The Sheng garden, a Study Weekend stop

The next stop during last June's Study Weekend was Sherry Sheng's; a 25-year old garden on 1/3 of an acre that borders the Willamette River. It also has a rather unusual driveway...

The driveway borders were packed with plants, like these tall palms, Trachycarpus fortunei.

And a big beautiful Rosa glauca with gorgeous hips.

On the other side of the driveway a lily found support from a nearby shrub pruned up to show off it's legs.

Sadly, I paid no attention to the identity of the shrub...

Because my eyes were drawn to the agaves!

The agaves in tall containers, and the variety of blooms behind them, successfully drew my eyes away from the neighbor's RV parked next door. It was only in these still photos that I noticed it.

With these next few photos I attempted to capture one of my favorite things in this garden, a rusted metal arch over the pathway to the back garden. Because of both the sun, and the fact the arch is covered in a flowering clematis, it was nearly impossible to photograph.

Another attempt, with no people this time.

Looking up...

Up and back...

I have no idea if this was the clematis growing on the arch (we're talking about photos from 7 months ago!), but it's a beauty.

As are these Impatiens omeiana. From the Study Weekend program: "Sherry began gardening while in kindergarten. Lacking mentors, she learned by doing. After becoming an Oregon State University Master Gardener, she initiated the 10-Minute University™ program as a shortcut to research-based gardening content."

The OSU Master Gardener program is how I first met Sherry. Back in 2007 (ish?) I enrolled in the Multnomah County OSU MG program and met Sherry when she came to talk to us one afternoon. Overall the MG program was a good experience, but I ended up frustrated with how little attention the organizers paid to people working jobs with normal M-F hours, as I was at the time. Most of the volunteer opportunities (which is a big part of being a certified Master Gardener), were only available 9-5, Monday-Friday. My working within the program did not last long.

This view was from the pathway to the back garden, but also looking underneath an "L" shaped part of the home that jutted out towards the river. I've masked the faces of a few of the garden visitors out of respect for their privacy. I wonder which pattern came first, this one, or the one painted in the driveway?

Yellow for the win.

Unexpected.

And more clematis...

My first view of the river...

Sweet! I could get very used to this...

Turning to climb the steps back up to the house.

More blooms...

A bit of hardscape.

And we're back up at the house, on the other side of the photo where I masked people's faces.

Thanks for opening your garden Sherry!

The Bit at the End

I still have four gardens to write about from the 2025 Study Weekend, but I want to take this opportunity acknowledge all the hard work of the Study Weekend Committee, members of the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon. Not only were there open gardens spread over four days, but they put together a great line-up of speakers (Giacomo Guzzon, Marilee Hanks, Sean Hogan, Michael McCoy, Rebecca McMackin, and Lucie Willan), an onsite plant sale, and so much more. It was an amazing event! The next Study Weekend will be held in 2027 in Victoria BC, watch the VHS page for more information.

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

Are you going to the 2025 Northwest Flower & Garden Festival?

The Northwest Flower & Garden Festival is coming up February 18-22 at the Seattle Convention Center and I cannot wait! The show gardens—especially the smaller city living displays—are always a favorite feature, as are the plant vendors, but the show seminars might just be what I'm most excited about this year. There are over 100 of them and they're free with your ticket to the show! 

Spring Parade is the show's theme this year

I always enjoy sitting down for a while (walking those cement floors for hours on end is no joke!) and learning from the show's expert speakers. This year I'm thrilled my friend Jennifer Jewell—founder of the podcast Cultivating Place—is returning to the show. Over three days Jennifer will be chatting with garden luminaries Rochelle Greayer, Dan Hinkley, and Doug Tallamy. These conversations (about who they are, what they’ve done and what their work represents in our gardening world) will be recorded for later broadcast as part of of Cultivating Place Live.

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Jennifer about her return to Seattle, and her work on Cultivating Place—which turns 10 years old on February 6th, that’s 500 episodes! Jennifer caught me up on her latest endeavor, CP Live, and the exciting news that these stories are being made into a docuseries—Cultivating Place: The Power of Gardeners. The series will (hopefully) air on PBS beginning in the spring of 2027, the upcoming Seattle events won’t be filmed for the docuseries, but they will be recorded for a future CP podcast.

So what is CP Live? Funding grants enabled Jennifer (along with a film and audio crew) to get out and talk with different groups—not just the usual suspects who pay to hear her speak. That’s an important distinction. Instead of talking with people who come to her (or who pay her to come to them), Jennifer went to the people, to hear their stories. You can watch the film trailer here. This is a true labor love, so if you want to support this work please go to the film's website.

Jennifer is a passionate communicator who understands what it means to be a gardener. In our phone conversation she explained why she’s taken to calling gardeners keystone species, which is of course extrapolated from a keystone in architecture (that one thing that holds everything together)...

“… gardeners are a keystone species that hold together all of these lines of care across human cultures. They hold culture, they hold history, they hold the future, they hold the food, they hold the ritual, they hold all of these things and certainly right now they are a key to environmental reparation. If they are doing it well, they also hold down a sane economic future and pathway. One that is not just profit driven but is community based, whether that’s human or non-human. And so, what I set out to do in this series is give a cohort of examples of what I mean when I say gardeners, when they do it well, grow everything around them better. And if we see them and value them and support them, we then help them grow the world better, help us grow the world better. 

And so, the language is that we are a keystone species, and the greatest hope there is, is that when we as the gardeners that exist in the world, when we see ourselves that way, we value our work more and we are held accountable more, to what that work is supposed to do and at what level. And so that is the goal of the movie (and has been the mission of CP), to expand and elevate the way we think about gardening and what it accomplishes in this world.” 

Pretty heady stuff, right? She went on to identify NWFG Fest as a keystone space in our garden world; “one that disseminates information and community and connection and has for years. This is one of the two big shows that still exist in our world, so it’s important that we ask everything we can out of such a gathering of gardening humans.”

So ya, I’m excited to go to the show! Lots of information on everything about the NWFG Fest here. Check the seminar schedule before you head out (changes happen) but as of now you'll find Jennifer and her guests on stage in the Adams Room at 1:30 pm Thursday thru Sunday. On Thursday she's talking with Rochelle Greayer, Friday it's Dan Hinkley, and Doug Tallamy is Saturday's guest. On Sunday Jennifer will be joined by a panel and they'll be discussing; Soil Stories: Regeneration & Reconnecting.

The Bit at the End

I think it was in my conversation with Jennifer that I first heard of Robin Wall Kimmerer's (author of Braiding Sweetgrass) movement Plant Baby Plant, a hopeful and growing response to "drill baby drill". Raise a garden, raise a ruckus! 

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

A winter visit to Portland's Japanese Garden

I spent New Year's Eve wandering Portland's Japanese Garden. It had been awhile, maybe seven years? That's if my 2018 visit was my last, which seems possible.

My visit started around 2pm, but thanks to the sun's low winter angle most of my photos feel like they were taken much later in the day. 

The first two images were near the parking lot. This is the lower entrance gate you walk through to start the climb up to the garden.

Split bamboo fencing along the way.

Looking up to the Gift Shop and Japanese Arts Learning Center.

Since I'm always focused on the plants, the mite-infested bamboo near the entrance jumped out at me. I had an issue with bamboo mites on my Sasa palmata f. nebulosa several years ago. I cut it all back and thankfully haven't seen a reinfestation on the regrown culms.

At the upper entrance gate...

One of the kadomatsu.

Once in the garden my camera started snapping in reaction to the mossy green beauty.

One of many decorative straw wraps around trees in the garden.

This is why I made the trip to visit, the garden's yukizuri.

From the garden signage: 

• Yukizuri are considered part of the Japanese garden winter scenery and are support systems to protect and prepare trees for winter.
• The technique is both practical and aesthetic. Straw ropes are cast down from a central pole almost like the frame of an umbrella. They help protect branches from breaking by heavy snow that might otherwise erase the intentional and time-consuming pruning our gardeners do.
• Yuki means snow and tsuri means lifting.

Most of the rope supports were simply a cage-like structure over the tree. There were a few like this one however, where the ropes were actually tied onto the branches, this style seems so much more supportive. 

The overall effect was pretty magical. 

The moss islands in the Flat Garden were covered with conifer needles and the edges "stitched" down.

Such an interesting texture.

Never one to wish for snow (or worse, ice) I stood there imagining how fantastic this would look with flakes falling from the sky.

Eventually I tore myself away and walked around to the back of the Pavilion Gallery to look for Mt. Hood.

There she is!

The pathway took me back around the opposite side of the Flat Garden, so of course I had to stop and admire some more.

Then I came up on the Sand and Stone Garden Overlook. The scale is difficult here, the garden looks like a tiny toy-scape.

I thought I'd fast-forward to when I was down at garden-level

I'll admit I'm not really a fan of this style (plants! where are the plants!?!) but there it is.

More straw tree jewelry...

And other sights...

Looking down...

Looking up...

Camellia!

The Heavenly Falls.

Looking towards the Moon Bridge.

Podocarpus fruit.

This was my last photo in the garden, although I did walk around the Portland International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park and photographed the restroom building shrouded in moss and various plants, check that out over on Instagram.

The Bit at the End

Attendees of the Portland Fling in 2014 visited the Japanese Garden, and in fact the group photo was taken in the nearby International Rose Test Garden, see that image at the top of the page here. I'm not in the photo because I skipped out on that morning's activities to get my garden ready, as it was the next stop on the itinerary. Oh the memories! In case you haven't heard the Garden Fling will return to Portland in 2027 (July 22-25), I have no idea whether or not the Japanese Garden will be part of the itinerary as I'm not part of the planning group this time... it was A LOT of work! My hat is off to those who are planning our next Portland Fling; Anny, Jane (a two-time planner!), Theo, and LaManda.

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