The Garden in late January

December felt warm, January not so much. It's been wonderfully sunny since our return from California, but cool and rather windy—the wind makes temperatures in the 40's painful. I was finally able to get out in the garden last Saturday, which is when I took these photos. The high that day was only 46F, but the extreme wind had ceased and so it felt warmer, at least that's what I told myself. 

I took this first photo for long time reader Chavli. Back when I posted the September, October, November vignette she asked for a December photo to complete the series. I missed December, but I like how the January photo shows the shade pavilion greenhouse glowing.

We ended 2025 without a freeze, no freeze in November or December. Last week it finally happened, temperatures in the mid 20's overnight, with Saturday night being the most extreme. We fell below freezing around 10:30 pm and remained below until 10:30 am on Sunday with an ultimate low at the airport (our official recording station) of 22F. I'd read forecasts of 27 and thus didn't do anything to provide heat to the shade pavilion greenhouse, thankfully it didn't drop below 28 in there (the sun heated things up and the doors were closed, retaining the heat). 

The shot above shows the potted aeoniums near the door in the SPG. They'd endured a few brief overnight dips to 25F left out in the driveway, but I finally decided to show some mercy and moved them before things got really extreme They'd been out far longer than I thought I'd get away with, so no sense losing them now. I'll move them back here once things moderate, it looks so empty without them (I wrote about the aeonium display here).

There is one test aeonium in the ground, I managed to leave this Aeonium 'Lily Pad' planted out by accident. It has a sort of shiny, too much like jelly, look to the leaves, I think it might be a goner.

Some of you asked about the moss Christmas tree, there it is, doing fine outdoors. I have poured water over it a couple of times, since we've been so dry here this month. 

The dry has definitely helped borderline succulents survive the cold. I forget which Mangave this is, but it's doing just fine.

Ditto for these two hanging on the front of the garage. It's worth noting that even with the recent low temperatures we're still running the warmest winter on record here in Portland.

The front garden, on the 24th of January.

Agave parryi ssp. huachucensis 'Excelsior'

Blooms of Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Nanjing Gold'.

The Semponiums continue to power through. These photos were all taken before Saturday night's cold, but they look the same now. S. ‘Sienna’...

Semponium 'Diamond'

Semponium 'Destiny'

Here's one of the Dasylirion wheeleri along the house sidewalk and the containers that I've left out there through the winter. Soaking up the sun.

The Euphorbia rigida blooms are starting to open.

Note to self: you really need to add some soil to this large terracotta container. It's down several inches at this point.

The Trachelospermum (ground cover vine) colors up so nicely in the cool months. I wish I could remember which one this is.

Arctostaphylos 'Monica' on the left, A.  x ‘Austin Griffiths' on the right.

A very dry (and thus starting to curl) Cheilanthes tomentosa with an Agave "Mateo'.

I think this is the only agave damage I have to share thus far this winter. It's a NOID plant that I've always thought might be A. 'Baccarat'. The black leaves probably have more to do with a car door than they do winter rain or temps.

I left all the small Agave victoriae-reginae in the ground, and they're all doing fine. Here's one in the front garden...

Back garden...

A view across the empty patio. The shade angles are extreme this time of year.

The covered, containerized, plants.

The ferny bits.

Palms and the orange wall... I love them both very much.

The shade pavilion greenhouse.

A sad looking Pyrrosia hastata, those fronds curl with the slightest cold.

The dish-planted Pyrrosia are doing fine with the cold, even though they have very little soil around their roots. Many experts say Pyrrosia are hardier when grown as epiphytes. I've got a few such experiments running around the garden, but should extreme cold hit I'll definitely pull these three in, they're too special to allow to perish.

Pyrrosia sheareri

Pyrrosia sp. SEH#15113

Pyrrosia sp. SEH#12547

Here's another of the experiments (they keep me engaged and sane), Pyrrosia lingua with its root mass wrapped in a little landscape fabric and moss, tucked in at the base of the Metapanax delavayi.

Truth be told I hauled out the hose (old habits die hard, growing up in Spokane where it gets COLD over the winter, I learned to disconnect my hoses, drain them, and put them away for the winter) and watered a few things, like this, which had gotten really dry over the last 16+ days with no rain. You can tell when a Pyrrosia is too dry, its leaves lose all luster and they look and feel limp. 

Another Pyrrosia experiment, this one tucked into the Albizia julibrissin 'Summer Chocolate' .

One of my late season plant purchases, Rhododendron yuanbaoshanense.

And here's a recent score that I'm very excited about. In the springtime I'm left juggling plants that need to be planted out, things still in their nursery pots. There's no great place for me to stash them where they can get light and water, but they're not in my way. The driveway crop tanks are great for corralling them short term, but then I can't plant up the tanks with early spring crops. THIS will help me with that...

A small local nursery (Birds & Bees) is going out of business and I found this rolling rack there. It's a little taller than what I was looking for, but it's got all sorts of vintage charm, the shelves are already drilled for drainage and the castors are beefy.

Patina!

Look at all that storage space! My springtime shuffle suddenly got a whole lot less stressful.

The Bit at the End

Perhaps you've heard of aphantasia? People with this neurological variation are unable to "voluntarily visualize mental images." If someone with aphantasia tries to picture a tomato, or sunny beach, they wouldn't see a picture. It's not a disorder or something that can be fixed, it's just how the brains of a small percentage (1-4%) of the population work. Anne Wareham, who writes for Garden Rant recently shared that she has the condition, read her story here: What If You Can’t Picture a Garden? Gardening With Aphantasia.

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All material © 2009-2026 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Thoughts on blogging, gardening, travel and the state of things (not necessarily in that order)

My blog posts tend to be photo-driven. Plants, gardens, nurseries, horticultural events. I cover them all—and with a lot of photos. My plant passion and the desire to share that enthusiasm runs deep. That's why I'm here, perhaps why you're here too?

Sometimes though, I need to write more. To set down on "paper" what's on my mind, often related to the topics in the title; blogging, gardening, travel and the state of things. Adding The Bit at the End to my posts has helped, it's been an outlet for some of those thoughts. I've also got a running Word document for that. It's not a journal, but I suppose it acts like one, at least a little. Sometimes the words I spill there make it into one of my photo-heavy posts, but mostly not. Just the act of writing them is all I need to do. Sharing them with the world not needed. Usually.

As I wrote when I introduced the idea for The Bit at the End, I miss the connection to the larger gardening community, bonds that were broken when so many folks (understandably) left Facebook and Instagram—when those platforms revealed what they were really about, which wasn't connecting us. Instead they drove the wedge in, further dividing us. 

During our very long drive home from Southern California we listened to podcasts. We have a rule in our family, the person driving gets to decide what we listen to, that's how I ended up spending miles and miles and miles listening to a couple of tech bros interviewing (fawning over) Elon Musk. I am so rooted in my gardening-life bubble that to listen to the two hour (I think that's what it was?) babble of AI wonder and praise of Mr. Musk's "genius" was like a speed dating education in a completely foreign way of being in the world. I watched the natural world go by out the window, while I listened to people who had probably never grown a plant get giddy about the size of chips, and data centers and robots. It was nauseating. 

Maybe that's why when I was finally home, online, and ready to review my blog post scheduled to go live the next morning... but *BAM* instead was met with a bright white screen telling me that my current browser could not run Blogger (the platform I use for blogging, and the same browser I've used for some 10 or so years)—and thus denying me access to my blog—I wasn't surprised. I mean why should my little bit of the digital world be allowed to go on when it's no longer of service to the greater AI gods? They've scraped my content already, I'm of no further use. 

Yes I'm being a little dramatic, but when "masked, militarized government agents are sent to politically noncompliant areas to roam the streets, terrorize civilians, and deploy violence with impunity" (quoting Pete Buttigieg) why should I care if my little gardening blog continues to function? Or think it matters? (and where the heck are the members of Congress, those who have the power to put a stop to this insanity?)

I went to sleep that night and when I got up the next morning things were working again, here on the blog. I was glad. Over the last (almost) 17 years this blog has become a huge part of who I am, of what I do. Without my blog as a creative outlet how would I define myself?

While Andrew and I were walking through the Santa Cruz Arboretum we talked about how there are people who need to experience things with another person, to share the moment, for the moment to matter. I said that I didn't necessarily need that. I like to walk gardens on my own. He pointed out that while I was enjoying a garden on my own, I was also photographing with the purpose of sharing the experience with my blog readers, not just enjoying the moment for myself. Yes, the man did have a point.

I have a friend who occasionally referred to my work on here the blog (and on Instagram), as "just sharing pretty pictures." It was said in jest, but frequently enough that I started to wonder if maybe there was a little subtext to that statement. 

Just pretty pictures. Is that all there is? No.

In my years of blogging I've shared countless photos of my garden, other people's gardens, public gardens, plants and nurseries. Many of them have been pretty, but many of them have not—as we all know, gardening is not always pretty.

My work as danger garden has always been—first and foremost—to document, to tell stories. In the process I hope to inspire, and to help build community. I may even educate a bit, but I am only an expert on one thing, my garden. I have not ever claimed to be an expert on anything other than that. 

I am not trained in any field relating to horticulture, I'm an interior design school drop-out who discovered plants and gardening as a way to explore my love of nature, creativity and design. Through my social media plantforms (ha! I really did just type that, accidently), through my social media platforms I've met so many people working in horticulture, and more often than not I've been accepted as one of them, something I appreciate greatly. 

I love being surrounded by plant people and have always tried to use social media for good. However, since I am not affiliated with any organization, I don’t have to care if what I say may offend. Am I afraid to say anything? No. Am I holding back? Well, only in that I do subscribe to the idea that if you can't say something nice, well, maybe it's better to not say anything at all. I think that comes through in what you don't see. I don't take photos of things I don't like. The gardens I profile, you may not always recognize them in real life. Why would I want to take photos and share them if the subject was something I find unappealing? What point does it serve for me to visit a private garden and talk about what I don't like? (more on that in another post, on another day)

And what's wrong with pretty pictures anyway? 

I recently registered to attend the Buffalo Garden Fling, which will take place this July—this will be my tenth Fling. The first was Seattle in 2011, since then I've "flung" in San Francisco, Portland (okay that one was a lot of work!), Toronto, the Capital Region, Austin, Denver, the Philly area, and Puget Sound. I look forward to learning what gardeners in Buffalo, NY, are up to. Garden travel is great fun, as well as being educational and with the Fling, very social. People and plants... people growing plants, people appreciating plants. It's a good thing, it might just be the only thing giving me hope these days.

Oh and guess what, I just wrote a long post without a single pretty photo. Don't worry, I won't make a habit of it.

The Bit at the End
With a nod to my mention of tech bros I thought I'd share a story from the BBC about a surprise gaming hit, Grow a Garden. From the story: "If people discover they love virtual gardening, might they be encouraged to take up the real thing? Andrew K. Przybylski, a professor of human behaviour and technology at the University of Oxford, said it was possible the game could "plant a seed" that could lead to a passion for plants. But, overall, he's sceptical. "It is unlikely that a game like this will encourage real world gardening any more than Super Mario Wonder encourages plumbing," he told the BBC."

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All material © 2009-2026 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Tour of my 2025 Garden, Part Two

On Wednesday we time traveled back to early September for a walk around the front garden, today we'll take a look at the back. These annual tours are a great tool to track changes and check my memory. If you don't do something similar with your own garden, I highly suggest starting.

Walking through the agave-gate this is the scene that greets you, we're looking roughly northwest.

Now I've walked over to where the chair is in the above photo and we're looking southwest. We'll tour the upper garden first, then step down to the patio level and finally take a look around the shade pavilion and south fence. There are 51 photos to scroll through, it's gonna be a long one...

The basket of bromeliads ended up acting as a wayfinding device in these first few images. 

It was a impulse addition during the summer of '24, I ended up liking it so much it returned for summer '25. I suspect many visitors to the garden think it's rather odd... but since I'm not gardening for them I don't care.

The cement-fiber bowl filled with water attracted so many different birds, sometimes they were lined up waiting their turn. The raccoons visited at night, and quickly made a mess of any floating plants I tried to grow in there. 

Turning clockwise and looking northeast... the chocolate mimosa (Albizia julibrissin 'Summer Chocolate') was cut back hard in late August due to a gross insect infestation (covered here), but I managed to hide the ugly chop by aiming this photo low. 

I'd remove it altogether, but it's where two of my staghorn ferns hang. I'd miss them if the tree was gone. I mean I'd miss the tree too, with that fabulous dark foliage, but I think I appreciate it's strong arms most of all.

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time you've probably figured out that plants hanging from other plants is a major part of my garden style, at least in the back garden. I love that it creates a feeling of immersion—the plants surround you. This one is an Aglaomorpha coronans (aka Drynaria coronans). And yep, there are Pyrrosia linqua and Asplenium trichomanes tucked into the palm's trunk.

Looking south now, at the side of our garage. The entrance to the back garden is on the left. Here you see a deep-dive into hanging plants, I count six of them hanging in the Schefflera delavayi and Metapanax delavayi. Plus there are several tillandsia in the mix and a large Pyrrosia lingua tucked low in the Metapanax trunk.

On the other side of the Metapanax delavayi are a couple of metal trellises, they were put in place for a Clematis tibetana var. vernayi but that's long gone. Now the trellis are covered with Orchids, Bromeliads, and Nepenthes over the warm months.

Dish planters with different Pyrrosia. Clockwise from the back; P. sheareri, P. sp. SEH#15113 and P. sp. SEH#12547 (the last two are Steve Hootman collections purchased at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden).

More Pyrrosia on the side of the garage, P. lingua and P. lingua 'Ogon Nishiki'.

Moving past the end of the garage you get a view over to the shade pavilion, but we aren't going over there quite yet.

Instead we're turning back to take the steps down to the patio, and looking at the planting area to the right of the steps... and that bromeliad basket again!

Another view.

A close up of the raised fern plantings and a few mossy (deteriorating) logs. The ferny fern shape is a Dryopteris cycadina.

Looking right (northwest) down to the patio. 

And left (southwest)...

Down on the patio level now.

I tried something different last year with a hunk of wood (a large cutting board we didn't have room for inside the house) and various members of the bromeliad family.

It was fun, but I don't think I'll repeat it.

Turning towards the north and a table top planting on a stock tank base, a tank which was once a filled with water and aquatic plants. This planting I adore! On the patio in front if it are various containers and a short table which was new this year, made from a galvanized drum base and a steel top picked up at a metal salvage yard.

Wider view...

Looking due east, the tall Yucca rostrata (Sammy, to those of you keeping track) is our oldest, we bought it back in 2008.

A sunny moment on the wall that edges the patio.

If you look at the trunk of the Yucca rostrata and then to the bright spot behind it, to the right, that's the entrance to the back garden.

Turning to look at the north end of the patio and the fence that borders that area.

This vignette is visible in the photo above, it's to the left of the Nolina 'La Siberica', the floppy, strappy leaved plant at lower center. 

In the spring a trio of Acanthus syriacus—with their super spiky leaves—emerge here, but as summer wears on they flop and turn yellow. I need to move them, they deserve better. A garden tour group came through after the acanthus had disappeared (gone dormant), I plopped a planter and two plant-filled pipes in to fill the empty space. I liked it so much I might just make it a permanent feature.

The container grouping at the northwest corner of the patio.

Moving to the south.

Looking up at the Tetrapanax papyrifer leaves in the sky, that trunk in the above photo is where the plant starts.

Working our way towards the shade pavilion. This is the southwest corner of the patio.

I moved the vintage concrete chimney piece (purchased at a salvage shop back in 2024) down to the patio and really like it here, it anchors the side of the step.

Working on this post now, in January, has my heart skipping a beat every now and then when I page down and see a photo that has me remembering how much I love my garden, and how different it looks right now. This photo makes me so happy...

This one even more. I love that the shade pavilion protects my container plants in the winter (see the transition here), but this is the view I live for...

Plants, plants, and more plants!

Looking southeast, at the back of the garage.

The container grouping on the east side of the step.

Looking up at the back of the garage, from the patio.

You saw this same photo earlier, while touring the upper garden, but I thought I'd insert it here, to help orient where we're headed next. Following that pathway between the green...

... we end up here, behind the garage.

Looking up towards the fence (which borders the south side of our property).

Ferns in the chartreuse Leo planter, I left these right there on the wall until we hit 29F with crazy strong wind just a few days nights ago. Now they're in the shade pavilion greenhouse until things calm down. The other plants on the wall went indoors late last fall.

Looking west along the wall.

And back down at the patio.

And back at the fence and shade pavilion.

Phlebodium aureum

It feels like I'm getting repetitive, but I'm trying to hit all the angles.

Back towards the upper back garden, looking northeast.

And the last photo, down at the patio and the stock tanks full of bamboo that hide the fence at the back (west end) of the garden. That's it for the 2025 garden!

The Bit at the End

Last August I did a 20-year "then and now" look at the garden to mark our 20th anniversary at this address (2005 to 2025). Since I've done an annual garden tour post most years I thought it would be fun to link to the 2015 version of the garden. A half way point between the beginning in 2005 and the now. Here's the link to the tour of the front garden, I am shocked at how much gravel was visible, the juniper has gone crazy in the last 10 years. Then to the back garden which is still so open to the sky! I craved enclosure, and now I've got it. I wish the lawn still looked as good as it did back then.

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All material © 2009-2026 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.