Seed Library News - March 2026

 

Happy March, Gardeners!

I want to start off by thanking everyone who came to our annual seed swap, Seedy Saturday. We saw around 90 people come through to swap seeds and speak with our special guests. I estimate just over 500 seed packets were taken home that day! I have so many seeds left over that it might take me another month to get through them all and get them into the cabinet as we also received donations from the following nurseries:

• Al's Garden Center
• Baker Creek
• Peaceful Valley
• Portland Nursery
• Territorial Seed Co.

I also want to extend heartfelt gratitude to my wonderful volunteers that made our event flow better than previous years: Tom, Jim & Lynn, and Patty, thank you for your continued support of our seed library!

And thank you to our special guests, Echo Valley Natives, Food Hero, Master Gardeners Cindy and Kris, and Amy with the Community Gardens, for offering your time to be available to our community members to answer questions and provide resources.

Finally, thank you to The Garden Massage Therapy in Sandy for donating a gift basket that was an extra special treat for one lucky patron.

Book Club Picks - March 2026

Here are what the Sandy and Hoodland book clubs have decided to read in February: 

Digital book club will be cancelled for March. 

Men's Book Club

Monday, March 2
7:00 PM
Hoyt Community Room in the Sandy Library

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

For further information please contact Maureen Houck: mhouck@ci.sandy.or.us

Women's Book Club

Thursday, March 12

6:00 PM

Hoyt Community Room in the Sandy Library

Trivia Night Challenge! 

For further information please contact Maureen Houck: mhouck@ci.sandy.or.us

Hoodland Book Club

Tuesday, March 17

4:00 PM

Hoodland Community Room

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

For further information please contact Alex Steinmetz: asteinmetz@ci.sandy.or.us

Sandy Library Recommendations for Black History Month

February is Black History Month. From February 1 - March 1, we take the time to celebrate and recognize important people and events in African-American history. 

While LINCC maintains a collection of books for Black Voices & Culture, we asked some of the staff at the Sandy and Hoodland Libraries for their recommendations for books for Black History Month. 

Sandy Seed Library News - February 2026

 

Happy February, Gardeners!

I am not sure why I decided that my birthday month was the month to talk about invasive plants, but here we are. It might have to do with the excitement around new seeds coming into the library and the recurring conversation I have around certain flowers being invasive or not.

Grass Isn’t Greener by Danae Wolfe makes a case for eliminating invasives. “Not all non-native plants are bad. In fact, many non-native plants coexist peacefully with native species and bring beauty to the garden. But when non-native plants become invasive, that’s when things go awry.”

“Invasive plants are non-native species that are introduced to a new environment and have the ability to rapidly reproduce and spread. These plants have a knack for outcompeting native species for resources like sunlight, water, and nutrients, and they also exhibit aggressive growth habits and fast growth rates, and often have efficient reproductive strategies. With few natural predators to keep them in check and the ability to tolerate a wide range of environmental conditions, they can rapidly colonize new areas and quickly dominate local ecosystems.”

One of the most frequent flowers that gets mentioned are foxgloves (Digitalis pupurea). We associate foxgloves with our area so much that I think they are even featured on the city’s new electric bus! They are beautiful, but there is a case to be made that they are invasive.

Oregon and Washington do not have them on the official list because to make it onto a state-wide invasive list, the plant often has to have a major impact on our agriculture industry, not our wild and native spaces. However, our neighbors, California and British Columbia both agree that it is invasive, with local plant organizations, like the Native Plant Society of Oregon, pushing for this classification.

If this is a flower that you adore, you are not alone, and I do have some words of hope: There are many hybrid varieties available in seed form, and the beauty in their hybrid form is that the seeds are sterile. You will not have to worry about them seeding out of control and taking over in native spaces and you still get to enjoy them.

Foxgloves (Digitalis pupurea) Links

Foxglove- Invasive Species Council of British Columbia

Native Plant Society of Oregon - Invasive Plant Atlas

Invasive Species List of California - Digitalis pupurea

Photo: Wiki Commons

Attribution: Robert Flogaus-Faust - Own work, CC BY 4.0

Penstemon

If you are looking for a similar flower that would be a better option, check out the penstemon flowers. This picture I took at a local nursery as I was watching a bee go in and out of each flower. Click on the image to see her booty and little legs hanging out of a flower.

OregonFlora - Penstemon

Portland Nursery - Penstemon: Beard-tongue

Book Club Picks - February 2026

 Here are what the Sandy and Hoodland book clubs have decided to read in February: 

Men's Book Club

Monday, February 2
7:00 PM
Hoyt Community Room in the Sandy Library

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

For further information please contact Maureen Houck: mhouck@ci.sandy.or.us

Digital Book Club 

Monday, February 5
7:00 PM
Online via Zoom

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander

For further information and to receive the Zoom link, contact Kat Aden: kaden@ci.sandy.or.us

Women's Book Club

Thursday, February 12

6:00 PM

Hoyt Community Room in the Sandy Library

Educated by Tara Westover

For further information please contact Maureen Houck: mhouck@ci.sandy.or.us

Hoodland Book Club

Tuesday, February 17

4:00 PM

Hoodland Community Room

Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray

For further information please contact Alex Steinmetz: asteinmetz@ci.sandy.or.us

Sandy Seed Library News - January 2026

 Happy New Year, Gardeners!

With January brings our annual seed swap, Seedy Saturday, and every year my husband gets a giggle out of the name and has to say something to me about it. Seems he’s not the only one to wonder about the name and chuckle at it. This year, I discovered the answer to his question, well part of it anyway.

Everything You Want to Know About Seedy Saturdays

Turns out, we get our name from a movement that started in Canada in 1990!

Seedy Saturdays (& their sister event, Seedy Sundays) is a concept that started in British Columbia, Canada in the 1990s and these seed exchanges quickly spread across Canada and beyond. They remain a vibrant and essential part of the community gardening culture, offering a way to celebrate biodiversity, support local food systems, and promote sustainable, organic gardening practices. - Seed Library Network

So why do we always hold it on the 4th Saturday in January? In 2006, the editor and publisher of Washington Garden Magazine, Kathy Jentz, applied to have that day known as National Seed Swap Day. As the enthusiasm to participate on this declared day grew, folks from all over the world decided they would ignore the “national” in the name and just call it Seed Swap Day.

If you would like to learn more about seed swaps and organizing them, check out these links:

How to Organize a Seed Swap - SeedSavers

Seed Swaps

Book Club Picks - January 2026

Here are what the Sandy and Hoodland book clubs have decided to read in January: 

Men's Book Club

Monday, January 5
7:00 PM
Hoyt Community Room in the Sandy Library

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

For further information please contact Maureen Houck: mhouck@ci.sandy.or.us

Digital Book Club 

No Digital Book Club in January. Happy New Year

The book club will be reading For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander for February.

For further information and to receive the Zoom link, contact Kat Aden: kaden@ci.sandy.or.us

Women's Book Club

Thursday, January 8

6:00 PM

Hoyt Community Room in the Sandy Library

The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins

For further information please contact Maureen Houck: mhouck@ci.sandy.or.us

Hoodland Book Club

Tuesday, January 20

4:00 PM

Hoodland Community Room

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

For further information please contact Alex Steinmetz: asteinmetz@ci.sandy.or.us