Orange is youthful, passionate, optimistic and playful. But just as a rock star must build to a climax if we are to experience a climax at all,  if you’re going to say “look at me” with orange in the garden, be sure you can hold the viewer’s gaze once you’ve got it. The singer who belts out an entire song without varying her intensity leaves us weary. The garden that is all bustle with no repose is similarly jarring. If you want your garden to be a rock opera or even a symphony rather than a lullaby, consider orange your ally.

First, don’t stop  with the orange in your 10 color pack of crayons. Seek oranges from the palest apricot through deepest red-tinged tangerine and saturated scarlet. Next, blend these with leaves of silver, blue gray, deep blue green, plum, and lime. Add flowers of lemon yellow, cream, and pale green plus deep plummy reds. Don’t forget about contrasting textures and leaf shapes while you’re at it.  These combinations will be both lively and sophisticated. Your retinas won’t burn, and your guests won’t fall asleep. Now, add moments of more striking contrasts with blues and purples. Can you hear the cymbals?

Orange is warm and inviting,  an oh-so-welcome contrast to our leaden northwest skies. Give the color of peaches, sunsets, and ginger kittens a try.

We love to incorporate edible crops into our landscapes! For those who are hands on gardeners with a passion for local food and the time to harvest, cook and process the bounty of their little piece of earth, we design gardens comprised almost exclusively with edible plants and good pollinators. For many others, busy lives mean a food forest isn’t feasible. The edibles in their landscapes must earn their keep in terms of flavor, nutrition, ease of culture, and good looks.

Blueberries WIN in all of these categories. They are lovely plants, with pink or white flowers followed by blue fruits, often stunning fall color, and red stems in winter. They come in a wide variety of sizes, from super dwarf ‘Top Hat’ at just 18″ tall to compact but slightly larger ‘Northblue’ and ‘Northsky’ (pictured above), to the delicious ‘Olympia’, at 4-6 feet tall.

My personal darling is ‘Sunshine Blue’ (photo) because in addition to being highly productive and a very useful size at 3′ tall and wide, they are EVERGREEN! They still get some nice  fall color on their leaves, but then the leaves hang on. How cool is that?

There is even a newer cultivar called ‘Pink Lemonade’ with PINK fruits! Fun for surprising your friends. Or perhaps for delighting the ‘pink princess’ in your life.

Blueberries require evenly moist acidic soil  and adequate sunshine to produce well, so give them a spot where you can meet their requirements. They typically need to be pollinated by another variety for best production, though some like ‘Sunshine Blue’, are self fertile–another reason I love it. If you choose early, mid-season, and late varieties, you can be filling your cereal bowl and your freezer from late July through late August or early September.

Here is a chart showing fruiting times from Bryant Blueberry Farm: http://www.bryantblueberries.com/Images/PDFs/BryantBlueberries_Plants_InfoChart.pdf

For more information on a great number of good choices for our region, check out Burnt Ridge Nursery: http://www.burntridgenursery.com/fruitingPlants/index_product.asp?dept=31&parent=28