Gardening in the PNW with lots of shade: we mostly love living among the trees. We recognize the importance of preserving and restoring our diminishing urban canopy. But trying to grow colorful flowers, fruits or vegetables under trees can be a challenge. And increasing urbanization brings taller buildings and more shade at ground level. This blog post will help illuminate the types of shade you may be dealing with, discuss other design considerations, and offer sample shade garden designs and plant lists.
For many of us, the choice of which tomatoes to grow can be daunting. We've boiled down the tomato decision process into a few helpful questions and our suggestions: a secret (tomato) sauce, if you will, of how to make the right choice for your individual tomato needs. At the end of this post are a handy infographic and a link to our tomato variety list.
Colorful spring containers celebrate the start of the gardening season and creating them is fun and easy if you know which plants to choose. Look for these great gems to create a new spring container or refresh an existing pot.
Spring gardening is in full swing and we’ve teamed up with our friends at Dunn Lumber to bring you a great DIY building and gardening project you can do at home - no backyard needed! Kirsten will teach you how to make two wooden planter boxes. I’ll help you decide what to plant in them and show you how, step by step!
One of the first activities I want to do outside in early spring is to plant my early spring vegetable garden. There’s nothing like the smooth, clean surface of prepped garden beds, the soil still pristine and just waiting to nurture rows of bright green spring vegetables, carefully planted in perfect rows. It’s like a fresh school notebook - full of promise. But what to plant? Here are a few of my favorite vegetables to plant in spring, with tips on when and how to plant them.
August is the quintessential summer month here in the Pacific Northwest. Consistently dry, sunny, and warm, but with a slight tinge of fall in the air by the second half of the month. The sun is starting to set a little earlier, but we still have pleasantly warm summer evenings to enjoy in the garden. Flowers abound and we can enjoy sizzling colors under the sun as well as find comfort in the coolness of the shade garden. Here are some of our favorite plants for August.
There are a multitude of summer flowers, but one particular shrub always wows us with beautiful, show-stopping flowers: the hydrangea. With long-lasting pink, red, white, chartreuse, blue, and violet flower colors, hydrangeas will look right at home in any garden. I would like to feature a few most often seen growing in PNW gardens.
When planting for late-summer blooms, look no further than the hardy Fuchsia. For those with mixed garden conditions - some sun, some shade, some of everything in between - hardy Fuchsias are excellent for providing a continual source of color from late June until the first frosts of late October and November.
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