Saturday, 25 August 2018
I had been tipped off about a Hardy Plant Society open garden down in Manzanita, and when Seaside and Cannon Beach gardeners Pam and Prissy decided to go with us to see it, the one garden visit blossomed into a day of garden touring with friends. As always with good garden tours, I have divided the day into several posts.
Seaside, Oregon
We got up quite early, for us, and managed to get to Seaside by 10 AM to beat the Hood to Coast relay race traffic. We did such a good job of being ahead of the race that we had some extra time, and so we drove along Broadway, admiring Pam’s downtown public garden beds. This time there definitely was nowhere to park and admire them on foot.
The fire department had stationed themselves at intersections, asking for donations. We gladly complied. Like the firefighters on the Long Beach Peninsula, these brave souls are volunteers.
As always, I envied the size of Pam’s garden beds and her freedom to choose an assortment of small street trees. (She told me that gingkos have been performing well as street trees here.) I also desperately envy that each bed has a good automatic sprinkler system.
The double bench with arbors beds are my favourite. (Excuse the from-the-van-on-the-move photos, some through the windshield.)
The beach had all sorts of tents set up for the relay race event.

You can just see, to the left, part of a big inflatable castle thing that seemed to be the finish line.
A few days later, the Visit Seaside Oregon page posted a video tour of Pam’s gardens, hosted by Pam herself. It is well worth going along on this tour by watching it here. We then drove to Pam’s house nearby.
We spent a short while indoors at Pam’s waiting till time to go meet Prissy. I was moved by the lyrics laid out on the table, a song that Pam’s musician spouse Dave would be performing at a show this evening.
You can read the complete lyrics here. If you desire more poignancy, read the lyrics of the next song, An Old Box of Memories, too.
The Waves, Cannon Beach
With Pam driving a four seater car, we went south to The Waves to meet Prissy, who is the gardener there (and other places) and who was finishing up her morning watering of many containers. It was a treat for Allan to be able to enjoy the views without driving.
Pam said she would train the little dogs to “mush”.
The resort is an interesting maze of outdoor corridors between buildings.
Prissy had arranged for us to see two other gardens in Cannon Beach before going to Manzanita. She finished watering, loaded her gear into her truck and then joined us in Pam’s car, and we were off to see Beth Holland’s garden.