Salem is a garden paradise in spring: 13 gardens you can visit this season
Today 7:30 AM
Tulips bloom outside the Bush House at Bush s Pasture Park in Salem. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
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Exploring the Salem area in spring feels a little like landing in Oz.
The city comes alive with color in the springtime, as flowers pop up in public parks, formal gardens, and at nurseries and farms around the area. It’s enough to make Salem not only Oregon’s state capital, but the garden capital of Oregon as well.
Expand your vision from Salem proper to include the nearby towns of Silverton, Monmouth, Brooks and Dallas, and you have a veritable Garden of Eden at the heart of the Willamette Valley. What is it about the area that’s so good for gardens?
How to choose and grow camellias, the queen of winter flowers, in Oregon
Updated Feb 25, 2021;
For once, Marcia and I had narrowed down our list of what to give beloved daughter-in-law Dawn for her birthday (which is the day this appears in print, not coincidentally).
It was going to either be a new, dazzling, one-of-a-kind cultivar of camellia (we all love camellias) or a chance to write another column (we all love it when she writes).
Being the kind, giving, never-thinking-of-ourselves kind of people we are, we generously decided to have Dawn write this week’s column on, of course, camellias.
Plant it and forget it: Tips for enjoying lots of greenery with little effort
Updated Feb 24, 2021;
“There is no such thing as a ‘no-maintenance’ garden,” says Portland garden designer Amy Whitworth of Plan-It Earth Design. Still, there are plants perfect for people who really don’t want to get their hands dirty or hire a gardener, but want to be surrounded by greenery.
Whitworth suggests that you base a low-maintenance landscape on what outdoor work appeals to you. “Tasks that seem like nothing to one person would be way too much work for another,” she says. “Some people even enjoy weeding. It can be a form of meditation.”
Add these berry-bearing plants to Oregon gardens to feed birds in winter
Updated Jan 19, 2021;
Posted Jan 19, 2021
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That doesn’t mean just a bird feeder of seeds and nuts.
“Different birds are attracted to different foods and it’s good to have a variety,” said Dana Sanchez, a wildlife specialist for Oregon State University’s Extension Service. “In addition to bird feeders, which people sometimes forget to fill, they need plants to forage on.”
This time of year, you’ll notice winter wrens, pine siskins, scrub jays, chickadees and robins. All are searching for food to give them the energy they need to survive the prolonged stress of cold and wet weather.