After years running an organic flower farm in Cedar Mill, SE Portland, and on Sauvie Island, flowers are still my first love. I moved here six years ago from Portland’s Woodstock neighborhood and traded deep loam for a challenging site perched on an old Oregon City rock quarry. The house is literally bolted to a bus-sized slab of basalt, built askew to fit the stone, yet it has a wonderful treehouse feel—tucked on a private road in a grove of tall maples. A long hedge of “The Impressionist” roses sealed the deal; most has been replaced with shrubs and a fence due to the steep drop-off, but a few roses still glow in summer. We removed the lawn, expanded borders, and hauled in loads of soil and compost over thin clay, adding stock tanks for deeper planting. A modern pergola now overlooks a new fish pond and waterfall, attracting birds, frogs, and dragonflies while softening freeway noise. Views of West Linn, mist from Willamette Falls, and Mt. St. Helens are especially magical at dusk. The garden continues down a boulder-strewn slope, transitioning to natives-only below.