Sunday, 3 September 2017
We left on our day trip before 10 AM, along with a bowl of tabouli and some chocolate cupcakes for a potluck and open garden over two hours inland.
As we passed through Castle Rock, I glimpsed some enticing public gardens. We will visit those in tomorrow’s post.
Our destination was the garden of Evan Bean, who has worked at Longwood Garden, Plant Delights (with our friend Todd), Cistus, and now works for Plantlust.com. His garden, at his family home about 15 minutes east of Castle Rock, was open for garden bloggers and friends.
When we arrived, met by heat in the high 90s, a few other guests had already arrived, including Sean, owner of the fabulous Cistus Nursery and Jane of the Mulch Maid blog.
Needing to adjust to the heat, we indulged in the delicious potluck offerings before touring the garden. In conversation with Evan’s mum, Nancy, we learned that the two headed calf in Marsh’s Free Museum (Long Beach, home of Jake the Alligator Man), belonged to her grandfather’s side show. Her father, “Pony Bill” Giberson, had pony rides where the Long Beach carousel now sits. (I thought I had this right, but Evan has clarified that “my mother’s father, Leonard, donated the two-headed calf. Her grandfather, Bill, had the pony rides.”) Nancy herself has had a career in forestry, and encouraged Evan as a child to appreciate nature.
Fortified and refreshed, we plunged into the heat and a full tour of Evan’s garden.
The greenhouse has a mister for the plants that Evan is propagating. I am pleased and hopeful that Allan took an interest in how it works.
Near the greenhouse, Nancy showed us a stump that had resisted digging out, so they burnt it to represent nearby Mount St Helens and planted a Mt St Helens azalea in it.
The round bed was Evan’s high school senior project, on which he spent much more time than most seniors did on theirs. He has enhanced and improved it since then. (He’s now in his almost-late 20s.) It had much plant interest to offer us. We walked around it admiring everything.
Notice all the pleasing rocks in the garden.
Having made it all the way around, I turned my attention to the bed by the house.
The shade of the lower garden enticed me and others. The rest of the garden that we will see is less than a year old, except, says Evan, “a section of the rhododendron border behind the hakonechloa bed, and a scattering of trees through the rest of the garden”.
By now, our friend Ann (the Amateur Bot-ann-ist) had arrived, with Paul Bonine, owner of the glorious Xera Plants, from whom I would buy one of every Xera plant if I lived in Portland.
The dry creek was installed to solve some drainage problems.
In Evan’s words: “The annual wildflowers, and even some of the fast-growing perennials and subshrubs like Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’, Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’, and similar plants, were mostly put in place to fill in space and cover the ground to help reduce weeds while longer-lived plants grow. They were plants I could obtain cheaply and easily propagate more of. In some cases, I’m not even sure yet what the longer-lived plants should be, so they obviously haven’t even been planted. In most of the garden, the longer-lived plants will have to be ones that can adapt to dappled shade as the cork oaks and other trees grow. I picture layers of relatively drought-tolerant evergreen shrubs like Elaeagnus, Choisya, Mahonia repens and nervosa, mixed with a few tough, easy-care evergreen herbaceous plants like various carex for textural contrast, and here and there some deciduous perennials or ephemeral plants for added seasonal variation. Some of those plants are already in place. Some have yet to be selected and planted.”
As I knew it would be, this was the sort of garden where I could not identify a fair number of the plants. Any mistakes are mine from when I was too shy to ask.
Evan recommends orange Calceolaria ‘Kentish Hero’.
Evan says, “”The wildflower look is sort of nice, but really not my style. It’s a planned successional stage in the gardens development, filling in space while the real garden grows.””
When we walked down to our van to depart, Nancy walked with us and, because we showed interest, took us to the kitchen garden. It is located below the garage because the rest of the property used to be so shady.
That was a fine day out, with more to come, as we will tour some Castle Rock gardens on the way home.
I’m glad you and Allan could make it! It’s so odd seeing my garden on someone else’s blog. Thanks for making the best of the harsh lighting. To clarify, my mother’s father, Leonard, donated the two-headed calf. Her grandfather, Bill, had the pony rides. The Melianthus is actually Melianthus villosus, a different species. It’s so huge this year! I still can’t believe it! I recommend ‘Kentish Hero’ for mild climates, zone 8b or up. My garden is borderline in zone 8a. The poppy is Glaucium flavum var. aurantiacum, horned poppy, not celandine poppy. I don’t recall telling anyone it was celandine. The silver-leaved geranium is Geranium robustum, a surprisingly hardy species from South Africa.
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It was a BRIGHT day!
Thanks re the Melianthus info. I thought it looked a little different. And for the info re the poppy. I don’t think you said it was celandine. It was just folks standing around speculating. :-D. I am going to update some captions based on your expertise. I hope to visit your garden again in another season.
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That is quite a garden! I like the “wildflower look,” especially adjacent the dry river rocks.
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I do, too, even though it is not the ultimate goal.
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What a fascinating garden – I could spend hours discovering plants I have never heard of before.
You are so lucky to have such a great circle of gardening friends, with great gardens.
Now onto a second reading, and some investigation to try and see if some of the ones you identified are zone hardy for me!
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Cool, thanks. I got connected to most of these people by becoming friends with Ann Amato (The Amateur Bot-ann-ist) at Garden Bloggers Fling, Portland 2014. That was a very good trip.
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What a lot to see and to record.
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You and Allan got some great photos! It was good to see you guys again.
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Thank you and likewise!
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Interesting to note that Nancy believes a six foot fence is sufficient for our blacktails. That explains why it is working for a neighbor’s garden that has much a deer would love. It also cut down on the deer in our neighborhood, as previously that property served as a deer highway. Made that aspect of gardening easier for me, for certain!
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Wow, it’s obvious Evan has worked hard on this garden. I, too, wish I had as many gardening friends as you have. I’m really enjoying touring gardens through your lens.–I miss the garden tours I went on when I lived in Austin, TX.
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I think the Garden Bloggers Fling will be in Austin next year. (Not going but other Bloggers who do will have a lot of tour posts.)
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