Sunday September 11th, so much to choose from...

This coming Sunday has three fun events to chose from — for those of you near Portland that is. If you're really fast maybe you can even squeeze in all three!

First of all, my fellow bloggers Tamara (Chickadee Gardens), Amy (The Worlds Best Gardening Blog) and I are participating in a class/discussion at Joy Creek Nursery called Garden Blogging as a Tool. We will explore how garden blogging can be used to build gardening communities.

Joy Creek Nursery, display garden

We all came to blogging for drastically different reasons, but enjoy the community — local, national and international — we are now a part of. We have lots to talk about and hope for an engaged audience who will ask the tough questions.

Rodgersia, in the Joy Creek Nursery, display garden

The class is free and open to the public, it begins at 1:00 pm.

Joy Creek Nursery, display garden

Of course while you're there you'll want to explore the Joy Creek gardens and shop the nursery! (I know I will be).

Joy Creek Nursery

Secondly, the garden of Bob Hyland and Andrew Beckman is open to benefit the Pacific Horticulture Society.

The garden of Bob Hyland and Andrew Beckman

This five year old garden is perched on a hillside above Highway 30 (with views out over the Willamette and Columbia Rivers and bits industrial north Portland), if you're looking for an afternoon spent in a beautiful garden to benefit a great organization, then this is an event for you.

The garden of Bob Hyland and Andrew Beckman

I visited earlier in the year and wrote about my visit here. The garden is open from 2:00 to 6:00pm and the cost is $40 for PHS members, $45 for non-members and guests (more info).

The garden of Bob Hyland and Andrew Beckman

And finally if you thought tour season was over you're wrong: five gardens on Portland's west side will be open Sunday to benefit Ainsworth Elementary School.

The Dietrich garden

One of the gardens on the tour is the Dietrich garden, which I had the opportunity to visit a couple of weeks ago via the HPSO open gardens program.

The Dietrich garden

Another gardener on the Ainswoth tour, Ellen Novy, kindly opened her garden to Tamara, Amy and I as a sneak peek. We enjoyed poking around her property as well as that of her gardening neighbor, who's property will also be part of the tour.