the yellow are hot Hungarian and the green are sweet Italian. I like watching them grow even more than cooking with them.And happy Carrots! Two tubs worth. I've thinned them out and used the tiny little carrots on a salad, no chopping required!

The salad greens made an early exit as they were not happy with the heat, so more peppers replaced them. They are just settling in and will hopefully take off with our current little heat wave. The cucumbers have 5 blossoms now. When I planted them I had visions of crazy wild vines; so far that is not reality. I still have hope.

One of my largest success stories were the snap peas. How I loved the peas. I could snack on them (shell and all) while I was gardening and fill a bowl for eating later. Next year I will plant 3 times the amount! Maybe I’ll plant another crop this fall when it cools down a bit, has anyone ever tried planting a fall crop of peas?

Since the peas were obviously done for the season, I ripped them out and moved the Horseradish to the container. I also dug up a small Horseradish that was elsewhere in the garden and moved it to the container. This is what it looked like when I dug it up.

Somehow I missed noticing that its leaves were being destroyed. Can you see the little green worms on the leaf above? Here they are when I picked them off.

Gross. I cleaned up the leaves and planted them with the larger plant. Then as I was taking this picture I noticed a small black spot on the tallest leaf. Good god! Another weevil! These are my vegetable not yours! I guess nature is hungry too.

I also wanted to show you neighbor’s tomatoes. She is the one who turned me on to the wall-o-water things to get the plants going in the cool spring. I took my covers off when it warmed up. I wanted to see the plants and use the soil beneath to grow basil. She left hers on. Look at her tomatoes! They are over 7 ft tall, and loaded with fruit…if you look very closely you can make out the green plastic wall-o-waters at the very bottom of the plant. They are (approx) 2 ft tall, yet look about 10" tall in this picture!How are your veggies doing? What have you already been eating?

Bloomday, July 2009

It’s definitely hummingbird time in the danger garden; I’ve wished a thousand times over that I had my camera in my hand to capture the hyperactive little creatures as they buzz around the patio. The Crocosmia, Hesperaloe and Bee Balm are all hummingbird magnets. I’m so glad to have them as frequent visitors. Finally I got a couple of shots of this little female, which we think is an Anna’s hummingbird, on the Crocosmia. Hesperaloe

Bee Balm...This is my second year growing Bee Balm, I think that they look like old-lady swim caps, LOVE them!

Last year this Acanthus had 7 bloom spikes, just one this year.I bought this Agapanthus not knowing the color (it had already bloomed but was only $2), love the deep blue.

And not to be outdone, the white.

The Agavafolium just keeps producing more and more buds, usually the bees are all over them. Of course I go out with my camera and they all split.

The Black Mondo grass is blooming, I don’t care for the flowers but the berries that follow are wonderful, and the birds enjoy them too.

The Eryngium Blue hobbit is living up to its name.We spied the Dichromena colorata, White Star Grass at the grocery store one night when just making a quick dinner stop. Had to have it. These little flowers are at the end of some of the grass looking stems amongst the grass blades.The Echinops is starting to flower! Love it. The stems have not started to turn red yet, although I still have hope.

And the Eryngium pandandifolium is blooming on such a tall stalk I had to tie it up.

I already talked about the Hydrangea in a post last week but it’s so hot right now that it bears repeating.Normally I hate the flowers of my Ligularia ‘ rocket’ for some reason this year I am enjoying them. We’ll see how long it lasts. The Lupines are still going strong.

The Nicotiana looks like a flower that would be pollinated by a hummingbird but I haven’t seen any go near it. Love the big leaves.

The Scadoxus multiflorus hasn’t slowed down after almost 3 months in bloom.

All over the garden the Sempervivum are in bloom. While they are amazing and somewhat alien looking it is also a little sad as they are monocarpic and will die after blooming.

Don’t like the Water Canna bloom at all but it’s so tall and stately at over 8 feet and the hummingbirds like it so it stays.

And lastly the Yuccas are all blooming in full force, over 12 of them in the front garden alone. They smell so good!

Happy Blomday everyone! Click on over to May Dreams Gardens to see what else is bloomin around the world today...