Spring is Almost Here!

Spring is “official” on Monday, March 20th this year. We all know though, that the Pacific Northwest often shares some spring like weather and early flowering plants during traditional winter months so it’s not unusual for us to be antsy to get into the garden. I’m certain many of us already have been at work […]

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

Winter Reading and Learning

The Garden Hotline staff share their favorite gardening books; also where to find great seeds.

Winter is here and this is a great time to sit down with those gardening books you always mean to read but are usually too busy with your hands in the soil to get to.  We want to share our favorite books, ones that we make use of for our personal gardening goals and to […]

The Best BOMBs: Blue Orchard Mason Bees!

By Katie Vincent, Garden Hotline Educator

Honeybees may be cute, popular and extra fuzzy, but the real proboscis behind most of our region’s fruit crops is a completely different arthropod: the blue orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria). Why Choose Mason Bees? Native to North America, mason bees get their common name from their habit of patching up naturally occurring holes with […]

Celebrate the return of our cool season flowers!

Sue Hartman, Garden Hotline Educator ‘Tis the season for pansies, violas, calendula, and sweet alyssum. The weather is changing, the rains are returning and the nights are cooling off. This means those delightful spring bloomers that thrive in this kind of weather are also returning to our gardens. They will all easily self-sow and Calendula […]