It’s that time of year again when garden centers fill their benches back up with a whole new crop of bare root roses. Our crews have spent the last several weeks carefully pruning and planting several thousand of them so they can be taken home and lovingly plunged into your gardens.

It should be no surprise that our northwest climate is perfect for growing all kinds of berries.

Simply look around at the omnipresent and noxious Himalayan Blackberry, and one can easily deduce that berries will grow with little effort on our part.

Believe it or not, by the end of this month garden centers will be fully stocked with all the new and tried and true varieties of fruit trees that are well-suited for our unique marine climate.

For the most part, these trees will be bare root - which simply means that the roots have no soil on them.

I have just spent this last week, and countless hours, researching the topic of “trends for 2020."

The trends for 2020 are really just a continuation of what I have observed over the last five years, so here are some of the points that caught my eye that hopefully you will find informative and useful.

I have mentioned many times over the years that I believe that we live in a horticultural paradise. There is very little we can’t grow successfully in our Pacific Northwest climate and lord knows I have tried it all at one time or another.

As the season winds down and the garden is put to bed, I can’t help but pause and reflect on the past several months. It was a roller coaster year for me with lots of promise, a major setback, and then a fantastic recovery.

Fasten your seatbelts and hang on…

Back in late September of this year, I introduced you to several new shrubs for 2020 and promised to continue later this fall with several more new introductions.

After reading through the November/December edition of Horticulture I have cherry picked a few to expound upon.

As the temperatures continue to drop, along with all those leaves on our deciduous trees, we are pretty much left with just shades of green in our gardens to look at throughout the winter.

For those of us that experience color starvation, here are some ideas to bring the outside into our dining rooms and living spaces.