Let the natural landscape inspire your garden!

Memorial Day Weekend offered many of us time out of the city and in nature. Were you as inspired as I was by the natural beauty of our Oregon Landscape? Here are some wonderful scenes from my hike over the weekend that offer some great ideas for your own landscape project.

8 design lessons I learned exploring the Willamette Valley

1. Use simple plantings with distinct form and a path to create a little garden mystery.

Oak Savanna

2. Plant it! I discovered Oso berry with berries. Somehow I had only seen Oso berry in the early spring with new leaves and blooms, or later in the fall. I was delighted find the berries so beautiful and delicate in color and form. What a gardeners treat.

Oemleria cerasiformis - Oso berry

3. Cow Parsnip: Plant it but don’t eat it. What a fabulous white cloud on earth. 

Meadow with Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum)

4. Poison Oak: Don’t plant, or touch, these leaves of three!

Poison Oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum)

5. Create layers of color and texture with mass plantings and borrowed landscape views.

Meadows and Fields

6. Lupine is a fabulous native perennial for the garden.

Lupine and Oregon White Oak

7. Natural elements make for beautiful, sculptural, and playful landscape focal points.

Standing inside a hollow snag.

8. Frame an interesting view.

View from inside a the snag.

8. Make your garden explorable, interactive, and delight in its surprises.

There's a tree hugging me!