Brought from his native Sicily by the late Peter Danna of Portland, Peter’s Honey is one of the best figs we have eaten. Peter’s Honey bears good crops of light yellowish-green fruit with delectably tender and sweet, dark amber flesh. In the Northwest, Peter’s Honey ripens well in warm city climates. In the country or in cooler areas, an ideal location is on the sunny side of a wall or fence.
Following a friend’s advice, we found this wonderful fig in a Southeast Portland neighborhood. Stella Fig Tree™ was brought here many years ago by an Italian sailor and is now cultivated and prized by his wife. This special variety caught our attention with its large size, sweet, striking, purplish-red flesh, and its ability to ripen in our cooler climate.
To distinguish this variety from less reliable varieties also called Brown Turkey, we named it for our friend and garden writer Vern Nelson. Vern’s Brown Turkey Fig Tree has proven itself a reliable and productive variety in the Northwest. It bears large, sweet and flavorful, dark brown figs with light amber flesh, often producing two crops a year.
Very tight and compact santolina with small, dark green wrinkled leaves. A nice change up from the typical silvery Santolina foliage. Santolina villosa needs very well draining mineral soil in full sun and minimal summer water.
Pretty Carroll is a favorite Santolina for its soft blue grey foliage that is very aromatic and contrasts beautifully with the deep yellow flowers. Easy in a sunny dry border and it does a great job of blocking weeds from germinating beneath it.
Really excellent form of Spanish lavender with foliage that is just about as silvery as it gets on a lavender and deep purple flowers with light purple bracts on the top. Drought tolerant and maintains a much tighter form if given well drained mineral soil and zero summer water.
A very useful and easy to grow medicinal herb that has been shown to be effective at preventing migraines and headaches and has traditional uses of helping lower fevers, hence the name. Regardless of its medicinal uses it also produces tons of cheerful little aster flowers in late spring into summer and are beloved by pollinators.
A great Santolina species with a wonderful almost coral like texture to its foliage. Grows in a dense mound that makes for a very useful ground cover as it inhibits the germination of seeds with its leaf drop. Easy to grow if given full sunlight and sharp drainage to maintain a tight habit.
