By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

I love the cooling nights and lower sun angle of late summer. Plants set seed, flickers call in the distance, and I'm ready for a nursery road trip.

One of the best I know is near Portland, Oregon, where three great nurseries can keep you busy for a day or a weekend. Cistus and Joy Creek nurseries are open every day, but Bamboo Garden is only open Saturday, so if you want to make a Labor Day weekend trip out of it, today's your only chance to bag all three at once. All three nurseries are on large rural properties where they have display gardens that support retail and mail-order sales, plus design services. The nurseries are 13 to 23 miles apart.

This is also a terrific time to shop for nursery stock. As the days get shorter and cooler, transplanting becomes easier, and soon cool-season rains will take over and do your watering for you.

Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island (15 miles northwest of Portland) has the most unusual stock, including lots of fascinating natives and Mediterraneans. Many push climate-zone limits hard, so it's best to ask about hardiness before you buy.

Bamboo Garden in North Plains (20 miles west of Portland) has 16 acres of bamboo, most of it in sometimes-huge naturalized groves, but considerable space in containerized stock as well. Expertise in both running and clumping bamboos runs very deep here. While you're visiting, be sure to track down Jiro's coccoon.

Joy Creek Nursery in Scappoose (18 miles northwest of Portland) is justly famous for its perennials (including such diverse groups as hostas and penstemons), but their clematis and hydrangea collections are spectacular as well. This is a wonderfully peaceful place to walk, take notes, and make garden plans.

Happy Labor Day weekend.

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator    

Readers -- Are any of you anywhere near Salem? If so, you must, must, must go to the Minto Island Growers Farm Stand. 

You might remember Chris Jenkins and Elizabeth Miller from Sunset's April 2011 story, White-linen farms. They run an incredible organic farm in Salem, and are upping the coolness factor by about a million with their on-site food stand that includes fresh produce, U-Pick, as well as delicious meals designed and created by Elizabeth's mom, Sally. 

Location: 3394  Brown Island Rd. S.

August hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 10-5 

Check it out:

This is the view when you drive (or bike!) up.

Here's the super cute farm cart.

You'll likely be ordering your meal from Sally Miller, Elizabeth's mom, or one of their stellar interns.

Gaze at the row crops while you eat...

Sally's latest experiment (inspired by a very cold summer): Fried green tomatoes with a side of cheesy grits. YUM.

Yours truly, about to devour a Salad Niçoise that includes the farm's lettuce, beans, tomatoes, and potatoes. 

The two unstoppable (and recently engaged!!) farmers take a break to enjoy a peach milkshake. Sally's secret? Use whole peaches -- including the skins -- plus old-fashioned vanilla ice cream. 

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

I'm sure the test garden is exploding just about now, but I'm in NYC for the week, visiting family and friends.

There is a tree that's absolutely stolen my heart. It's inside the private Gramercy Park, but its branches droop over to the street below, and I pass it every time I walk my brother's dogs (I've got to earn my keep somehow). The pictures aren't the best, but I tried (and tried, and tried).

I love it. It's entire canopy is covered in these sweet pink puffs.

I could not figure out the variety, hard as I tried. I found this website about street trees in NYC, including this handy leaf ID. The trouble is this isn't technically a street tree, as it's in the park, and I wasn't seeing it anywhere else! 

I googled overly-complicated botanical terms about compound leaves and bottlebrush-esque blooms. 

I even got this app for my iPhone. It wasn't listed.

Nada. 

I felt like a big loser when my brother's friend who has told me he has zero interest in plants ("They just don't do it for me..") was able to track it down in 30 seconds by simply searching for "pink flowering tree, July." 

Drum roll please.....

It's a silk tree. And apparently it's not all that rare -- it was just new to me. 

Do y'all know this tree? It's spectacular!

The other plant that stole my heart was at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens:

SICK, right? It reminds me of a Dali painting. Or like the petals are bleeding! I'm obsessed. It's a Strophanthus preussii, or climbing oleander. It's native to Tropical West Africa. Wow. 

I'll post some pics of the test garden as soon as I'm back, as I'm sure it's officially out of control. 

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

That's Rex Walheim in the photo above, the astronaut who heads up the space walks—the last one is taking place today—on the current historic space shuttle mission. To his left is a rose sent into space by Bayer Advanced on Walheim's previous shuttle trip. He's on his third ride now.

This is fascinating to us for a couple of reasons. First, because Walheim's brother Lance has been working as a garden writer for Sunset on both a staff and freelance basis for many years—and it's fun being just two steps from an astronaut!

And second because this flight—the space shuttle's last—brings important philosophical questions to mind."What's next?", for example. Whether it is a return to the moon or travel to Mars, plants will undoubtedly play a role. NASA has tested everything from seed germination in space to the influence of microgravity on plant growth. This is not idle research. On long trips, plants can purify air and water, produce oxygen, and supply food.

They also seem to offer a very organic link with home that astronauts really like. Orlando Santos, scientific research coordinator for the Fundamental Space Biology Office at Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, remarked that "It's amazing how much the astronauts enjoyed working with the BPS [Biomass Production System, where plants grow]. They used it many hours above the scheduled crew time because they simply enjoyed looking at the plants."

The Walheims spent part of their growing-up years in San Carlos, CA, where Rex became fascinated with the starry night sky. As a child he looked up at it, and resolved to go into space himself some day. Today he's living his dream.

Wherever we travel, plants will undoubtedly come along for the ride. We're delighted that people like Rex Walheim are laying the foundations that make it possible.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

One of the Northwest's great garden tours is coming up this Saturday. Sponsored by the Association of Northwest Landscape Designers, it showcases some of the best residential design work in the Portland area. I took a pretour a few days ago, and saw lots to love. To visit these same gardens on Saturday, purchase tickets on the ANLD web site, or at nurseries listed on the same page.

Following is a little of what you'll see. There are eight gardens on the tour, including Lucy & Fred Hardiman's garden (they've been developing that legendary landscape, including the drought-tolerant parking strip garden pictured above, for 35 years). For more pictures of all the gardens on the tour, check out Loree Bohl's Danger Garden blog; she did posts yesterday and today on the same tour.

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

You're coming, right? 

Here are all the details about the weekend. 

Other than speaking on the home and garden stage at 2:15 on Saturday and noon on Sunday, I will be tethered to the test garden, ready to show it off and answer any questions. Come say hi!

Highlights in the test garden include a guest installation by Matthew Levesque, author of The Revolutionary Yardscape. He's built us some amazing decking out of all recycled materials. He'll also be speaking on the home and garden stage at 12:45 on Sunday.

We also have lots of new plants and plenty of ideas on how to mix ornamentals with your edibles. 

See you there!

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Photograph by Mike Mahoney

We all have our favorite sports. One that fascinates me is the hunt for big trees. Every state has its giants, and anybody can find them, measure them, and submit them to the National Register of Big Trees, which is maintained by American Forests. And lest you think that the biggest and best trees have all been found, remember that there's a biggest tree for every species, giants crash to earth in every big storm, and there's still lots of unexplored (for big trees) territory out there.

Consider the case of the world's tallest pine: a sugar pine in Yosemite, it was 269 feet high when it died in 2009. Enter two big-tree hunters, Michael Taylor of Trinity County, CA, and Mario Vaden of Beaverton, OR. Scouting Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon last month, they found a ponderosa pine that's 268 ft. 4 in. tall, making it the new world champion pine.

Scouting the forest near Alpine, CA, Mike Mahoney found the 117-ft.-tall western white pine pictured above, nominated it, and came up with another new national champion. (Each species has its own champion.)

If you want to get into the hunt for big trees, check out American Forests' National Register of Big Trees to see existing champs and learn how to nominate one you think is bigger.

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

Everything changes in winter. I remember posting on last year about my troubles in the test garden. My veggies were either stunted or bolting, and I was having to find beauty in subtler places.

I'm in my hometown of Denver this month, realizing once again that winter is a whole different ballgame in a climate with hard freezes and snow.

Though to be honest -- they're having a freakishly warm winter here. It's nothing like the last time I posted from Denver.

Still, it's markedly different from winter in NorCal. But there's beauty all around -- you just have to know where to look.

Crabapples dangle from a bare branch

Miscanthus sinensis catches the morning light

A super grey juniper with blue/grey berries is just stunning

I'm enjoying downtime with my family this month, hoping you all get to do the same. Very happy holidays and I'll catch you in the garden in 2011!

By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

Friends who get their best ideas by touring gardens will love getting a Garden Conservancy gift membership. For $50, they'll get a holiday card, Garden Conservancy decal, membership card, a book of six discounted Open Days admission tickets (to see local, private gardens), and the 2011 Open Days Directory when it's published in March.

Members get free admission to the gardens that the Conservancy is preserving, and can also buy additional Open Days tickets at a discount. Be sure to specify whether the gift package should be mailed to you or the recipient—orders will be mailed by December 15 to get there in time for Christmas, so act fast!

Here, the owners started with an island-style gazebo flanked with bamboo, bananas, and flowers in tropical colors. Add to that a brightly painted gate, a thatched patio umbrella, and a brilliant red-orange trumpet creeper, and the illusion is complete. Except for the Douglas firs in the background, you'd swear you were about 25° of latitude farther south.

Tad has more than just a casual Hawaiian connection. Apart from his love for the island state, he wrote and recorded a song called "Molokai Slide" that's loved by locals and tourists alike.