It’s Spring! (Somewhere)

Yesterday, graphic designer and writer Jeff Fisher sent around a few pictures of spring bulbs popping up in the Portland, Oregon, garden he cultivates with his partner Ed Cunningham. Crocuses, hellebores, daffodils, oh my! Yesterday! In the New York City suburbs we were in the midst of getting another foot of snow. As my husband shoveled the driveway for the umpteenth time since the great blizzard of December 26, I asked Jeff to share the news about what’s happening in Pacific Northwest gardens right now. He wrote:

“Things started to bloom about mid-January when we had some unusually warm weather. The 100 or so new tulips I planted have poked through the soil and are growing about an inch a day. The daffodils have been so close to blooming the past 10 days or so.

Chrysanthus `Harlequin’

Chrysanthus `Blue Pearl’

Crocus `Flower Record’

Helleborus x hybrida `Pink Parent’

“The garden surrounds our 1929 bungalow on a typical 50′ x 100′ city lot in the Arbor Lodge neighborhood of North Portland. When Ed and I bought the house more than ten years ago there was no garden at all. I’d never lived in a place that afforded the opportunity to garden, and quickly found gardening to be my passion and best therapy.

“Joy Creek Nursery initially designed the hardscape and suggested or installed the plantings. Every since, we’ve bought most of our plant material from them. Over the past decade, I’ve become much braver when it comes to pruning, moving, selecting and creating combinations of plants, and our garden has been featured in articles and was a location for a local garden TV show. It’s been very gratifying to be known in the neighborhood as ‘the house with the garden.’

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’

Galanthus nivalus

Narcissus ‘Yellow Trumpet’

“However, winter has returned a bit, and snow is in the forecast for this coming week.” Uh-oh.

Dig-It-Blog will keep you posted on the garden’s progress the spring and summer. In the meantime, you are invited to take a visual stroll through the whole garden on Jeff’s blog.