Renee Moog's garden, an HPSO open garden

For this garden visit we're time traveling all the way back to last August 17th. There were a few Hardy Plant Society of Oregon open gardens that day. I already wrote about the first one I visited, Jeanne DeBenedetti Keyes' garden, but somehow I never got around to posting photos of Renee Moog's garden. So today is the day!

I started my walk around the garden right here by the front door to Renee's home.

The wire trellis, vine, and ceramic birds were a great introduction to the creative garden I would be touring.

Purple ruffles basil and nasturtium make a great combo in the edible garden. 

Goji berries, I believe.

From the garden description: "Renee likes to tell people she has a 2-bedroom house and a 12-bedroom yard! A ½ acre stand of western red cedar directly behind her property serves as “borrowed landscape” to a heavily planted 1/3 acre. Large scale artistic installations include a 4’ stacked stone sphere fountain, a 50’ long bottle fence, oversized birds nests made with kiwi vine and a 15’ natural wooden arch. Native plants share the stage with a colorful array of perennials, over 30 kinds of interesting small fruit like medlar, paw paw and goji berries and a growing collection of shade loving ferns, rodgersia and mayapples. Whimsical garden art, large ceramic pots and found object sculptures are scattered throughout. Foragers will find something to tickle their tastebuds from wasabi to cornelian cherries; the plant lover will find treasures from hardy orchids to a bog full of sarracenia, the bird lover may catch a glimpse of a heron on its way to nearby Johnson Creek and the permaculturist will appreciate the use of natural materials throughout."

Into the back garden...

Bottles are used extensively throughout this garden.

And the mulch is full of interesting bits...

Steps up to the deck off the back of the home.

And that 4' stacked stone sphere fountain mentioned in the description. I immediately fell head over heals in love with this...

So simple, so perfect.

A video so you can see just how wonderful it was...

More bottles! This is part of the 50' long bottle fence...

Everything's better with grapes.

A bottle patio in front of the garden shed.

A work in progress.

There were interesting plants throughout the garden, I had to keep reminding myself to photograph them too (not just the creative building projects).

On the right, Asplenium scolopendrium (hart's-tongue fern)? 

If so it looks better than any I've seen before.

The garden description notes: "Last year a crew installed an integrated drainage & irrigation system which includes a French drain and percolation pond for the overflow of a 3,000 gallon water tank feeding a timed drip irrigation for the veggie beds."

On the right is a rebar dome shelter covered with hardy kiwi, I wanted to take close-up photos but there was a group enjoying the space (with wine, crackers and cheese) and I didn't want to invade their privacy.

Along the side of the property was a box car with these treasures leaning against it. I wonder what was inside! 

Thanks for opening your fabulous garden Renee!

The Bit at the End

Need more garden fabulousness? A link to another dreamy garden, on a Gardenista post: Garden Visit: A Wooded Wonderland in Western Hills Garden

—   —   —

To receive alerts of new danger garden posts by email, subscribe here. Please note: these are sent from a third party, their annoying ads are beyond my control. 

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

Moss: rare, common, and despised

This tale of moss starts at Terra Sol Garden Center in Santa Barbara (a stop on our drive back home after a stay in Thousand Oaks, CA), and has nothing to do with moss, at least to begin with.

Monkey tail cactus! (Cleistocactus colademononis, I believe)

I don't know exactly why I find this sign so humorous, but I do. Do they think a cartoon monkey is going to help sell an expensive plant?

They have ferns!

If I hadn't already picked up a Blechnum gibbum 'Silver Lady' earlier in our trip I would have definitely grabbed one here.

Platycerium superbum, $49

This! Some sort of large Epiphyllum. Guess how much. Seriously, guess. Bet you were wrong.

What!?!

Okay so now I've discovered the moss, very unexpected. Maybe even rare, in these parts.

Buy it by the square inch for .50 cents, or by the square foot for $56. If you really want to get carried away you can get 5 square feet for $279, but I wonder where they're keeping those larger quantities because they aren't here...

Carpet moss? I didn't take a photo with an easily read label.

A few weeks later and a stop at the Oregon Flower Growers Association where there was a selection of moss on offer. A flat here (approximately 1ft x 2 ft) was going for $16.50. Moss isn't so rare up here in the Portland area.

Back at home I was thinking about those moss prices as I did my annual spring clean-out of the rock-moat around the patio, and spent far too long staring at the nearby moss.

I'm lucky that I don't have to pay .50 cents an square inch for this!

On the other hand, we did just pay a local company a large sum of money (as in a few hundred dollars) to spray the moss on our roof, so that our new homeowners insurance wouldn't cancel our coverage. 

I find it rather ironic that I rescue moss when it falls from trees in the neighborhood (and bring it home) and I cultivate it in my own garden, and yet we were paying someone to kill it.

As you might have guessed I was VERY concerned they'd end up killing not just the roof moss, but moss around the garden and other plants too (a bleach mixture that kills moss but doesn't hurt your plants... that just doesn't seem possible).

Thankfully the damage was extremely minimal and I can still count my moss fortune one .50 cent square inch at a time.

I'm rich!

The Bit at the End

Lots of moss in the adorable hummingbird nests in this blog post from David Perry: A Few Small Birdy Updates.

—   —   —

To receive alerts of new danger garden posts by email, subscribe here. Please note: these are sent from a third party, their annoying ads are beyond my control. 

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