August has been hot and dry. It’s the toughest month for me. I water to keep things from dying, and that’s not the most satisfying work.

But you know who doesn’t care about the heat? Dahlias. Dahlias don’t care. I started with three tubers about four years ago and added another last year. When I first bought the tubers, I wasn’t sure anything would come of them. But boy did they! And they multiplied. This year I had to scrounge enough big pots for them. I planted them somewhat willy-nilly as a result, so there are a few dahlia mashups. I finally got proper tags to label them and hope to have some to give away in the spring.

You know who else laughs at August? Geraniums. If there’s an employee of the month among my flowering plants, the award would go to the geraniums. They started blooming early, and they are still at it! I brought my geraniums in for the winter for the past three years, and I have some giant plants at this point.

Give me the slip(s)

I dove into the wonderful world of sweet potatoes. No one is as good as my friend and master gardener, Darrel. He’s the sweet potato whisperer. I got going too late for this year, but I learned that if you half-bury a sweet potato in potting soil under a humidity dome, and mist it to keep it from drying out, it will produce multiple slips (or seedlings). It’s been a little piece of gardening magic.

Burying the lede

I forgot to lead with the REALLY BIG NEWS. We have apples! Our mini apple tree that we added in April was enough to jumpstart our mature, but previously non-fruit-bearing tree, and we have been eating apples for a couple of weeks.

AND, I successfully grew beans for the first time. After an epic fail with bush beans last year, I bought some Turkey Craw pole bean starts at a plant sale in May. A squirrel demolished one seedling, but the other three thrived and are now doing their best Jack-and-the-Beanstalk imitation. I need to use a ladder! I have exactly one sunny-ish spot in my yard, four raised beds off the sunroom deck with a southern exposure. I learned about shellies, and I’m going to try my hand at seed saving with these and keep the tradition going.

AND, we had an echinopsis bloom for the first time in the PNW. I really had given up hope. I was so excited that I texted Darrel at an ungodly hour. I think he understood. The blooms only last a day, after all.

So many gardening surprises for one month.

After the May and June we had, I was unprepared to be huddled under a fleece blanket in July and sweating through a 95-degree heat wave all within a couple of weeks.

Lots of things are blooming. It’s hard for me to see past the green sometimes, but there’s a color riot happening in the garden this month: reds, pinks, oranges, purples, lavender, and yellow. The long-lasting white blooms of the oak leaf hydrangea remind me of bridal lace. The yarrow bloomed for the first time ever. This is its year, apparently. I don’t know the exact combo of factors that led to amazing growth for some plants, but I am grateful.

The indoor plants are doing well, too. My fiddle leaf fig that I thought was a goner is making a comeback. And one of our peace lilies bloomed for the first time since we got it nearly 10 years ago! After moving it around, it seems like it likes the tub in the upstairs bathroom.  The skylight offers lots of light but not direct sun. No heat to dry it out. Steam from the shower. It has moved into the spa! Don’t give up on your plants.

Wacky weather has become the norm. We had a heat advisory last week, and today I have multiple layers of clothing, a fleece lap throw, and I am drinking hot tea like it’s going out of style. Temperatures that are routinely 15-20 degrees above typical aren’t the best conditions for plants. Big swings don’t help either. I’m trying to focus on soil improvements so the soil holds on to moisture. Never in a million years would I have guessed I would have fast-draining soil in the PNW. 

Looking carefully at what’s thriving despite the wackiness is helpful for future garden planting. I also have plans for more raised beds. I have a Vego raised bed with raspberries. I think we planted eight plants initially (all volunteers from the raspberries in the garden area), and now it’s a forest of raspberries. They have far surpassed our in-the-ground plants in terms of vigor and berry production. We also have starts for at least three neighbors.

This year, I bought tomato plants at a local fundraiser plant sale and at our local feed store, and all have exceeded expectations. Tomatoes are iffy in my shady garden, but I just can’t help myself. Gardening equals tomatoes. They will grow in the extra-deep elevated beds that we have on our south-facing deck, and that’s about it. Potatoes, onions, greens, herbs, and strawberries don’t mind some shade and seem at home here. I am always on the hunt for other plants that like a little shade.

Completely influenced by two of my favorite content creators, Savannah and Casey of Hey Wanderer, I added a GreenStalk vertical planter to the garden. This five-level garden has 30 deep planting pockets and holds five cubic feet of soil. Our yard has more tree canopy than not, so I am always chasing the sun. Several things are thriving, but I am most excited about the thyme. I haven’t had great success growing thyme in the past, but it likes the GreenStalk.

Photo by Robert Haight

I have too many plants

I can’t believe I am saying this. I used to believe that there was no such thing as too many plants. 2026 is the year that I reached my saturation point. The backyard looks like a nursery. Actually, it looks like TWO nurseries in the making: one for shade plants, one for part sun/part-shade plants.

I wish that Little Free Plant Stands were a thing here. I could be a regular contributor! The funny thing is that I actually need plants, but I need very specific ones, ones that can be a bit pricey. I decided to take a propagation class. Does this feel dangerous to you? Me, too. But I am also planning a plant exchange. And I found a landscape designer to help me bring some calm and order to my wildscape. Stay tuned for that.

“The best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.” — (Likely) Chinese Proverb

After freezing our buns off for a few weeks, we’ve been treated to some downright balmy weather in February with some highs in the 50s. Many of our shrubs are starting to bud out. I’ll be honest, this always scares me a bit. I don’t want them to freeze their buns (buds) off if the temperature drops again. 

We have three hardy kiwis, two female plants and one male plant. The male plant is very showy and has spread out across the garden fence like Joey from Friends. (“How you doin’?)

One of the female plants has grown into a nearby Oregon Ash tree, so let’s just say I failed to provide it with an appropriate trellis. 

The other was planted under an old clothesline. I saw a hardy kiwi on a similar structure in a local public garden and had visions of it taking over and completely obfuscating this dilapidated eyesore in my landscape. 

Instead, it sprawled. Last year, I remembered that I am the gardener and some plants need an assist. I added a wooden trellis to the center pole and tied it up. It received a generous helping of compost and some semi-regular fertilizer for fruiting plants. It took off, and we finally harvested a handful of the delicious grape-sized kiwis. 

I saw this article and realized that my clothesline makes a somewhat ideal trellis. I noticed the buds last week and said a little prayer for their continued good health. Spring is coming. And your sister across the garden will get her trellis this year. I promise. 

Lights everywhere

The best thing that happened in the garden this winter was adding more lights, string lights, path lights, spot lights. We have long had outdoor lights with Edison-style bulbs along the front of our house and recently added some across the garage. This illuminates the front of the house and also the path to the side yard, which is dangerously dark at this time of year.

Squirrels gotta eat, too

We feed a menagerie of birds every morning. It’s cold, and they are extra hungry. I caved and bought a picnic bench feeder for the squirrels. Anecdotally, it seems that there is less bird feeder raiding. Plus: endless amusement!

The magic in our winter garden is always the hellebore. We started with one plant during our first winter here. I remember being amazed to see a blooming plant at the nursery in the middle of winter. That one-gallon pot now dominates a substantial barrel planter, and now there are many more hellebore planters throughout our yard. They started budding out a couple of weeks ago, and we have one mini variety that has already bloomed.

Check for hellebores at local garden centers and plant sales. Online, Bluestone Perennials has a beautiful collection: Helleborus / Lenten Rose | Bluestone Perennials

Most of my hellebores are in large containers and do well. They grow in zones 4-9 and are low-water-use plants. In my yard, they do well in part sun, part shade, and full shade. They don’t seem to appreciate hot spots and full sun. They will bounce back after heavy snow.

Seed Catalog Time! 

This is also the magical time of year when the seed catalogs arrive, and gardeners start dreaming of what to plant next year. Hope springs eternal!

Photo by Caroline Ashley on Unsplash

Rain, rain, and more rain. Another gardener said we are 11 inches behind in rainfall in our area. It feels like we are making up for that in November.

The climate is so interesting here. It’s dry in the summer and wet in the fall and winter. Plants need to be able to survive the boom-and-bust weather cycle.

You know what loves rain? Mushrooms!

We have an incredible assortment of mushrooms in our yard this year. They are all different: so many shapes, textures, sizes, and colors. Some are otherworldly, like something you would see in a Star Trek episode. I am not tempted to eat them, by the way. I was almost poisoned by a dish someone prepared with wild-harvested mushrooms once, and the experience made me overly cautious. (They wound up in the emergency room while I looked on in horror. I was asked about 100 times if I was feeling okay. Do I have a stomach of steel? Maybe. But that’s not something I want to put to the test.) I would gather mushrooms with a professional if I ever had the chance, but I will stick with store-bought until then and admire them from a safe distance. Forage with care!