Need Help with Garden Designs?

Is your outdoor living space in need of help? If you answered yes to this question, consider seeking out one of the many free design consultations and classes being offered during Le Tour des Plants this week. With help, you can learn to tame the wilderness with Japanese design elements, improve your corner of the world with a green roof and a rain garden, and perk up your garden’s fall and winter look with unusual conifers. Check out how the right plantings can help make your home more secure!

Click here for a listing of Design Activities

Le Tour des Plants Starts Tomorrow!!!

Touring with heart
Several Le Tour des Plants garden centers have organized benefit sales with proceeds going to worthy causes.

See which ones here.

Kids/family
Have you ever had a fire-breathing dragon toast a marshmallow for you? I thought not! Daisy the Fire-Breathing Dragon is scheduled to toast all day, every day of the tour at Bloomer’s Nursery.











For a list of other family-friendly kids activities click here.

Special tours/visiting wholesale nurseries
Ever wondered about where all those adorable plants come from or what they might look like as grown ups? Wholesale nurseries Terra Nova and Peoria Gardens are opening their doors to the public during Le Tour, and J. Frank Schmidt nursery is opening its 10-acre arboretum to the public for the first time ever!

Click here for a complete list of special tours.

Find out the appeal of clematis at the extensive Rogerson Clematis Collection at Luscher Farm. The research facilities at Oregon State University Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture test plants and plantings to find which ones are suitable to use in ecologically beneficial garden features such as green roofs and rain gardens. The Oregon State Organic Growers Club invites you to see their all-volunteer organic farm.

Crafts/hands-on demos
There are so many things to make and do, from seed balls to scarecrows, Pot Men to petanque, living wreaths to lavender wands, we put all the crafts and hands-on demos here.

Complete list of crafts and home demos

Touring for food
Several nurseries are spotlighting what to plant for a great harvest, along with tips on how to turn fresh produce into superior salsa and gourmet meals. If you were wondering how to grow food in containers, how to prune fruit trees or which berry is best for backyards, these classes are for you!

List of foods HERE!

Food & wine & music
Gardening is for ALL your senses! Twenty stops along Le Tour des Plants will tempt your palate with such things as pastries, fresh roasted garlic, tomatoes, scones, apples, coffee, lavender lemonade, and more! Local wineries will be pouring at Larsen Farms, Out in the Garden Nursery, and Blooms-N-More.

List of food growing and activities

Catch live musical performances at Blooms-N-More, Dancing Oaks, River Rock Nursery, and Evans Farms. Click here for a listing of music and special events.

Click here for a listing of music and special events

Pamper yourself with a little chair massage at Madrona Hills ACE Hardware and Garland Nursery.

Click here for spa activites.

Two Days till Le Tour des Plants 08!!!!

Nine days of fun, tips, tools and experts to help you make your yard into your dream landscape and garden!

Le Tour des Plants Magazines are now available at Participating Garden Centers & Nurseries. Get your copy TODAY!

Gardening Tips from Blooms-N-More

Gardening Tip from Joleen Hope at Blooms-N-More Nursery: Don't do so much fall clean up! Native wildlife feeds on the seeds and uses the fallen leaves and brush for cover. The fallen leaves help protect the plants throughout the winter by creating a mulching effect.

Stay tuned for more:

• Activities
• Contests
• Tour suggestions, with restaurants and local highlights
• Tips
• Coupons
• Destination display gardens

Find out more about Le Tour des Plants, including a list of participating garden centers, at www.letourdesplants.com.

Coupon Special

Carol Westergreen of Out in the Garden Nursery recommends the following plants for beautiful fall color and texture:

Panicum ‘Shenandoah’ An upright, 4-foot tall ornamental grass with wispy flowers and red-tipped foliage late summer into fall, ‘Shenandoah’ loves full sun and is adaptable to many soil types.

Pennisetum ‘Karly Rose’ is a wonderful hardy fountain grass with fluffy pink flowers from July to frost. ‘Karly Rose’ grows to 3 feet tall in full sun.

Rudbeckia ‘Chim Chiminee’ An unusual black-eyed Susan that blooms from July to October. Flower color ranges from yellow to gold, to rust, often with quilled petals. A great addition to the fall border and ornamental grass companion, ‘Chim Chiminee’ grows to 3 feet in full sun.

Artemisia Guizhou Group Low mounds of ferny dark green foliage sets the stage for 4-foot spires of creamy white flowers on dark mahogany stems. Blooms July and August. In the northwest, the foliage is evergreen.

Print off this coupon and get acquainted with Out in the Garden Nursery, in Molalla.

Click here to print off the coupon!

Le Tour des Plants on KGW

Le Tour des Plant lovers tune in this Friday morning from 5-7am (yes early but totally worth it!) for KWG reporter Drew Carney's live remote from Smith Berry Barn in Hillsborro, Ore.

He will be talking all about Le Tour des Plants - which kicks off in just 3 short days!! Very exciting!! - and highlighting the activites going on through the course of the event at Smith Berry Barn.

Taste Melons in Albany or Tomatoes in Lake Oswego, Plant a Kitchen Garden Container in Salem, and Savor Apple Sausage in Hillsboro

Whether you are bringing in the harvest, planning next year’s food crops or just want to sample the Northwest’s bounty, Le Tour des Plants has something to offer. Participating garden centers and nurseries will have coffee, tea, pastries, wine, lavender lemonade and barbecue, along with a celebrity cook-off, recipes, and food crop classes.







Look for a bumper crop of tastings, cooking classes, and food production activities during Le Tour des Plants at: Lavender at Stonegate, Bauman Farms, Boring Bark & Landscape Materials, Dancing Oaks Nursery, Drake’s 7 Dees, Ferguson’s Fragrant Nursery, Garland Nursery, Heirloom Roses, Larsen Farm Nursery (both locations), Out in the Garden Nursery, Dennis’ Seven Dees (Lake Oswego), Madrona Hills ACE Hardware, Red Ridge Farms, Nichols Garden Nursery, Secret Garden Growers, Shorty’s Garden & Home (Vancouver), and Smith Berry Barn.

Get going

For convenience, garden centers are grouped into three general areas, North, Mid-Willamette, and South Willamette. Here is a preview of the South-Willamette Group.