Touring on Study Weekend, hosted by Willamette Valley Hardy Plant Group
The garden we almost skipped due to time factors ended up being the one I most wished was my own. It was only eight years old in 2008, on 2.5 acres, with “a perennial garden, heath and heather beds, lavender grid, formal vegetable garden and orchard, antique apple orchard, meadow, and creek garden”.
First we walked up the drive because we saw a blessed sight: a sanican! (Thank you, Bryan and Cassandra Barrett or the Willamette Valley Hardy Plant Group!) Just past there was this old barn with chickens.
From there we could see a wide rustic path to the unpretentious house…and the beautiful veg patch.
Over the informally arranged and clearly productive veg garden we glimpsed glorious flowers.
A gravel scree lay between us and the house and garden beds into which we were eager to wade.
For a little while I’ll just let the plants around the house do the talking.
We could see through the lattice a glimpse of the orchard and field beyond:
…and stepping through an opening between the garden areas we looked back at the beds we had just toured. Then we saw the sloping field. I am not a big fan of heather in gardens and have never seen it used with complete RIGHTness anywhere other than the natural hills of Scotland and the Bronte Moors until I saw this:
The heaths and heather slope segued into the “lavender grid” and then a wild meadow; of course, we had to wander down and walk through it. I doubt either of us made many comments because we were in awe.
The mown meadow path led us back up to more gardens around the house.
I’d love to have a sculpture like the one below with a passage from a gardening book on the pages.
Rustic steps led back up into the house gardens.
We looked back at the gardens between us and the meadows, bright with colour even on a grey day.
As we explored the front garden we saw the house we saw the house looked much more old fashioned and bungalow style than it did in the back.
Around the side of the house we glimpsed the old barn where we’d begun.
Every bit of garden around the house was a perfect picture.
We crossed the road (a collection of conifers with various colours of needles protected the house from the road) to the newer garden that the Barrets were developing along the creek.
We meandered back to the deck behind the house. I loved the fact that the deck needed repair. Clearly the money was going to the best place: Into the garden.
The final touch of perfection: The most attractive rain barrel I had ever seen, imported from England:
Tour time was over and back we went to Sheila’s home and garden which deserves an entry of its own.
[…] As a gardener, I dislike heather in most gardens (although I do like it on a sloping hill as in this garden in Eugene, Oregon). But on the moors, where it should be, it is beautiful and […]
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[…] The narcissi look wonderful. Even the heathers look good right now, and I am not a fan of heathers unless on the hills of Scotland, on the Bronte moors, or in this garden in Eugene. […]
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[…] though I am not much of a heaths and heather fan (except on the moors of Scotland or in the gorgeous heather bank in this garden near Eugene, Oregon), I have to admit this one is a delight. It came from The Planter Box. I wanted it interplanted […]
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