Cultiverity is a blog about a city garden in Portland, OR
Daphne! Daphne!

Daphne! Daphne!

Early last year I planted a Daphne Odora in the garden, and just recently it has its first bloom. Beyond the joy that comes from signs of prospering plants in a relatively new garden (2 years old), I get an extra kick out of it when they produce an intoxicating...
Welcome Spring!

Welcome Spring!

Spring: It’s been a long time coming. I’m not going to pretend that the winter we experienced in Portland was anywhere near the winter experienced back East, but I’m craving warm, sunny days as much as anyone. The garden is ready to be worked if only it would stop pouring...
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And then it was winter.

Wow, the fact that it’s been raining FOR EVER has kept me from my gardening blog. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. But it was a good time to take a break because that’s exactly where we left off with the garden! We got our fall planting in the ground and then it was winter!...

Regrading & the terror of morning glory

We last left off with the beginning of the back yard project. It was comprised of a volunteer cherry tree, a large weeping cypress, a buried brick pathway, two mounds of sword ferns and daffodils, and lots and lots of weeds. The weeping cypress wasn’t a bad tree, it just wasn’t right for that space....

Garden Pathways

When we last left off in the story of this garden, we’d begun planting in the newly walled front garden. Woot! We’d also put in a gravel path at the top of some stone garden steps, setting aside some planting beds on the south-west corner. And we’d begun selecting plants including: creeping thyme various sedge...

Garden Steps, Mulching and more Mulching

With our fence newly installed, and convenient access limited to the steps up to the front door, it seemed that we would like steps to the south of the sunken driveway, onto the south side of the property. Otherwise we’d either have to climb the berm (not so bad) or walk all the way around...

Deciding What to Plant

When we last left off the story of the beginnings of this garden, we’d cleared out years of neglect, then built a retaining wall and a fence. It was the end of March, and right about the time to start planting here in my Zone 8 (sometimes Zone 9) garden. Being new to gardening, and...

Building a Retaining Wall and Putting in a Fence

When we last left off in the story of this garden, we had just finished pulling everything out of the front yard except for two apple trees. Once we’d done that and were left with just dirt, we realized there was an erosion problem. We had two solutions we were interested in at the time:...

Seed Starting 2010

It’s a big day today as I got my first seeds started.  There are already new things in the garden that I got at Portland Nursery, which I realize is tempting the weather fates just a bit.  But these are the seeds I poured over in the store, and am excited to nurture into beautiful...

Gardening in January

Our house, before we owned it, was definitely the black sheep of the block. Not only had a rather eccentric (read: hoarding collector) lady lived in it for over 25 years, but after she moved out, it was purchased to be flipped & had a bunch of renovations, only to go into foreclosure, only to...

So, what’s this all about anyway?

Growing up in Connecticut, my Mom had a beautiful garden.  We lived on about a half acre with a veggie garden in the front, some beautiful dogwoods along the street, forsythia along the driveway, mature trees in the back, and some curved flower beds on the south side.  I remember helping my Mom with some...