Portland: Ernst/Fuller gardens (part 2)

Yesterday I looked at the Fuller half of this neighboring garden pair -- today I'll look at the Ernst half. If you remember, I left off last post at the door separating the two back yards.

Here I start by viewing that door from the other side, looking back somewhat into Joanne's garden that I just left. Linda's backyard space seemed much brighter if I remember correctly -- it's amazing how one big tree in the right (wrong?) spot can change a garden from shady to sunny (or is it the other way around?)

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Portland: Ernst/Fuller gardens

Sunday on last month's Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland started with a visit to two neighboring gardens that actually connect -- each garden has its own personality, but each spills into the other a bit. These are the gardens of friends and neighbors Joanne Fuller and Linda Ernst.

As the bus emptied, most people went for the garden on the right (Linda's), so I went toward the other (Joanne's). An overcast morning made the shady front yard extra dark, but I managed to capture many of the great details: furniture, sculpture, pottery -- so much to take in!

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Portland: Danger!

It's been a month already since our trip to Portland for the Garden Bloggers Fling, and I'm only about halfway finished showing you the gardens we saw. Today I continue with Saturday, a day when I wasn't with the rest of the Fling group but still ended up seeing a few of the sights that were on the itinerary: rose test garden, Japanese garden, and today's topic: Danger Garden.

When I started blogging over four years ago there were a handful of garden blogs that I found and started following: Loree's Danger Garden was one of them. Over the years I had seen hundreds of photos of her garden, and I felt like I knew "everything" about it -- and now I was finally getting a chance to see it in person! 

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Thankful for the rain, but...

After what I believe to be about 3/4" (2 cm) rain total over the past two months or so, we finally got a good soaking here in the St. Louis area yesterday. I'm so thankful for the rain...

...but it's not all good news. Heavy downpours and upright ornamental grasses, well, they just don't go together. I had been enjoying the picturesque verticality of my grasses up until yesterday, and now that's gone.

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Portland: Japanese Garden (part 2)

My look at the Portland Japanese Garden continues. Part 1 was yesterday, where I mixed wide shots with macro.

More of the same today - hope you don't mind the lack of textual narrative.

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Portland: Japanese Garden (part 1)

Last month during the Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland, I excused myself from the planned tour for the day (Saturday) and spent the time sightseeing with my wife instead. It turns out that we went to a few of the same places where the bloggers would be touring, but as we had no schedule we could stroll at our own pace.

Saturday morning we headed to the Portland Japanese Garden, and since I took so many photos there, I'm breaking them up into two posts. In addition I've spent a lot of time trying to find the narrative for this post but I don't know that there's much to be said, so after a brief intro I'll let the photos do the talking.

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Smile!

In spring 2013 I went to the native plant sale at Shaw Nature Reserve, the wild sibling of the Missouri Botanical Garden. (I've posted about this place before) I bought several plants, some that never got planted, some that are enjoyed by deer, and a few that have been integrated into the garden.

One of them that at first was in the "eaten by deer" category but has seemingly moved into the integrated group is Berlandiera texana or "Texas green eyes" (syn. Berlandiera betonicifolia). Imagine my delight the other morning when I saw one of the blooms literally smiling up at me!

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Cup plant

A few days ago, the cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) that is next to the pond really started standing out.

Some might say that this plant has been a standout since June, when my garden was part of the Sustainable Backyard Tour and several visitors commented on how huge my cup plant was.

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Some walkway love

A few days ago I showed you the front walkway, pointing out how difficult it was becoming to navigate, primarily because of the red whisker clammyweed (Polanisia dodecandra) that is getting leggy and leaning out, taking more space than it should.

Uncharacteristically for the middle of summer, I actually did something about this already. Cool summers give me energy! (Although much of that is spent watering...)

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