As we drove down a country road to the last garden, the setting began to look familiar. Our Garmin helped us find the garden much more easily than when we had last visited it in 2007. From the programme guide: “This large country garden has it all–evergreen trees, including a 100 year old Redwood, Christmas trees, fruit trees, shrubs, vines, perennials, annuals, windowboxes, a vegetable garden, chicken coop, and garden art, much of it salvaged.”
patio bench
on the patio
horse trough planter
Colour surrounds the patio and lavishes forth from containers. I do love the look of a horse trough used as a planter, which had featured large in a garden tour I’d attended in Eugene. I’ve never gotten one because I am so economical about everything but plants…and soil…and manure.
around the patio
We followed a curving sidewalk path to an arbour that offered a glimpse of a neighbour’s garden.
path to neighbours
That is when I knew for sure I had been here before because I well remembered the juxtaposition of the two gardens. I always envy next door gardening neighbours.
As I recalled the neighbour’s garden consisted of a fenced veg patch with wildflowers at the front.
wildflowers backed with veg
The vegetable garden’s attractive fence seemed to low to keep the deer out but it must work or they would have longer things sticking up to fortify it.
fence for vegetables
Deer must be quite a problem here!
arbour
We returned through a grape arbour to the Miller garden. Note the bricks under the arbour… The owners have salvaged a great many bricks over time and are fortunate that they have a wealth of the bricks that say “Hidden”. It is a word so evocative of secret gardens but apparently was just the name of an old local brick yard. I had a few but I fear I left them all behind in my old garden.
brick work
fenced border
Along another house (perhaps another neighbour?) we saw further evidence of fencing for deer. A little flower pot on top of a stake makes it so much cuter.
The center of the garden buzzed with people getting ready for the raffle and refreshments, so we wandered to the other side where my eye was drawn to a fire circle and to plates on a fence.
campfire lawn
plates on a fence
Fen’s Ruby
The plates! The mossy old fence! The old wooden lintel with plates on top. The ornate old metal plate hanger! I love every bit of it.
Another plate hangs next to a bed infested with Euphorbia ‘Fen’s Ruby’; so pretty, so invasive. Some crept from my mom’s plants into the Ilwaco post office garden and I am reminded that I should weed it out.
- ingredients
Nearby a work area hold piles and piles of lovely ingredients including more “hidden” bricks. More fodder for making paths that lead here and there…one of which is made from the “rock’n mold” type of cement mold that I used to have….
paths
…and one leading to a sit spot with rustic old chairs.
vintage chairs
We realized we must stop wandering, head back to the gathering area, partake of some refreshment and then get on to our nursery shopping. But first we stopped to admire the Miller’s fenced vegetable garden. It made me want to devote an area of my garden to a lovely patch like this. (But where?)
vegetable gate
I loved the way that colanders hung on the prongs of an old garden tool, at the ready for gathering.
for harvesting
What a productive looking vegetable patch!
We took a further exploratory walk to appreciate more small details.
little bench, windowboxes
small wooden barrow
And then made our way to the gathering spot on the lawn.
refreshments and raffle
With a quick bite and the decision to forgo the raffle in order to get to our favourite nursery in Gearhart, we departed. Or almost did. Our attempt to beat the rush leaving was thwarted by a dead battery in our car, but we were saved by a kind person with a truck and jumper cables in time to drive out just before the many tour goers started to jockey around the crowded parking area.
another tour
Success! We made it to Back Alley Gardens in time…and what did we see in the window but a poster for yet another garden tour, one that would occur after ours. I remembered the glorious Gearhart tour that I had been on years before and was determined to go.
We acquired a carload full of good plants from Back Alley. There is nothing like one’s own garden tour coming up to justify spending any amount of money on plants. We got home in time to have a campfire in our own way back garden with our friend J9, our next door neighbour who would be moving away soon. We had postpone it twice because of wind (a danger next to the bogsy wood!) and I knew garden tour prep madness would set in as the seven days passed till…tour day! It was all I could do to stop planting my new plants before nightfall and sit to share the campfire meal with my friends. But looking back now, this experience was a wonderful part of the day.
In our own garden….with Jeannine and Allan…where we wondered why we hardly ever relax like this.
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