Previously, I have discussed some of the effects of the very dry summer season, not only in the Pacific Northwest, but in much of the western United States. Many readers and other gardeners commented about the article. Looking around my neighborhood in the Portland area in early September, I could see many mature trees that […]
Author: Mike Darcy
Head "plant nerd" longtime speaker, host of gardening shows on radio and TV, and author of the In the Garden email newsletter. You can reach Mike, or subscribe to his newsletter, at itgmikedarcy@comcast.net
Growing a crop of new gardeners
Just over a year ago, on March 6, 2020, Plant Nerd Night was held for the 19th consecutive year with more than 500 attendees. Little did we know that the following week COVID-19 restrictions would begin, and Plant Nerd Night suddenly had the dubious distinction of being the only large in-person consumer gardening event that […]
COVID-19 brings changes to garden centers
The year 2020 probably instigated more changes in the physical way in which a garden center operates than any other year in history. COVID-19 arrived in the spring, followed by devastating forest fires in late summer and the hazardous air quality conditions that resulted. I cannot recall a year with so many disruptions. Garden centers […]
A gardener’s optimism has no limits
Resilient is a good word to describe Diana and Colby Lamb. Resilience is defined as spirit, hardiness, toughness, strength, buoyancy, and resistance. On September 8 at 12:15 a.m., there was a banging on the door of their Gates, Oregon house. It was a Marion County sheriff’s deputy telling them that there had been a recent […]
COVID-19 lessons from plant societies
In this unprecedented period of a COVID-19 pandemic, several forest fires with lingering air pollution, and a very dry summer that has stressed all our plants, garden centers have also had to make many adjustments to retain their current customer base. On top of that, they also need to attract new customers. Some garden centers […]
Up, down and all around
Sometimes popular phrases never really disappear. They go dormant, but eventually come back again. We might call them “recycled,” but I prefer “dormant” — this is a gardening column. The phrase “up, down and all around” was commonly used in garden training sessions in the 1970s and 1980s, and of course it refers to the […]
Gleams of an extended garden season
Former Portland Rose Society President Rich Baer sent me photo of a bouquet of roses that he took this past Thanksgiving. The freshly cut blooms were from his yard. I have lived in the Portland area for many years. It is not often I’ve thought of picking a bouquet of roses at the end of […]
What’s next in the world of plants
Every August, Portland plays host to the Farwest Show, which is one of the biggest nursery and greenhouse industry trade shows in the country. It is one of the events I look forward to because it provides the opportunity to see what is next in the world of plants.These are the plants that we will […]
Where gardeners turn for answers
Garden centers typically can offer their customers several advantages that big box stores can’t fully duplicate. One of these is the ability to provide customers with valid, localized information about the challenges they face. When I ask my neighbors, friends and other gardeners where they would go if they had a question about a problem […]
Attracting monarch butterflies with milkweed plants
Strange as it may seem, plants and clothes have some traits that make them parallel to one another. Clothes are fashionable. New styles appear every year, but there are always some holdovers from previous years. A parallel can be drawn here with plants. Some become more fashionable in gardens, while others fade away. A current […]