Gardens by the Sea tour ’13: Vernon garden

July 27, 2013

Gardens by the Sea tour benefits Clatsop CASA.

interlude between gardens

We saw while driving from the first to the second garden:

a raised veg and flower garden, edged, I think, with broken concrete. I like it.

(Ann Lovejoy had a garden bed edged in a tall wall of broken concrete. I liked that, too.)

next door to garden two

attractive entrance to the house next door to garden two

Garden two: Al and Carol Vernon garden.

From the program: “Collectors’ picture perfect garden, tended by two who love to garden.”

I do wish that Al and Carol had been there. From Nancy Allen, who met them, I heard they are delightful, and heard the same later at Back Alley gardens. My one suggestion to improve the tour this year comes because I don’t think there was a single garden where the owner was present. Owners can cast much light on the meaning of their gardens. We heard that they went out touring each other’s gardens during the latter hours of the tour. Each garden had a ticket checker at the entrance, but those folks did not know much of anything about the gardens. Might I suggest that the Gearhart garden tour organizers encourage the garden owners to stay at home and to make pre- or post-tour visits to each other’s gardens!

I would have loved to have met the owners of the delightful second garden.

As we approached the garden entrance. we were able to peek in over a sea of cotoneaster.

a garden glimpse

from the street

Allan’s photo

entering the garden

along the house, a row of hostas

I heard tour guests marveling at the lack of slug or snail damage on the hosta leaves.

Allan’s photo of same area

a shady spot

artful clipping

We heard that the owners, a retired couple, do the work here themselves. Impressive.

Tour guests admire a scree garden area

tour guests

The tour guests were discussing the ID of a certain plant. When I looked at it, I was sure that they had gotten it wrong. That is when the presence of the owners, clearly plantspeople, would have been very helpful! (I hope if they read this, they feel no regret, just the knowledge that we would have loved to meet them to tell them in person how much we liked their garden.)

scree garden: lovely

Our rockhound friend Judy will like this detail.

scree garden: Reginald Farrer would love it.

Now I want to redo one of my front garden beds into a nice scree garden like this one.

I could have stood here for much longer! Fascinating.

Allan’s view

curving around

where the scree garden ends

chocolate cosmos

On the side of the garden, bordering the neighbours, across the grass from the scree border, a planting had caught my eye so I walked back to it. With the attention to detail apparent everywhere in this garden, bergenia had been hollowed out to put another plant in its center.

cute!

Tour goers also commented that the baby’s breath (lower right) was large and well grown and unusual to see this days. It might have been Nancy Allen, organizer of the Music in the Gardens tour. By this time, I was texting back and forth with her as she was about two gardens ahead of us.

baby’s breath; next year, I want to get back to growing this old favourite!

Behind the scree garden and the mixed border into which it segued runs a dry creekbed of stone.

dry stream

Allan’s photo

You may have noticed a glimpse of red lava rock at the edge of one of the photos above. Usually red lava rock is anathema to me, causing instant dislike. (I just do not feel it looks right in gardens near the sea.) But in this garden….after my initial startled reaction…I realized it was perfect, as it was clearly planned to set off the rusty colour of the sculptures and the red leaves of the plants:

red on red

colour echoes

Allan’s view of path by lava rock patio

side view

At the far end of the red patio, a lava rock path leads to the side into the flower bed.

path

The streambed curves around to the end of the patio.

where the red path curves back, Allan’s view

my view

looking back

As we reach the back corner of the house, we look at the red curving path from the side.

red path curve

Now we turn to the path along the back of the house. At first glance, my impression is just of a narrow walkway.

along the back

salal and a place to put debris

Later when we stopped post-tour at Back Alley Gardens, Pam Fleming (locally famous gardener for the town of Seaside, Oregon, and co-owner of wonderful Back Alley!) asked me if I had noticed the detail at the steps to the basement: a perfect arc of smooth stones. Indeed I had and had photographed it.

attention to detail

She commented about the attention to detail, something else I would have liked to compliment the owners about.

further along

As we walked along the woodsy path behind the house, the vista opened up with a delightful and unexpected surprise: To our right, a view of a deep ravine appeared…with water at the bottom.

ravine

how beautiful a vista!

trees draping over the ravine

I would spend many hours absorbing this view if I lived here.

Allan’s view

At their edge of the ravine, the Vernons had placed bird feeders and a birdbath.

birdbath

The birds hardly paused in their eating as we walked by.

With three more gardens to see, we had to leave this paradise and turned up the path by the other side of the house.

exit path

Near the front of the house, this narrow space had been used to grow a few vegetables.

veg edge

Allan’s photo of the protective caging

We took one more look at the gorgeous garden…and would have walked around again if we had had the time.

a last look

This is in a tie with garden number four as my favourite garden of the tour. I simply could not choose between the two!