Ask an expert: Replacing a laurel hedge? Several plants fit the bill
Updated 8:00 AM;
Today 8:00 AM
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The gardening season has started and if you’ve got questions, turn to Ask an Expert, an online question-and-answer tool from Oregon State University’s Extension Service. OSU Extension faculty and Master Gardeners reply to queries within two business days, usually less. To ask a question, simply go to the and it in along with the county where you live. Here are some questions asked by other gardeners. What’s yours?
Q: I have an ancient laurel hedge that acts as a fence between my house and the neighbors. Can I plant camellias or another flowering shrub between the mature laurels and over time transition the hedge from laurel to the other shrub? What are the best shrubs to do this with? – Lane County
20 of the best Pacific Northwest garden books: See authors at the Great Grow Along virtual festival
Updated Mar 12, 2021;
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Are you ready to get your hands back into soil? Now’s the time for seasoned gardeners to plot their harvest schedules and for those new to gardening to plan their next step. It’s estimated that 16 million Americans started gardening during the coronavirus pandemic.
Across the Pacific Northwest and beyond, people turned ignored patches of their yard into fertile plots to grow their own organic vegetables, herbs, berries and fruit.
As spring planting takes place, local nurseries and garden centers are prepared to provide information and materials.
Sorry, gardeners. Many plants will be harder to find this year
Updated Feb 02, 2021;
There is no beating around the bush. Especially if it’s a five-gallon bush.
A number of plants will be harder to find this year, because there simply aren’t as many of them.
As for why, you can blame the same thing responsible for mask-wearing and social distancing and rampant business closures and unemployment.
Yes, the coronavirus pandemic.
But not in the way you might think.
The main reason for the shortages, according to Nancy Buley of J. Schmidt & Son, a wholesale grower of trees based in Boring, is that the pandemic kept people home, where they in turn noticed that their gardens could use a little or much more than a little sprucing up.
These websites can help you find perfect plants for spring
Updated Jan 19, 2021;
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It’s dark much of the so-called day, too.
But the weather outside, no matter how frightful, has no impact on the internet.
On it, there’s a bright, colorful, dazzling world of online sites filled with enough plant information to put a spring in the step of even the most winter-weary gardeners.
Winter is a prime time to figure out which plants you’ll want to add to your garden this year, and the sites we’ll mention are excellent sources of information to help you make an informed decision and avoid the “that one looks pretty” impulse-buy approach to horticultural purchases.