Cooling and Curious

Last weekend was the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon's Study Weekend. The Study Weekend event—a long weekend filled with lectures, a plant sale and garden tours—rotates between Portland, Victoria BC, Seattle/Bellevue WA, and Vancouver BC. The last time we all gathered in Portland was 2019.

Friday's garden tours happened under cloudy skies, with drizzle and actual rain falling at times. This fountain and it's dramatic borders are in the Griffin and Eastman garden in North Portland. The foliage was all glittery with drizzle.

By Saturday afternoon things were warming up as we toured gardens under a sunny sky. The walk up the driveway to the Connall garden—with it's stately eucalyptus and wide swaths of lavender—had us feeling like we were touring a garden in a Mediterranean setting, rather than suburban Portland. 

Later that afternoon we enjoyed the cooling effect of the Willamette River as it passed along below the Sheng garden.

I don't know how much gardening I would get done when I could just chill and watch the river pass on by.

On Sunday things were warmer, 90 was the high (Monday was even warmer at 94, a bit too warm to comfortably tour gardens), but my friends and I saved the Quirk and Neill garden—with it's meandering creek—for last that day.

A beautiful setting to stop for a moment and relax, after all the excitement the weekend had to offer.

That is until one in our group spotted something odd in the water. What the heck? 

Most of the pebbly tubes were in the creek, but there were a few on the rocks where we were sitting.

Cropped close-ups...

So what are they? The larvae cases of the caddisfly; caddisflies (order Trichoptera) are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. "As larvae, caddisflies live underwater. Caddisfly larvae can be divided into two groups: cased and caseless. Cased caddis larvae use a silk secretion to build a portable structure around themselves, made of materials such as sand, shells, stones and leaves." (source)

In this horrible photo you can (kind of) see their black legs, but wait, it gets better! 

The French artist Hubert Duprat collaborated with a group of caddis fly larvae to produce cases incorporating gold, opal, turquoise and other precious stones.

Photo via imgur, read more about it here. Crazy right? After all the creative gardens we saw during Study Weekend (lots of photos to come) this was an excellent reminder that mother nature is the ultimate creative force. 

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Bromeliad table V2.0, now with more metal!

You all were so positive and encouraging when I shared photos of my bromeliad table project, I really appreciated it and enjoyed your comments. When writing that post I knew changes were coming, but I hadn't figured out exactly what they'd be. Then one of you—commenting as Anonymous but someone who'd definitely been following the blog for years—mentioned using another sheet of expanded metal (I'd used a small one on the brown container in front of the bromeliad table). Yes! That idea clicked and I was quickly scheming. 

Here's a flash-back photo, what I'd originally put together. I loved the moss (I always love the moss) but it was quick to dry out and not the best for this application.

And here's where things stand currently. 

As luck would have it I had a few pieces of expanded metal on hand to play with. I decided curves were needed. On the left-hand side the metal curves up and frames a tillandsia.

On the right-hand side it swoops down.

Earlier in the month I picked up this sweet blooming bromeliad at the Friends of Manito Plant Sale when we were up in Spokane. I was pretty sure I'd be able to work part of it into the refreshed table but no.

Oh well. It's nice in the bright chartreuse container and no doubt I'll eventually divide it for use in some future project.

Back to the table. I loved how the Deuterocohnia brevifolia looked tucked into the piece of wood (in the first version), but they kept falling out when I misted the table so obviously it wasn't a good solution. For the update I planted them in metal tubes, but left the moss in the wood piece.

The Racinaea crispa seems to have settled right into the wood however, so it stayed.

I also added a tall metal tube to the side of the table, and on it a Tillandsia xerographica.

The existing planters/plants got a slight reshuffle too.

Things are simplified in this version.

I like it, although as Gerhard commented on the first post, "...since nothing is permanently attached, you can update it as often as you like. In other words, you don't ever need to find an "ultimate" version." Thanks again Anon for the metal suggestion!

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Those things stuck in the ground? They're hose guards...

I had a friend visiting recently, she pointed at a couple pieces of metal I have stuck in the ground and asked why they were there. I'd always wondered if people saw them and what they thought, so I was happy she asked. Three of them are in this photo, although I think they're fairly hard to see...

This was the first to go in the ground. I forget where I picked it up, it might have been something Andrew gave me. When I pull the hose out into the driveway this one keeps it from traveling into the planting bed.

The next one back is this guy...

When pulling the hose up from the patio, headed to the driveway, I discovered I needed another line of defense.

Sidenote: damn these saxifrage are looking good!

The next one is pretty visible, there at the corner. It's the first one my friend pointed at.

I resisted putting something here for the longest time, but in real life it blends with the other rusty metal and isn't as obvious as in these photos.

As seen from the pathway from the patio.

Dragging the hose over to the shade pavilion area isn't as tricky as it seems.

Until I pull it along the corner of the patio wall surround and the hose wants to come up on the wall and knock things over. This chunky (heavy) piece of metal keeps it from doing so.

Right there at the edge it stands its ground.

Headed down to the patio is this...

I first put in the metal loop and it definitely did the job as far as the hose was concerned, but I tripped on it a couple times because it was a little too stealth. That's when I added the piece of rock.

No more tripping!

The last exhibit isn't so much a hose guard, as a hose warning.

Sometimes I take the hose up to the shade pavilion area via the patio step. Sometimes I head to the right...

...and nearly wipe out these small pots.

That's when these two hose nozzles act as a warning, the hose hits them, they fall over, make noise and I know to stop. The best part is that I dug them up right here in the garden. Some previous gardener(s) here used them and left them behind. Soil, plants, debris buried them. One is even stamped ITALY.

So those are my nontraditional hose guards. What about you, do you have hose guards? Were they designed to be that or are they something else doing double duty?

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Return to the Ruth Bancroft Garden (Part 2)

Here we are, back at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, aka Heaven in Walnut Creek (Part 1 here). Thanks to everyone who encouraged the posting of LOTS of photos. Today I'll be sharing 40 more, starting with these  Xanthorrhoea, or Australian grass trees...

Furcraea macdougalii

Agave nickelsiae

A tale of two bloom spikes...

Love those teeth...

Check out the yucca bloom on the right...

A close-up.

Grevillea petrophiloides?

Agave mitis (?)

I think this is Mangave 'Lavender Lady'.

Aloe capitata (?)

Ruth's folly...which was once the entrance to the garden.

Near the "off-limits" employees only area.

Agave victoriae-reginae

There were many.

No clue who this handsome fellow is.

Look at that bloom spike circled on the left. It looks like a mangave?

Lots of plants forming on the spike!

Agave 'Sharkskin'

The shade structure from the opposite end to Monday's post..

Another sexy Agave nickelsiae, at least I think that's what it is. Reading this "plant highlight" from the garden's Brian Kemble has me a little confused.

Aloe polyphylla, the spiral aloe

Okay, my visit to this beautiful garden is drawing to a close...

Will it be another six years before I visit? I sure hope not.

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.