ARTICLE BY: by Eloise L. Morgan Eloise is the editor of the HPSO Quarterly and a member of the HPSO Board of Directors. This article first appeared in the fall issue of the Quarterly, enjoy! The year 1984, for many, brings to mind George Orwell’s novel depicting a totalitarian future. But for the Portland gardening community, 1984 has far more positive associations—it is the year that The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon was founded. Born in the afterglow of a three-day study weekend produced in July 1984 by a small ad hoc group of Oregon gardeners who had attended similar… 

“Why I Garden” essays appear intermittently in the HPSO Quarterly magazine. We hope you’ll enjoy a few of these stories from our archives and we invite you to submit your own essay on the subject. Contact the Quarterly Editor, Eloise Morgan (rcmelm@aol.com) for submission details. Kim Pokorny’s essay first ran in the Spring 2014 issue… *** I fell in love with the house on the corner, the one with no plants at all. As an avid gardener, I coveted the bare ground and the full sun. I could finally plant the ‘Cecile Brunner’ rose my grandmother had loved. Every spring… 

“Why I Garden” essays appear intermittently in the HPSO Quarterly magazine. We hope you’ll enjoy a few of these stories from our archives and we invite you to submit your own essay on the subject. Contact the Quarterly Editor, Eloise Morgan (rcmelm@aol.com) for submission details. Barbara Blossom’s essay first ran in the Winter 2014 issue… *** The other day I came in from the garden and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Who was that woman in the muddy jacket, hair sticking up like a punk rocker, hands streaked with dirt, with a deliriously happy grin on her… 

“Why I Garden” essays appear intermittently in the HPSO Quarterly magazine. We hope you’ll enjoy a few of these stories from our archives and we invite you to submit your own essay on the subject. Contact the Quarterly Editor, Eloise Morgan (rcmelm@aol.com) for submission details. Dave Eckerdt’s essay first ran in the Winter 2015 issue… *** I live in a garden. I am a lucky man. I am guilty of not fully appreciating the wonder I now feel each day as I move about our garden. My consciousness of living in a beautiful world evolved slowly. Early on in my life… 

ARTICLE BY: DARCY DANIELS HPSO member, Darcy Daniels is a renowned garden designer with Bloomtown® Gardens and creator of eGardenGo a web site that helps gardeners decide what to plant with what. Loaded with plant combination recipes, the site is perfect for gardeners at all levels — beginners as well as pros can find lots of fresh ideas and inspiration within its pages. Her gardens have been featured in many publications, and her home and client gardens have been included in numerous local, regional and national garden tours. *** In 1998, I was a completely novice gardener when I began… 

ARTICLE BY: TOM FISCHER Tom Fischer is an HPSO member, a garden writer, and editor-in-chief at Timber Press in Portland, Oregon. *** Don’t get me wrong—I have nothing against the fat, hybrid Dutch crocuses that pop up in mid-spring, brightening lawns and borders with their cheerful cups of silky violet, vivid lavender, or egg-yolk yellow. But my heart belongs to their wild, more delicate kindred, which can begin blooming as early as January and really hit their stride in February, just when we desperately need a dose of color. I’ve been experimenting with these gems for over a decade, and… 

ARTICLE BY: LAUREN HALL-BEHRENS Originally Published in the HPSO Quarterly in Winter 2013 Lauren Hall-Behrens is a HPSO Member, Garden Designer & Owner of Lilyvilla Gardens *** Hardscape, including paths, patios, arbors, and pergolas, is the solid material underfoot and the architecture overhead that creates the framework and the structure of a garden. It dictates how we move through and react to a space and establishes an architectural relationship between a garden and the home it surrounds. This structural framework also contains and organizes a garden’s plants. A well-designed hardscape can bring an overall sense of order and calm to… 

ARTICLE BY: SEAN HOGAN, Originally Published in the HPSO Quarterly in Winter 2016 Sean Hogan is a HPSO member who most recently presented the lecture at Plantfest 2017 & owns Cistus Nursery *** Nearly 20 years ago I wrote a small article for a very good newsletter published by the late plantswoman Stephanie Feeney. Jeez, TWENTY years ago! Anyway, I had just come back to Portland and was frustrated by the overwhelming commercial availability of so many plants grown en masse here for export to points east like New Jersey, Denver, and Bend—you know, the whole east coast! Little in the… 

ARTICLE BY: JIM GERSBACH, Originally Published in the HPSO Bulletin in Fall 2000 Jim Gersbach’s garden in northeast Portland includes a number of shrubs, trees and perennials from temperate South America and other remote corners of the globe. *** Brazil. Just whispering the name conjures a lush, tropical landscape, where jungle giants are wrapped in lianas and the carefree inhabitants are clad in even less. Sultry Brazil, with an Amazon full of monkeys and macaws. Surely nothing from that paradise could grow outdoors in Portland, halfway to the North Pole? Despite the seeming impossibility, something does. Right in my backyard….