The above map shows my neighborhood in the city of Portland. The northern boundary is Burnside St, and across from us is NE Portland. I live in SE Portland. My house is in the NE corner of the Mt Tabor Neighborhood.
I’ve written about the area before. I think that after I first started this site 18 years ago I often posted photos of plants and gardens I liked as I walked around.
Next month I will have lived here for 22 years. I thought it might be fun to sort of retrace my steps.
Clockwise from above left: Nice to see a rehab in progress instead of teardown. Then a few lovely favorites: Acer griseum, Chamaenerion angustifolium, Cotinus coggygria, Oxydendrum arboreum, and Fine Line® Rhamnus.
My current daily priority is to create small healthy routines for self-care. This helps me to be productive enough both at work and at home. Walks are alway good.
I’ve spent the last four years learning to live again, normalizing such common little things. Somehow, through this process, I finally feel emotionally mature. Working through layers of CPTSD has resulted in a pile of journals, and created some of the best friendships I’ll likely ever have.
This makes me happy. Really happy.
But my garden has suffered as I’m not avoiding life as much and as often. So, again, walks are always good.
Exercise currently takes top priority for several health reasons.
Moving from daily survival with a disease for decades, to thriving, requires the correct medication to help stabilize a patient. I received mine 4 years ago, went through a few years of career and life stabilization, and then during the last year and a half, a dam of emotions burst. All of the emotions.
Thankfully I often work alone in greenhouses.
With the emotions came tears. So many tears. Every day was a new kind of hell to relive, but then it lessened up little by little. Now I’m generally pretty content, but I take small steps when I go somewhere to re-experience things. To “be myself again” if that’s something I want to keep.
Some experiences are simply sad to me now. There are things I no longer enjoy. Other things can still make my heart flutter and send me into the panic of fight or flight. Places, sounds, people, smells can also bring back memories.
But most days now, I’m ok. I’m actually saying that with a lot of hesitation. I’m timid to say this, but in many ways I really enjoy my life right now. I feel free and so calm.
While I walked yesterday, I thought a lot about my route. I had planned to go for a short walk, but it was so easy and comfortable, I just kept going. I had planned to walk on sidewalks, all the way around the park, but then the scents from the trees at Mt Tabor drew me to them.
The bench above on the left is where I used to sit and cry in the dark for many years. I would go to the reservoir to walk in circles around it. The worst years were just before, during, and after my divorce when I was attempting to date. Such humiliation. Self-compassion is also something recent.
The stairs on the right used to make me cringe in pain. Walking up them used to cause so much pain in my back and legs from my injuries. Yesterday, I cruised up all 99-100 of them with ease.
Experiencing them both with a smile and lightness was a great surprise and happy relief. I kept going to look for some trees I like, meandering through different groups of people also out enjoying the day.
Above: Cropped photo of the Larix occidentalis, the new picnic shelter they’re building to replace the one smashed a few years ago by trees, and the amphitheater in the crater.
I kept wandering up the little volcano to the top. I lounged at a picnic table and did and thought nothing. I enjoyed the breeze on my skin and the smell of summer amongst the trees for an unknown length of time. It felt dry and I wondered how many weekends of summer I had left. Maybe I should make car camping reservations?
Because I can do that.
But it still feels tenuous. I’m just a young adult in so many ways. Illness put me far behind my peers. I had delayed development and it’s not easy to say to yourself and others, “I’ve maybe only had one emotionally mature intimate relationship.” But I’ve finally accepted my part in that. There were relationships—but few I want to think much about now.
And plants. Well, plants made all of this stuff so much easier to avoid. Unless I had to deal with people, ha!, and yes, I have had to work with people and plants. What a diverse range of people and plants. I’ve definitely had some more successful relationships with plants than I have people lol.
But now I get of focus on the present—and just keep going. The past is always going to be kind of painful for me. My grieving will continue. The future seems ok at least. I’m ok with how things are going.
I can do more spontaneous things now—like find the notable trees of Mt. Tabor Park. I have space freed up inside of me to play. I don’t have to crawl home in pain. Or drink too much to avoid how I feel. I don’t even think about avoiding anything anymore.
Once I came down from the crater, I just kept smiling while feeling the feelings about the many memories I have of this walk. I still can’t believe I’d go up to Mt. Tabor after work and school to walk in the dark to manage my pain a few years ago. But even that memory made me smile. I had the discipline. I did it. I feel better now.
So I walked and thought about the simple pleasures of things I enjoy looking at while listening to music.
This is by far one of my favorite garden walls. I think it was installed maybe 12 years ago. It looks like it’s been there for longer.
Hydrangeas were drooping all over the place. This made me giggle. I think I’ve killed more of them than any other plant.
Bupleurum fruticosum is still one of my favorite garden plants. I think I still have one but will need to chop through my jungle to find it. It’s tough and will reward you with its blooms and the fact it’s evergreen.
Down down down the hill I walked towards home.
At the top of my street we have this interesting pruning shape on a weeping Japanese maple. It’s well done now, but I’m still not sure how I feel about using it as a screening wall in a kind of triangular shape.
But I think it’s too odd NOT to like it.
Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’ at a neighbor’s is beautiful. I feel like I was seeing this in a lot of gardens and then it disappeared or simply became less popular.
Another neighbor has a lot of goldenrod that looks great right now with their Japanese maple. What a great color echo.
And I wonder who the crazy gardener is who lives here? Sure looks like she needs to get out there to prune. Maybe she’s been keeping the world out? Hmmmmm…
I had to laugh when I stepped back to look at what my house now looks like… What house?
Lastly, I had to laugh when I got home and saw my reflection in the back door. I was wearing my Venetian Italian farmer seed company hat and Portland Greek Festival shirt. I’d not intended to walk 6 miles as a Mediterranean billboard.
My close friend Eric Hsu confirmed that the hat had come from the Sagra del Radicchio event we’d attended a few years ago when he’d come to visit. It looks like this year the Sagra del Radicchio e Fagioli will be on Saturday, October 24, 2026, from 3 – 7PM. And don’t forget you can buy the book soon too. Go radicchio!
I may have gone through A LOT internally over the last few years, and I know what I need to keep working on, but my love and support of agriculture and food has not changed a bit. At least something has stayed the exact same.
Ann Loves Plants 
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