In the Trees

This is a blog about my Pacific Northwest garden in the trees. Well, not exactly in the trees, but in the shade of towering Douglas Fir, Oregon Oak, Big Leaf Maples, and Ponderosa Pines. The garden is about .6 acre and it enjoys its own micro climate which approximates zone 8b.

I started the garden in Winter 2003, a few months after we purchased our home. The first task was to remove mountains of blackberry brambles, English ivy (ahhh!), debris, and tennis balls lost by the original owners in the forest understory.

With the cleanup done, I was left with clumps of native Western Sword Fern, a few mature Vine Maples, three overgrown rhododendrons blocking the north facing windows on the house, and the towering trees. The English Ivy was only temporarily out of the picture…

And then came the fun part: planning what to do with this great space!

As a weekend-only, budget-conscious solo gardener, I knew I needed to create a low maintenance space which I could manage myself without outside help. The only task relegated to others is tree work; the rest of the work is completed by me, or not done at all.

I wanted to create a garden which respected and enhanced the environment I live in and the critters who live there. To that end, I made the “executive” decision to go organic. For me that means no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or excessive Summertime watering. Instead, I try to choose disease-resistant plant varieties, many of them native. I no longer expect picture perfect, damage-free plants; dogs chasing squirrels takes care of that! In the fall, I let many of the leaves decompose where they lie, removing remnants and  slow-to-decompose pine needles in the Spring. I also apply compost most years and use Alfalfa Meal as a general natural fertilizer and soil conditioner. These methods have helped break up the heavy clay soil throughout the garden and protect it from pounding rain in the Winter. The soil looks pretty good these days, if I have to say so myself!

The design of the garden was greatly dictated by the mature trees, their roots, and the need to provide privacy and camouflage ugly views. In many garden design manuals, they talk about deciding  up-front the kind of garden you want.  For me, it was (and still is) a strolling garden to wander in on a fine Summer’s morning and a garden that provides Winter interest when viewed from inside on a rainy day.

With these requirements, a partially blank canvas, and no bright idea how to get started, I installed an irregularly shaped lawn as the centerpiece in the back garden and started to create pathways off the lawn area. Each year, I added additional beds and pathways until I reached the perimeters of the garden. One of the first beds I planted was a stand of three Western Red Cedars to block the direct line of sight from our dining room to the neighbor’s kitchen. Similarly, I planted a Canadian Hemlock and some Portuguese Laurel to mask the view of another neighbor’s blue tarp-clad RV from the kitchen sink. (Ah, the pleasures of suburbia.)

7 years later, most of the larger areas have been “landscaped”, the unpleasant views somewhat obscured (yes, the RV/tarp is still there) and I now focus on creating interesting niches or vignettes between the shrubs and trees.