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:
(Ann Lovejoy had a garden bed edged in a tall wall of broken concrete. I liked that, too.)
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.
I heard tour guests marveling at the lack of slug or snail damage on the hosta leaves.
We heard that the owners, a retired couple, do the work here themselves. Impressive.
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.)
Now I want to redo one of my front garden beds into a nice scree garden like this one.
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.
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.
Behind the scree garden and the mixed border into which it segued runs a dry creekbed of stone.
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:
At the far end of the red patio, a lava rock path leads to the side into the flower bed.
- looking back
As we reach the back corner of the house, we look at the red curving path from the side.
Now we turn to the path along the back of the house. At first glance, my impression is just of a narrow walkway.
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.
She commented about the attention to detail, something else I would have liked to compliment the owners about.
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.
I would spend many hours absorbing this view if I lived here.
At their edge of the ravine, the Vernons had placed bird feeders and a 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.
Near the front of the house, this narrow space had been used to grow a few vegetables.
We took one more look at the gorgeous garden…and would have walked around again if we had had the time.
This is in a tie with garden number four as my favourite garden of the tour. I simply could not choose between the two!
What a lot packed into one garden.
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[…] the Gearhart garden tour and a visit to Back Alley Gardens, we fulfilled my plan of actually stopping for the first time at […]
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[…] I got excited about the idea of a brand new project. Ever since seeing the scree garden at the Vernon garden on the recent CASA garden tour, I have wanted to find a spot for my very own scree garden. (Four “gardens” in one […]
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[…] latest plan is to put the Gearhart Garden tour inspired scree garden to the right, next to the garden boat. Or maybe a pond! But then where will the scree garden […]
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