{"id":3254,"date":"2026-03-19T19:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/?p=3254"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:28:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T23:28:36","slug":"the-roots-of-research-part-1-amy-campion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/2026\/03\/19\/the-roots-of-research-part-1-amy-campion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Roots of Research: Part 1 – Amy Campion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A pleasant view of Amy Campion’s garden. Photo Credit: Amy Campion<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

THE ROOTS OF RESEARCH<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dedicated Community Members Who Make The Garden Ecology Lab\u2019s Work Possible<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Anna Janowski<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART 1: AMY CAMPION<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From publishing educational materials to heading the Garden Ecology League, the Garden Ecology Lab\u2019s work is firmly rooted in community outreach and engagement. What we do is possible because of the support of the community we serve: their donations and volunteer hours, their interest in our results, their willingness to let us conduct research in the gardens they work so hard to grow. This blog series highlights the amazing work these community members do in and around their gardens.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few people have contributed as much to the Portland gardening community as Amy Campion. She has taught classes and given talks on ecologically beneficial gardening. Since 2013, she has run a blog covering topics from plant propagation to insect ecology to prominent people and events in the gardening world. And, of course, she maintains her own garden, which I had the opportunity to visit last summer as part of the lab\u2019s field research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campion\u2019s garden is remarkably easy to browse. Trees and shrubs line its edges, disguising the fence that borders the backyard. In the center, grass walkways section off large plots of plants. Before we started collecting data on the garden, I wandered through those walkways, enjoying the sight of the plants on either side of me. Tall stacks of empty flowerpots sitting on Campion\u2019s back porch told of the effort she had put in, over the course of many years, to plant what has become a thriving backyard ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Campion\u2019s garden when she first moved to Portland. Photo credit: Amy Campion.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Those years, however, weren\u2019t just a straightforward progression towards a better garden. \u201cI was a typical ornamental gardener for 25 years,\u201d Campion says, before learning that her garden could be more than a decoration. She cites Nature\u2019s Best Hope<\/em>\u2014a book published in 2019 by Doug Tallamy that describes how small urban habitats, i.e. gardens, can be a force for conservation\u2014as the catalyst for her change in mindset. When she realized she could do more with her garden, she began redesigning it with ecological benefit as her top priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means every element of the garden has a purpose. \u201cI try to have every plant in my garden feed somebody,\u201d she says of the reasoning behind her plant selection. Non-plant features, like the small pond and the leaf litter along the garden\u2019s edge, are also there for a reason, providing a variety of habitat for a variety of creatures. The diversity of her insect visitors, she says, is her favorite thing about her garden.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A water feature in Campion\u2019s garden. Photo credit: Amy Campion.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

To this day, Campion has continued her ecological gardening practices, which have benefited not only the ecological communities\u2014she\u2019s documented 420 different species of insects in her garden!\u2014but also the community of gardeners in and around Portland. Campion, originally from the Midwest, leaned on that community for advice about gardening in the Northwest, building up valuable relationships. She also started writing her gardening blog around the same time as she moved to Portland. She says her favorite thing about the blog is the friends she\u2019s made through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, as her familiarity with gardening in Portland has increased, she\u2019s ramped up her involvement in the community. She co-wrote Gardening in the Pacific Northwest: The Complete Homeowner\u2019s Guide<\/em>, has taught classes on gardening for biodiversity, and has been active on iNaturalist as both an observer and an identifier.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Campion\u2019s book, which can be found at Gardening in the PNW | The World’s Best Gardening Blog<\/a><\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Campion has made an undeniable mark on Portland\u2019s gardening scene. Her garden exemplifies the impact that gardeners\u2019 dedication can have on wildlife, and she\u2019s constantly involved with the community\u2014both sharing what she knows and learning from others\u2014to make that impact even more meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find Campion\u2019s blog here: Amy Campion, Freelance Garden Writer | The World’s Best Gardening Blog<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to Gail Langellotto for supporting this project, to Nina Miller and Taylor Janecek for their assistance with the research and writing process, and to the featured gardeners for the information and photographs they provided.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE ROOTS OF RESEARCH The Dedicated Community Members Who Make The Garden Ecology Lab\u2019s Work Possible by Anna Janowski PART 1: AMY CAMPION From publishing educational materials to heading the Garden Ecology League, the Garden Ecology Lab\u2019s work is firmly rooted in community outreach and engagement. What we do is possible because of the support […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14282,"featured_media":3257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1295237,1295192,1295413,1,174597],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garden-design","category-garden-ecology","category-the-roots-of-research","category-uncategorized","category-urban","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2786\/files\/2026\/03\/IMG_1760-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14282"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3254"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3284,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions\/3284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}