Sunday, 13 July 2014
Garden Bloggers Fling, Portland

Along many areas beside the city freeways, drifts of roses are planted. (photo taken from the bus, of course)
John Kuzma Garden
As soon as I saw this garden, I again wanted to tear up all of my grass (as is usual when I see a gravel garden). One of the main thing that stops me is that we cannot get decomposed granite or even washed gravel. The only gravel around here is full of “fines” and is not the proper sort for building a garden like this (as far as I know).
As we arrived, it began to rain.
Now…walking around the side of the house:
And into the truly enormous back garden:
And now into the upper level of the back garden:
I had to get back out for more photos.
Soon it seemed I was the only one who had stayed out in the garden.
When I heard thunder and saw dramatic forked lightning strike on the other side of the house, I decided I had better get inside!
I found the bloggers clustered on the back porch, donning garbage bags as rain gear. One of the organizers had thought to bring them after seeing the forecast of thunderstorms.
Along with several other people, I went into the house to eat.

view from the kitchen window; you can see one side of the upper back garden does not have stairs to enter.

In the house, garden designer Sean Hogan’s plant encyclopedia (Allan’s photo)
During lunch, the contigent of California bloggers were talking about Instagram and one of them gave me a quick tutorial. I had it on my phone but had only used it once and had not realized it had become such a big thing.
Then the bloggers fanned out into the garden to take photos, rain or no rain. (It had almost stopped.)
Allan joined the other bloggers for a post-rain tour of the garden; photos below are all his:
This is the sort of garden where I have no clue what most of the plants are.
If I were twenty years younger…I might dig up every scrap of sod at home and find a way to get the right sort of gravel. Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden is one of my favourite books. I had no lawn at my old garden and liked it, but even better I like the way the paths, courtyards, and plantings are as one in a garden like this.
I think that Robert Nold of The Miserable Gardener would love this one.
Next: Floramagoria, a garden which I have heard is rarely open for tours.
Just about when I despaired of EVER learning the names of plants, YOU (of all people) said you didn’t know them all! You’ll never know what a lift that was for me! (I was “liking” that row of about 4 white blooms – wondering what they were….when I read your words.) PLEASE don’t go to Instagram entirely! I simply cannot add another social media to my repertoire.
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I just dabble in Instagram. I think the white flowers were yucca. The whole cacti succulent agave yucca theme is beautiful to me but most of it does not translate well to my damp garden.
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The rains didn’t dampen the experience of seeing this fab garden :))
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What’s your name on Instagram? I don’t post photos, but I do follow people there. I didn’t realize till I saw the pictures of the crevice garden, that this is a garden that Loree has blogged about a couple of times. I knew almost nothing about any of the plants that I saw when I went to my first Fling, the one in Seattle. It wasn’t long after we had moved here, and I had a lot to learn.
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tanglycottagegardening on Instagram.
I’ll have to search out Loree’s blog posts on this garden.
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I think the gals in the trash-bag raincoats are super cute. How nice that he let you all eat indoors since there isn’t much covered space outdoors. You got some great views of this exciting, zone-defying garden.
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Thank you! He was a very gracious host.
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