Beloved Oregon coast garden must remove plants affected by pathogen [Video]

One of the Oregon coast’s most popular public gardens is facing the loss of more than 100 of its prized plants after they tested positive for a pathogen.

Priscilla Patterson, head gardener at The Connie Hansen Garden in Lincoln City, got the grim news last summer. After the pathogen phytopthora ramorum was found at a nearby property, the Oregon Department of Agriculture tested plants at the garden. Forty-six plants tested positive. But because the spore transfers from plant to plant, anything beneath the canopy of a plant that tested positive is considered a host plant that can carry the disease.