Skip to main content

Featured

Waterwise Gardening - a book review

Waterwise Gardening: Everything You Need To Know About Efficient Watering to Grow a Healthy Yard by Richard Restuccia Published by Rizzoli, 2025 I would guess that watering is the major issue that most gardeners grapple with, especially novice gardeners. I know from working at the nursery that the majority of questions and issues we get stem from either watering too much or not watering enough.  Many people in our area have sprinkler systems and I'm sure that can be a good thing if used properly but I feel that they primarily keep the lawns green but fall short for landscape plants. Especially when it comes to trees and larger plants, the timing and amounts are not satisfactory for many plants. I often hear people say that their sprinklers are set to come on every day - yikes! And there are those who did not water because it "rained" when it actually drizzled.  The best thing to do in this situation is to have a xeric garden but that would mean sacrificing favorite plant...

Walking the Salmon Creek Trail


A few days ago a friend and I took a walk along the Salmon Creek Trail. This trail is less than a mile from our house and while I've glimpsed part of it along the highway, I'd never been on it and did not realize how extensive it is. My friend says the entire length is about 3.5 miles. We didn't walk the entire distance but got a good workout. We even got a glimpse of Mt. Hood (in the top photo) which is a rare happening. We also got another surprise near the end of the walk which you will see at the end of the post.






 





We were almost back to our entrance when I spotted a large bird flying from limb to limb. It was an owl and I managed to get a shot with my telephoto lens.

 


Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

Comments

  1. How fortunate are you: such fantastic trail, and only a mile from home. I'm surprised the mushrooms are still in such good condition. They often are a heap of mush at this point. Love the owl!

    ReplyDelete
  2. How fortunate are you: such fantastic trail, and only a mile from home. I'm surprised the mushrooms are still in such good condition. They often are a heap of mush at this point. Love the owl!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have incredibly beautiful scenery in the PNW.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a beautiful place to walk, and so close to your house.

    Great picture of the owl. That's a barred owl isn't it? The streaks on the breast are making me think barred. Those live on our farm and it's always exciting to see one. We hear them far more often than we see them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Start with a volcano, end with an owl, beauty all the way. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wonderful pics, Philip! Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Fabulous shots of you little corner of.the world.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts