Feverfew Forest

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Merridee

Feverfew is one of my favorite flowers. It is a comfort flower for me — reminding me of my childhood. My mom always planted it on the northside of the Loveland house outside my bedroom window. It has a very distinct smell — some people think it is gross but I like it. Plus it is cute and cheerful. When I started planning my first real yard in Portland at the rex Hamilton I searched everywhere for starts or seeds and couldn’t find it anywhere. Finally Mom brought me some she had saved from the Loveland house. It didn’t take long for things to get out of control.

Then when I moved to this house I somehow managed not to bring any feverfew plants with me and I felt like I was in the same mess. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) because of its tendency to spread seed like crazy, some plants came up in one of my pots. And next thing I knew it was everywhere — which in my first year garden I didn’t mind. This year, things are starting to look a little more established and the feverfew started to go bananas! Coupled with the chamomile that came up from seed from a plant Kaitlyn had put in one of my pots I have little white flowers with yellow centers everywhere!

The herb bed is overflowing in huge feverfew and chamomile.

The purple and red looks cute with all of the white little daisy flowers

The rest of the yard is looking lovely too. The Garden has been in for a month and so far, so good. Should be getting radishes soon.

The peppers are looking a little washed out but the beets, 2 tomatoes, carrots and eggplant are doing well.

Radishes and 3 tomatoes

Potatoes are still going crazy

squash, beans, arugula and onions. Pole bed with winter squash and cucs is looking a little washed out too. Needs nitrogen.

Bonus shoots of steps and Lily.

This little project is ending up really cute

Lily loving the sun

Feeling Tropical

Posted on October 19, 2013 by Merridee

I have never been much a fruit person. True, I am super whorey for blueberries and figs (hence the 2 fig trees and 4 blueberry bushes I promptly planted in the yard) and I like cherries and plums (again, note my fruit tree choices). The best thing about the Pacific Northwest is the berries and I used to go buy mixed berry flats at the farmers market and gobble them up until bad things happened to my bum (totally worth it!) But apples, oranges get a shrug from me. Apricots and peaches are hairy and kiwi fuzz makes my tongue itch. Pineapple is fine but I don’t go out of my way or ever think about buying it, even when it is pre-cut. Basically, at pot-lucks, buffets, the fruit tray gets a pass from me.

But last spring when I was scouring Portland Nursery for fun plants to buy, I did throw in a pineapple sage, mostly because the plant looked exceptionally healthy and it was kind of different. I brought it home and planted it and basically forgot about it. I only remembered it when I was ripping out the endless clover and accidentally pulled up a branch with a bunch on roots on the end and wondered what it was — it smelled crazy good. I rooted around for the tag and discovered that this lush, huge plant was that pineapple sage. So this was back in August, and we all remember August (or we are trying not to). Since then I occasionally thought I should do something fun with the aromatic delight — put it in mango salsa for fish tacos or have a party and make majitos. But I don’t usually do majitos and mangos are really the most annoying fruit (except for maybe pomegranates — and there you have to deal with the seeds and even then, they aren’t proportionally delicious.) Even so, the plant was now on my radar and I am very pleased with it.

Then suddenly last week, when everything else in the yard is making its ways toward being finished for the year, this sage decided it was getting ready to bloom. And then it did — in red! It has sprays of little red trumpet flowers all over it and has been attracting hummingbirds and my smiles!

Not the best picture, but the pineapple sage really does look striking with asters.

Another Side Project

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Merridee

I actually finished this project a few weeks ago, but I have been so crazy busy and distracted I didn’t take pictures so I could blog about it. My very good friend and Editorial Page Editor John Laird is retiring so The Columbian needed to fill his position. The Sports Editor Greg Jayne ended up getting promoted to the job and then my boss Micah Rice was promoted to Sports Editor. That left the copy desk without a fearless leader. So as assistant news editor, it made sense for me to try for it. And I got it. I am now, or will be at the end of this month when everyone shifts around, the News Editor at The Columbian. So far it is being really stressful and one of the first things on my to-do list is to fill our vacant position. I am excited for the challenge but also nervous. So we’ll see. The next few months are going to be insane!

Anyway, this project was pretty easy to throw together — just laid down some more of that leftover mulch that I removed when redoing the front patio and artfully arrange some of my pots. Planted a few extra things in said pots and done. But I love how it looks. And it is a good place to have some of my more heat-sensitive herbs — parsley, cilantro, sorrel — so they don’t bolt as fast.

Looks super cute. On the other side of the walk, the blueberries are doing great. And the chamomile and callengula are filling out. I also threw some sunflower seeds that Eric Murray got in a wedding invitation last year in the ground and was surprised, not only that they came up, but that they are doing great.

And now that things are looking so cute back here, I have been trying to take time to enjoy it. So after a long weekend of weeding, I fired up the grill and cooked dinner.

A rib-eye steak and zucchini from the garden

Steak, grilled zucchini and a arugula, blueberry and corn salad. (arugula and some of the blueberries are from my garden.) Holy crap it was delicious!

And as an added bonus, here is one of my more-awesome day lilies, that I snap a pic of today.

Super cute orange day lily. Have I mentioned that I love orange?

The Lovely Spring

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Merridee

The weather over the last few weeks has been fantastic! Lots of sun, some nice rain and generally the kind of conditions that make living in the Pacific Northwest awesome!

With all of the foundational work done and initial plants in the ground and going about their happy little business, I didn’t have a ton to do other than supervise and fill in a few holes when I stumbled across a good deal on something I thought would be cute.

The shasta daisies and yarrow surround the pulm tree at the front of the side yard bed

Lots of color and cute

Poppies, feverfew and snap dragons along the front porch

Monarda, yarrow, day lilies, and poppies

The basils and fennel are doing well

I discovered that monarda is one of my new favorites. This pink one in the herb bed is so cute with the lavender and salvia.

Glad things are looking so cute and going so well. It is becoming a lovely little retreat, which is good because things at work are about to get super crazy!

Stewing Over the Herb Garden

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Merridee

When I came up with my master plan for the herb garden, I wanted everything in that bed to be either edible (but not vegetables) or flowers that had a medicinal uses — basically not just another flower garden. I was hoping to plant all kinds of herby things that I had never grown before. Part of my inspiration for this was from one of my former tenants — Kaitlyn, who was really into herbs and making tinctures, etc. When we lived together she was volunteering at a farm garden and was always bringing home stuff I had never heard of. So I thought it would cool to start growing some of these things too.

Off to the happiest place in the world — Portland Nursery — I went with a shopping list of the fun I wanted to get. Of course they had all of the basics — basil (6 kinds), sage (4 kinds), oregano, thyme, blueberries (4 kinds!), strawberries, lavender, mondara, etc. But I wanted new things too. However when I started browsing around, they didn’t really have anything that I would consider special. Sad. So I came home and started planting away, including all of the herby things I had brought with me.

I plopped my bounty in the ground but things looked pretty bare.

The blueberries are between the long walk and the patio, with chamomile and callengula. Transplanted a chive, but still not enough to fill things out. So the compromises began, starting with a trellis of morning glory that can up from seed.

I moved some lilies from a pot and put in some more monarda and Hyssop (from Kaitlyn). The pots will have herbs that are notorious for getting overgrown — lemon balm, oregano, mints.

After planting everything I had on hand, I was frustrated and didn’t want to run all over town finding plants that fit the plan. So it has kind of become a free-for-all. But it is finally looking less sparse. I think this will be a work in progress bed and I will move the plants out to other places when I find things that are more inline with the original goal.

It will do for now. Doesn’t look terrible and I know that things will grow.

The Overall[s] Adventure

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