13 July: Ernst/Fuller Gardens

Sunday, 13 July 2014

Garden Bloggers Fling, Portland

Sunday’s well-worn itinerary

leaving the hotel….There’s my favourite bus driver Andy, but ooooooh, drat, he was driving the other bus!

Here we go! (Allan’s photo)

Our bus, with a perfectly nice driver (but not Andy!) took us into a lovely treed Portland neighbourhood.

just one of the handsome houses we passed

The streets were enclosed by a green tunnel of trees.  Our driver told us that the bus drivers carry a stepladder and loppers to clear the way of low hanging branches if need be, if the city has not limbed them up.

street trees of Portland

He said one bus company in particular has a strict policy that drivers must not allow the tops of the buses to be scratched by low hanging branches.

I asked him if he was joking but he swore he was telling the absolute truth!

Ernst/Fuller Gardens

Bloggers gather below Linda’s house.

Ernst house

to my left, pots on top of the garage

Allan’s photo

further to the right, the front of the Fuller house

I remain covetous of these transparent privacy panels.

in front of the Fuller house

partway up the Ernst driveway, looking across the front of the two houses

the brightest of red daylilies in Linda’s garden

I remember this huge Azara microphylla on the corner of the Ernst house.

Ernst garden foliage

Allan’s photo

Linda’s garden is an extra half lot wide and this area is to the right of the driveway.

one of many sit spots

Both gardeners are skilled at placing focal points.

a frilly little poppy

still in the Ernst garden side yard

in the corner of a small lawn

Allan’s photo

looking back toward the street

and away from the street from the lawn to a little courtyard (still all next to the driveway and garage!)

just outside the courtyard of colourfulness

bright zinnias and marigolds

gold hosta and coleus

ladies in waiting on a storage shed roof to the garage side of the courtyard

I learned the new term “ladies in waiting” for unpotted plants from (I think) one of the Austin bloggers.

table in the little courtyard

in front of the garage

container to the right of previous photo

I sat here for a spell.

Linda’s spouse said the garage has not been used for a car in years; because the area is all planted with containers, it could be changed back to a car garage if need be.

Awww…in the back door of the house.

where the car lives?

Allan’s photo

Allan thinks the car must live in a garage because it is so impeccably clean and shiny.

beside the driveway

vine support

Now we’ll enter the patio and garden behind the Ernst house.

in Linda’s back garden

the neighbourly door

next to the garage

beds of colour

and a water feature

perfectly level to create a sheet of water

subtle colours in the corner

on the patio table

Between the two gardens, a privacy wall and a friendly door.

I like the combination of privacy and friendship here.

Allan’s photo with Mark from England

mossy lion by the neighbour door

Allan’s photo

Through the door into Joanne Fuller’s garden:

Allan’s photo

a Jeffrey Bale mosaic; garden owner Joanne in dress, with Loree of Danger Garden and Neil Jones from England.

just to the left of the mosaic, sculptures from Glass Gardens of Mukilteo

further to the left, a nook by the back door, Little and Lewis columns

love the colours

Allan’s photo

a bubble of water

Allan’s photo

ahead, a step up onto a patio

the curtained nook from the deck

deck seating

and a hospitality center

 

Allan’s photo

at ground level, a fire circle (the deck is behind it)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

The neighbour’s yard on the other side is all bindweed…trying to creep through.

sea of bindweed next door

This reminds me of how bindweed is creeping into my garden from Nora’s side!

other side of bamboo deck screen

more glass enhancing a corner

gate to the side walkway

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

I wish this meter hiding thingie was in focus

Yay for Allan! He got it!

Allan’s photo, looking back

around the corner into the front garden

that translucent privacy solution

gentle curve along the front of the Fuller house

hostas and ferns

on top of the garage

and on the porch

more bamboo screening (between the two porches?)

across the front of the Linda Ernst house

The driveway up which we entered is in sight again.

the Ernst front porch

Allan’s photo

and back to the driveway

I made the whole circuit around the gardens twice, so let’s hit the high spots again.

the huge Azara microphylla at the corner of the house!

the side garden

the lilies!

Patio of Colours!

driveway garden!

that smooth sheet of water that you just have to touch.

Linda’s back door sit spot

bloggers still chatting

privacy walls

Joanne’s glass swirls and curtained nook

Joanne’s exuberant foliar jungle

Back down on the sidewalk:

the two houses

Quite tired, I have a seat on Joanne’s stairs.

my view to the left

and to the right

and up into a street tree

I don’t sit for long before I realize there is discussion going on at the next door parking strip.  I had admired it earlier and had assumed it belonged to the neighbours there, even though it did not seem to fit with the rest of their yard.

next door parking strip

Joanne, whose garden is mostly shady, is using it to grow sunny plants!

parking strip lilies

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Here’s the fling preview about these two gardens.

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I’ve been to these gardens twice before, and as far back as 2007 (when I saw it during a Hardy Plant Study Weekend) I mentioned briefly  the enviability of having a gardening neighbour right next door.

In 2011, I revisited it during the next Portland study weekend and again rhapsodized about gardening neighbours.

It was something I had wished for since I began gardening in earnest in my thirties; I am still holding onto the dream that a gardening neighbour might move in right next door if the house to the west of us (now empty after the passing of our elderly and beloved Nora) ever goes up for sale.  However, I am almost 60, so it had better happen soon if it ever does.

I thought I had a close gardening friend nearby; even visiting back and forth from a few doors away was a lot of fun before things went wrong (and made my heart sore).   The idyllic dream of an adjoining garden and a gardener right next door with a friendly neighbour gate between still lives on in my heart, inspired by the book Gardening from the Heart: Why Gardeners Garden.  In my fantasy, she or he or they share the same plant nuttiness that I do, we could enjoy views of each other’s gardens, and maybe even share a kitchen garden outside my back garage door.

You can bet that if the house ever does go on the market, I will be urgently sharing the listing in the gardening community online.   I’m accustomed to close friendships lasting for 10-40 years (depending on how long ago we met!), so it would not be a risky proposition.  I do think it helps if friends are of the same economic class, though, so I am glad it’s not a mansion next door!  (GBLT friendly please and no tea partiers except for actual garden tea parties!)

 

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25 June 2011: Hardy Plant Study Weekend — gardening neighbours revisited

Joanne Fuller and Linda Ernst gardens

Four years ago these two next door gardens were on the tour and I rhapsodized about how wonderful it would be to have such a neighbour and how it reminded me of the book Gardening from the Heart.  Some changes had been made to each garden.  I’m sure one of them had a new back yard water feature…

the sidewalk shared by the two gardens

first garden driveway

Tall Azara microphylla on corner of first house

I do hope my new Azara microphylla gets this tall.  The one in my old garden had gotten fairly tall and was just about to bloom when it fell over in a storm. (It blooms in late winter and indeed, the flowers smelled of vanilla; the opened just as the broken tree lay on the patio.)    When we moved to our new garden, I noticed that the old Azara stump had put out new leaves so perhaps it has come back for the new owner of that garden.

My favourite early bloomer was the Azara lanceolata that mysteriously died in that same garden and I have not yet managed to get me one of those.

in the first garden

side garden

the bright panels draw you in

colourful panels

a little fire spot

in the side garden

artful colour echoes

from the side yard….to the back yard patio. Mike Darcy on right, new water feature right, past the three square pavers.  Also: a table with treats.

beautiful water feature in first garden back yard

This called for many photos.

Jeffrey Bale Mosaic

In the second garden we’re treated to the sight of a mosaic by Portlander Jeffrey Bale.  (His own intricately mosaiced home and garden will be in the next journal entry.)

second garden, back yard

chair in second garden

second garden

chair and glass flowers

bright glass accents

shady porch, sunny garden

a water feature

path around side of house

At the front of the house, a seating area positioned on the roof of the garage overlooked the residential street.

the garage at street level; above it, the chairs and table

At street level and to the side of the seating area, opaque screens provided privacy while letting in the light.  I think these were made from shower doors, as we will see in one of the next days most spectacular tour gardens.

privacy screens

beautiful light capture

on the stairs to the sidewalk, the gift of a volunteer seedling

The neighbouring gardens are joined across the front yard as well as the back.

If my neighbour, who is in her 80s and no longer gardens, were still able I know that she would garden with me like this.

A very new garden

Next we did a quick walk through a garden that was very new.  Too new, I felt, to be on the tour.  I think that to Portland gardeners the designer might have been well known, and therefore her new work may have been of great interest, but to outsiders there was just not….enough.  (How carefully I choose my words so as not to hurt the feelings of the gardener who may chance upon this.  I am sure the garden is wonderful as I write this in spring of 2012!)

On the way into the garden: Cerinthe major purpurascens, one of my very favourite annuals.

The Portland neighbourhood

The Portland neighbourhood, however, provided many lovely vignettes on the way to the next garden.

a white flowering street tree…breathtaking…what is it?

And the houses of Portland are so lovely, so cheerfully painted and filled with such rich architectural detail.

lady in red

dormers

painted details

matching paint and foliage

gingerbread

handsome foursquare

Oh dear, garden touring is not much fun for dogs!

Next (as soon as I find time to write it; this catch-up project has gone into mid April and gardening season is upon us!): the unique, the colourful, the bright, the whimsical Jeffrey Bale garden!  [I ended up taking up this tale again many months later!]

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