An Evolving Urban Garden in Seattle
Choosing a designer for our new front garden in Seattle was an easy task. I had been working with Richard Hartlage, then director of the Miller Botani…
Plants: Trees and Shrubs
Arctostaphylos for Pacific Northwest Gardens
We have been cultivating a wide variety of shrubby manzanitas at our nursery in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and have been delighted to see them capt…
The Araucaria Family: Past & Present
The ancient araucaria family (Araucariaceae) contains three genera (Araucaria, Agathis, and Wollemia) and forty-one species of cone-bearing trees nati…
Guerrillas in the Fog
"Guerrilla gardening” often involves a political action or public statement regarding land rights, land reform, or environmentalism. A recent guerr…
California Garden: Centennial Compilation, 1909-2009
California Garden magazine has educated and entertained garden lovers since 1909, making it the oldest, continuously running, horticultural magazine in the United States. The San…
The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest
In my career as executive director of the Bloedel Reserve, I had a number of opportunities to present programs about Northwest plant collectors, including Archibald…
Casa Dos Rios Gardens: Mainly for Wildlife
Our gardens, near Gilroy, California, were designed by Michael Thilgen of Four Dimensions Landscaping in Oakland, California. The concept was a semifo…
The Rose
A massive book, with a simple, all-encompassing title like The Rose, brings with it complex expectations, associations, and inevitable comparisons. Every year numerous books on…
Orchard Trees of Rancho Los Cerritos: Macadamia
Landscape architect Ralph Cornell added macadamias to the primary orchard at Llewellyn and Avis Bixby’s Rancho Los Cerritos estate, in Long Beach, C…