Keyword: Horticulture--Pacific Northwest

“The Northwest Garden Manifesto” by John Albers is a new book for our region. While the title may conjure up images of gardeners marching rake-to-rake for their causes, this instead is a very solid and comprehensive gardening book that keeps closely in mind the bigger ecosystem surrounding any private garden. Divided into three broad sections, the book asks you to assess what you have, then make changes that are sustainable (for your garden) and healthful (for you), and finally – for all your actions – think outside the property line.

The author is very good at presenting new approaches to regular garden chores. While these may seem mundane, they fit very well into the overarching structure and message of the book. A handy summary checklist at the end of each chapter helps you track this bigger picture. Many of the examples are from his own four-acre garden on the edge of Bremerton, well-captured by the photography of David Perry.

The selection of recommended plants includes native and non-natives as Albers emphasizes that in developed sites, many of the conditions that help natives thrive have been destroyed. Other recommendations include many food-producing plants, everything from annual vegetables to fruit trees. He also advises engineering your lawn – if you must have one – to be either a green space with low demands on resources, or a self-sustaining meadow.

This book’s primary audience is urban dwellers, but that is most of us. “With more than half of humankind living in cities, our first steps must be developing sustainably and restoring urban biodiversity.” So perhaps manifesto is an accurate description of Albers’ goals. I recommend you read his book and make your own decisions.

Excerpted from the Spring 2018 Arboretum Bulletin.

I always look forward to new books intended for Pacific Northwest gardeners. Paul Bonine and Amy Campion’s “Gardening in the Pacific Northwest” has been long anticipated, and it doesn’t disappoint. As explained in the introduction, this book is mostly from Bonine’s perspective, as he grew up here and has gardened in this region for many years. Campion did most of the excellent photography.

I found myself reading this book out of order, starting with the final chapter titled “Design: Northwest Garden Style.” Intended as an introduction to design styles, this essay is also an excellent, local history of ornamental gardening and why our gardens look the way they do.

Keeping this in mind, I returned to the introductory chapters on climate, soils, and garden culture with a better understanding. Here, I found the authors’ selection of climatic sub-regions especially interesting. As expected, Seattle is part of the Puget Sound sub-region, but Portland and its immediate suburbs have a sub-region of their very own, totally surrounded by the Willamette Valley sub-region. While I was at first surprised by this, after reading the distinguishing factors, I decided these divisions make a lot of sense, and will help gardeners make better plant selections.

The plant encyclopedia is especially good for woody plants. While most species are represented by a single cultivar, these are excellent selections. After admiring Albizia julibrissin ‘Summer Chocolate’ at a couple of Portland gardens last summer, I appreciated learning why it is rarely seen around Seattle. Our immediate sub-region “normally doesn’t receive enough summer heat for its wood to harden off properly in preparation for winter’s cold, leaving it vulnerable to even mild freezes.” Tips like these, make this selection of plant varieties especially valuable.

Excerpted from the Spring 2018 Arboretum Bulletin.