Garden Blogger's Fling 2014 in Portland, OR!

I'm so honored to be a part of the organizing committee for the 2014 Garden Blogger's Fling here in my hometown of Portland, OR. A lot of thought and planning went into our proposal and I'm so happy we will be doing this next summer. We're blessed with a great climate and gardening culture, and the people who participate in its many facets have to be some of the most gentle, kind and caring people I've ever met.

The last year has been a very difficult one for me personally, and although I've had to turn away from plants for a bit in order to get back on my feet after a divorce and years of illness, I still cannot say enough about how much le monde végétal means to me.

Forever more of a garden memoirist than anything else,
Ann

Congrats too to my co-conspiritors:
Jane: MulchMaid
Loree: Danger Garden
Scott: Rhone Street Gardens

"Go Seed Hunting!" said that little voice inside of me...

Just over a year ago, it was at this place (and nearly to the moment), when I knew my life was going to change in a big way. It was as if there was such beauty during that precise moment, in that place and time, that something opened up deep inside of me and I heard that little voice screeching loud and clear as it went in for the kill.

The Bloedel Reserve. 

I see now that for many of us—especially for those who design landscapes and even our own gardens—these are the sacred moments we want to experience. We live and breathe to hear these little things inside of ourselves, to feel out gut instincts. We use them to help guide us forward whether we're ready to go or not.  

Two Deer Ferns (Blechnum spicant) at The Blodel Reserve in Washington.

I want my next garden to have soul and at this point I will stop at nothing less. But until then, there is still a lot yet to do in my current situation.

This is a Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) woven pillow by artist Sue Skelly that was for sale at The Blodel Reserve gift shop last summer.  

Some of these photos here are ones that I've not yet posted. Then again, maybe I have but I just don't remember. I have a lot that was swept up into my iPhoto box during the past year. I hope to finally start to break these out now. Let's all just pretend and ignore that they're so "last season".

Acapulco Salmon & Pink Hyssop (Agastache) at Dragonfly Farms Nursery. 

Fantastic garden structure at Dragonfly Farms Nursery.

There will be more and more of these in the coming weeks and I will try my best to recall what was going on at the time. A lot changed for me though at the Garden Blogger Fling up in Seattle last summer and I regret not having posted many posts but I was going numb in preparation for the marital amputation.

That's something which has become clear now, and there's no turning back...

Random chance encounter I found between a plant and some pavement while walking home from the grocery store not long ago.

 Then there are those beautiful moments I'm having now,

My precious Hollyhock (Alcea) grown from seed from seeds purchased at Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, CA.

as I mix them in with my past,

I love the color of Alpine strawberries (Fragaria vesca) almost as much as I love their taste.

and I remember the simple pleasures too.

Coastal Goldenrod (Solidago simplex ssp. simplex var. spathulata).

Recently I began to think about my precious seeds, and the seed hunting, and the plant IDing.

This summer I've not yet had a road trip to look for seeds. Planning one for later has been in the back of my mind, on that perpetual back burner with the pile of other things, back behind all of the practical things I need to do right now—or else I should have done months ago.

The lovely annual Alternanthera. 

This week I will begin collecting some seeds around here at home. I'm working again too on adding items to my Etsy store and am thinking about what kind of job will potentially work for me—though deep down I just want to play with plants and write. This should probably come as no big surprise to anyone who knows me! I have some options now though and am working on scenarios that will help me to live with the dignity I'd like as someone with a chronic illness.

"Somewhere" in Mendocino County, CA.

So I'm mentally ready to prepare for such a journey back out into the woods and wherever else I land and I hope to hit the road this October. These trips are fun for me to plan.

Yes there is the ocean to see too as I go into California, but there are also friends in San Francisco, Los Angeles (I've not yet seen Lotusland) and (fingers crossed) the Garden Writers Association Annual Symposium in Tucson, AZ. (Come to think of it, I've never been to one of those either.) The drive home from there could be all new to me and that would be nice to venture more into the Rockies a bit.  

Something says to me that arriving in Tucson by car might be just what I need. 

And somewhere out in the desert I hope to hear from somewhere deep inside of myself, "Thank you for listening. Thank you."

Handmade Garden Projects

Last week my 20-year-old niece came over to visit me in the garden and as soon as she arrived I put down my review copy of Handmade Garden Projects. She immediately grabbed it though and after a few minutes of flipping thorough it blurted, "Wow Annie, these are really cool projects! I want to make something now. Like right now!"

And this is exactly how Handmade Garden Projects will make you feel too. Yes, there are instructions for the different projects, but there are also extra tidbits that will help with your overall funky garden design. Somehow, between the pages, the book gives off the creative energy of its author and creator too—Lorene Edwards Forkner. We could all use a little bit of personality sometimes and I think many gardening books lack it. This is not one of those books. 

Like others, I too had the pleasure to see Lorene's garden during the Seattle Garden Blogger's Fling in 2011. It was absolutely a high point during the trip. I too like to repurpose and recycle old things in the garden and I love how it continually changes how I see things. I am often in awe of those like Loree who are able to push the simplest and sometimes most inelegant of objects into things of beauty. It truly is an art to understand how to place found objects. 

There is nothing quite like the chance encounter in a garden for the viewer. So often it's where we've come to expect the expected. When we don't find it—at least for me—it can be exhilarating. Just when you become blasé about something like this, it often takes the talent of someone like Lorene to open up your eyes all over again.  

Here are just a few of the projects included in the book that I captured during that tour. Have a look through and at the end of this post simply leave a comment to win your very own copy of Handmade Garden Projects! (Deadline Friday May 25th at noon PST.)

AND THE WINNER IS: RYAN MILLER!! CONGRATS AND YOUR COPY OF THE BOOK WILL BE IN THE MAIL SOON.

Welded Gabion Column (Lorene Edwards Forkner). 

Outdoor Terrarium (Lorene Edwards Forkner). 

Cocktail Table. (Lorene Edwards Forkner). 

Wire Plant Support (Lorene Edwards Forkner).

Shutter Storage Space (Lorene Edwards Forkner).

Bamboo Obelisk (Lorene Edwards Forkner). 

Old World Water Fountain (Lorene Edwards Forkner).

Sleek Succulent Gutter (Lorene Edwards Forkner).

There were so many amazing things I had to leave a few more funky pictures.

So please don't forget to leave a comment to win your very own copy of Handmade Garden Projects.

Here is your prompt: Have you repurposed or recycled something in your garden that you're really proud of or do you have plans to do so this summer? Let us all know and good luck! (Deadline Friday May 25th at noon PST.)

Garden Bloggers Fling, 2011 (Seattle): A Confessional Introduction to an Event Long Past

So, as winter creeps into our lives, my posts from the fling are on their way. In anticipation of the great Northwest Flower & Garden Show—the fantastic winter event in Seattle that my husband and I attend annually for Valentine's Day—I am posting these to not only get myself excited for next spring, but as a wintertime gift to anyone who happens upon them. 

(Additionally, the next Garden Bloggers Fling, 2012 will occur in Asheville NC from May 18th-May 20th and I encourage you to go if you are able to do so.)

This past summer I participated in the Garden Bloggers Fling in Seattle, WA. I'll be the first to admit it. It was a first for me, and and although I truly enjoyed the gardens, the plants, the people and the great conversations immensely, I wasn't completely sure what I was doing there. I'm still trying to figure that out now, and the length of time that this whole process has taken, is just, well, kinda ridiculous.

Hummingbird in an Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

Here are a few of my most basic thoughts on the matter:
I am not a published garden writer. 

I do not write a well-known garden blog. 

I am not a garden journalist.

My garden/(s) are neither glossy nor centerfold worthy, and last but not least—

I do not work in the garden industry and do not blog for a company—let along a cause. 

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

Add to this the fact that many of my favorite garden, landscape and/or plant books come from the philosophy, art history, and/or critical theory sections of the bookstore and you really might begin to wonder about me. When I think of gardens, my mind quickly tends to move to land art—you know, stuff like Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson—and if not there, I mentally begin analyses of social context, race, class, gender, and all that stuff. Once those areas have been buzzed over I move immediately to botany and botanical books in order to catalog as many plants as I can in my mind to know where a garden, and garden designer, are coming from both geographically and stylistically. 

If you're reading this, and you really know me, none of this will be revelatory. 

Some folks may have already stopped reading this, and that's kinda the point I want to get to with all of this right now. 

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

I've been very slow though to provide any posts here about the Garden Bloggers Fling I attended, mainly because I simply did not understand the rush to do so at the time, and since I tend to think these things over far too long sometimes, I just didn't say anything. 

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

For me, rushing into grocery lists of plants and trying to say the words "lush", "green", and "beautiful" in as many different ways as I could conceive of just seemed really taxing. I've never been able to write filler and I deeply appreciate those who are able to do so without its unceasing monotony getting to them. I am such a contextualizer that it seems to take me longer and longer to weave together the treads of my garden experiences.

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

Sitting on this whole Garden Bloggers experience was a good thing, and now that it's 2012, and I will be up in Seattle soon for the Northwest Flower & Garden Show, I'm ready to say what I do here, and how I define my garden blogging.

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

I will say it here, and I'll say it loud and proud...

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

I don't write much about pretty, or perfect. I don't really like pretty or perfect. What I see are the complex social, societal, and emotional relationships between plants, the people who plant them, and the people who select, grow, promote and sell them. I look for the connecting points between information, personal experience, and business transactions and watch these created environments (gardens) as they evolve and as society, and its many stratum, both continue to inform and disrupt the tastes and desires of everyone involved in this complicated little dance—including myself. 

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

So I hope my little Garden Blog Manifesto was as good for you as it was for me. Yup. I'm one of those. Who let the nerd out into the sunlight? The garden doesn't need any of this pollywuppos, right? 

Au contraire mon ami!  (I'm a nerd, remember?) 

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

One of the greatest works of literature in the Western cannon was a little French novella entitled Candide. Published in 1759, during the Age of Enlightenment, it was written by a man we now call by his pen name, Voltaire. This wildly satirical novel is full of a kind of wit that is rarely, if ever, seen today and at its end, the author of the text leave us with: Il faut cultiver notre jardin. ("We must cultivate our garden.")

Yes, that famous line, one which even today is still wildly debated as to its semantic meaning, has only served to remind me recently that as awkward as I feel sometimes in the world of garden bloggers, I belong here. Maybe I don't cultivate and perfect my own garden as often as many other garden bloggers, and I don't rave about designs, nor do I regularly tout the products of one company over another, but I think I am in line with Voltaire when I say about society—years after he wrote it—we still must cultivate our garden. (My husband just reminded me that I should go into Hegel at this point but I promise not to at this time—maybe at a later date when I'm really feeling it. Right now I need to pack for a week in California.)

An Unidentified 2011 Garden Bloggers Fling Location. Any guesses anyone?

So that's how I roll, and that's how I blog. It might not be for everyone, but I felt like I had to define this publicly because ever since the Garden Bloggers Fling I have felt unsure about a lot of what I was thinking, seeing, hearing, and reading—especially from disheartened bloggers I've enjoyed reading who want to throw in their garden writing t(r)owels.

There has been an attrition in the world of personal garden blogs and this has been occurring as we've simultaneously watched the rise of business/marketing/corporate blogs. Many of those left still writing personal garden blogs are doing so with the hope that somehow, someday, it will lead to monetization or acknowledgement in the form of a mention in a nation gardening magazine, or better yet, a book contract.

We've even watched as "personal" gardening blogs have become paid content for companies to use as a way to broaden their online presence. This has been an eyeopening experience—to say the least. It may also have been the last straw for this camel as she looked out across the desert landscape, unable to distinguish one branded garden blogger from another—especially since many of them are professional writers seeking to broaden their audiences even more.

I understand the democratization of this technological process—this is the information age after all—but I sometimes feel as though I am standing around waiting for the next train wreck. As bloggers continue to be held liable in court, and as the publishing and news industries are watching their own cannibalization online, it's kind of a mess around here.

Gardening should be about finding your voice, and so too should garden blogging. An inauthentic voice heard anywhere, even on a computer screen, should be pruned and composted. I think I went into all of this, and even the event in the Seattle, as a kind of litmus test, seeking my own authenticity and voice. Thanks to Seattle, I've found the voice I'm happy with, and I hope you too may find your own...

No matter what, I can assure you that there are so many garden bloggers out there you'll be able to find those writers eventually who will suit your taste, even if they aren't the preferred read of your neighbors.

Call me the Andy Rooney of garden blogging if you want, but personally, I'd much rather be the Anne Sexton of this genre—minus the suicide.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin. 

(We must cultivate our garden.)