I needed a respite from doom-scrolling the news, and browsing my photos of gardens in Portland, Oregon actually helped! I was in that fair city for the GardenBlogger Fling in 2014 and this particular garden really charmed me. I don’t know the name of the gardener. Anyone?
I shouldn’t be surprised to find myself eight years later with painted columns and hanging beads and other ornaments.
Just-installed and painted columns in my Greenbelt, Md. front garden. Sept. 2020.
But back to Portland. Shots above and below just hint at the garden of former NPR-reporter Ketzel Levine. We’d connected through this blog and she’d visited me in my former garden.
She really made the most of a small front yard – so private! (We’ll assume those bamboos are contained somehow.) And what a great use of color.
I don’t know whose gardens these next ones are but on the theme of color, I love all their choices.
Above, this mosaic between the street and sidewalk is kinda famous, so I bet someone can tell me whom I should credit.
UPDATE: Mosaic by Jeffrey Bale.
You don’t see this every day.
When perennial beds are done well, like the one above, I get jealous and decide to start one of my own. Frustration and failure soon follow, and linger.
This front garden is such a gift to the neighborhood.
As great as front gardens can be, especially in Portland, it takes a private backyard to create a space as artful and calming as this one.
We lived in Portland, OR for two years prior to moving to Bend, and I have to say, Spring in that area is one of the most breathtaking things I have ever seen. We still carve out time in early May every year to drive there, walk through the neighborhoods, and eat at one of the incredible restaurants. So beautiful.
Aaaahhh, yes. So lovely & comforting.
Lovely and I may be able to recreate some of these ideas in my own small garden.
I’m pretty sure the mosaic is by Jeffrey Bales, although I can’t tell you which garden.
My typo! It’s Jeffrey Bale, no ‘s’. Sorry!
Searching through photo files for flower color in the middle of winter is a common way for gardeners to cope!
I have visited Portland, OR a few times, as I have two kids living there now. I’m always in awe of the gardens. Everywhere you look there are gardens (and restaurants! lol) I told my daughter that it seems everybody gardens in Portland. Of course, that’s not true, but it almost is. It’s rather disheartening to come home to my city in Texas, where everyone pretty much just mows and blows. But at least the sun shines here! lol. (Perchance the rainy weather in Portland is responsible not only for the thriving gardens, but the addition of beautiful color to the gardens.)
Susan, thank you for the pretty photos and the positive descriptions. Recent news has been so consistently awful that l really don’t appreciate snark or clever criticism from garden columns…(l don’t mean Marianne or Scott, they are just funny, not mean.) Graciousness is very welcome in these fraught times.