Early spring is the best season for the shade garden. It's also the season I probably lose friends . . . don't take it personally, people, I'm in the garden. It's busy go-go time for me and I apologize in advance for vanishing and not returning texts until the rains return, so, see you in October. I love you all, really. It's just that there are no days off, no weekends for us around here. Maaaaybe we can squeeze a couple in this summer. When that happens, hit us up for beer and tacos in the garden.   In the meantime, here's a look at a bit of the shade garden looking fresh an ..read more

 My brain declares that nothing is happening in the garden in the cold, wet, dank days of March. Ah, but the brain can lie. After taking a couple hundred photographs this weekend I see that. Buds are swelling, bees are out, birds are collecting nesting materials and it really and truly is spring. The exciting time is nearly here! A spell of unseasonably warm (and very welcome) weather hit us last week and prompted the garden's wake up. OK, let's explore the March garden. Ribes sanguineum 'White Icicle' with a visiting bumble bee. The arctostaphylos have also had a lot of visiting bumble ..read more

Hebes. Shrubby Veronica. Whatever you call them, they are fabulous. In my maritime Pacific Northwest climate we are lucky to grow many of these valuable evergreen shrubs. But, sadly, not all. In my last hebe survey, which you can revisit here, most of the hebes in my garden were featured. Since the incredibly cold January spell this year wreaked havoc on many area gardens, there are updates to my former list. To my pleasant surprise most hebes/veronicas in my garden were completely unaffected by the extreme cold and ice, cementing their position as superstars. Many gardeners had issues with h ..read more

Oh, February, you tease me with fake spring. Then you throw miserable cold, wet weather, even snow showers, my way. Fine. Time to camp out in the greenhouse, my happy place I call my halfway house. Halfway between being inside on a winter's day and outside on a dreamy, warm spring day. At least I can sow seeds and pot up rooted hebe cuttings here, so there's a win for me. Truth be told, late February into March is really just about my least favorite time of the year in the garden because it's so fickle. It should be headed towards spring but it never is and I should know this by now. But hope ..read more

It occurs to me having a singular place to reference blog posts that are more informative in nature might be helpful. I've had several people share that they use a particular post regularly as a reference, so I thought it nice to create a place to easily link to these, something I could also use myself having blogged more than a decade now, or 437 posts, to be exact. That's plenty of photographs and information to muddle through.  I consider this an exercise in not only revisiting older posts (which I had forgotten about) but also using this as a tool, myself. This post does not include ..read more

 When I say All the Things, I mean the pretty and the ugly, equal measure. One full month into 2024 and it's been a doozy, weatherwise. Here at Chickadee Gardens we've recorded over 10" of rain, that's not including precipitation from the snow and ice as FM moved the rain gauge out of the firing line for a week because last year it froze and broke during a similar event. Lesson learned. I'm estimating we had more along the lines of 12" of precipitation. There were nearly two weeks of very cold (for us) temps at 15 degrees (at its coldest) with about 6" of snow followed by freezing rain. I ..read more

 In the ever-evolving search for tough plants in our challenging weather extremes, it's time to look at a few shade perennials that endure year after year in my less-than-ideal conditions. I have many fir trees that suck up most of the surrounding water, so to live here and thrive, a plant has to be able to handle dry shade. Here are five (perhaps with an extra couple thrown in) top performers to expand on my Take Five series. Some I would not do without in my shade garden. To review some recent Take Five posts you can find them here (shrubs for sun), here (shrubs for shade) and here (per ..read more

 Here we are, embarking on 2024 full of hope and promise. The garden does that, gives one hope and promise despite the grim news we see on our screens. I'll take a garden any day over a phone or computer, but still, it's a time of year when I do like to take stock of how we and the gardens have fared this past year. I note any projects, observations, complaints and develop an overall sense of what the themes of the year were. I am thus reminded as I look back through a year's worth of photographs that 2023 was fairly lovely as far as the garden and weather were concerned and we, mostly FM ..read more

 I love to play outside with my camera. Recently I've been taking photos for our newly revamped website at Cistus Nursery; find the website here! Bridget has been hard at work at the revamp, and I think the website looks fabulous. I know it will continue to evolve and grow as we add more plants for mail order.  So, last week being the winter solstice and all moody-foggy (and as I was caught up with website photography for the day), I strolled a little beyond the greenhouses and ventured into some of the gardens at Cistus Nursery. Since gardening for most of us comes to a crawl ..read more

 The word of the month is: Rain. Oy, it's been wet this first half of December with 8.01 inches in the first nine days. There was a dry-ish moment in the middle of it all when I managed to head out with my camera for a post about the garden. Granted, visiting gardens in England these past several posts has been fantastic fun, but it is nice to focus on our own this time around. It's a quiet month in terms of WOW moments in the garden, but I appreciate the quieter side and the chance to catch up on a few garden (and house!) chores. Here then is Chickadee Gardens mid-December: Grevillea ..read more