20-21 October: work and play

doubling up because I so want to get this blog closer to publishing in real time…

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Port of Ilwaco

We started our work day with a tiny task at the port: planting some Watsonia bulbs at Time Enough Books.

In the curbside garden, the Ceanothus is blooming again.

I think that is rather unusual.

cosmos still blooming in the garden boat

blue calm water when we went to dump our debris

I saved some red twig dogwood stems from the debris generated by pruning one at Shorebank. They make good winter decorations.

The Planter Box

Our next stop was the acquisiton of some Gardner and Bloome Soil Conditioner (formerly known as Soil Building Compost) at The Planter Box.

Allan rassling a heavy bale.

lots of pumpkins for sale

Teresa gave me the prettiest tea pot for an empty shelf on my porch that she had noticed the other day.  I will be sure to get a photo of it later.

Later: And here it is, on a top shelf seen through the window of our sun porch, right where Teresa suggested I put it.

Allan’s photo: I got a couple of flowering kale at the request of a client.

late blooming roses

Allan liked the way these pots were stacked and sorted.

Golden Sands Assisted Living

Now we began a Project Day.  I wanted to get the fall projects done and off the list before Bulb Hell, I mean…Bulb Time.  At Golden Sands, the project, which Allan tackled, was to dig out some old and non blooming Siberian iris.

I noticed the shovel had some heavy clay on it; that was from the Ilwaco Community Building garden where he had worked yesterday evening.

sticky heavy clay

Allan’s project, before and after=hard work!

I planted some hellebores and cyclamen donated by Our Kathleen and then pruned a Ceanothus that was so big it blocked the views of the garden from two rooms.

This photo from last June shows its size.

today’s “after” photo

Like many of the shrubs in the courtyard next to the windows, it is just too big (not planted by us!).  Large rhododendrons and euonymous were planted in front of most of the windows and have to be frequently pruned.  That ceanothus should break out some new lower growth that will enable me to give it a better shape.

Allan had some clean up to do in the hallway after hauling out the branches.

some nice schizostylis in one of the beds

Marilyn’s Garden

Again, Allan embarked on the project while I did a bunch of cutting back.

Some serious trimming happened here.

We leave a lot of the old plants standing in the winter for the happiness of wildlife.  We recently learned that tiny bees will overwinter in hollow stemmed plants, so it is even more beneficial than we knew to leave plants standing.  I do like to make it clear along the path, though.

Allan’s project was another hard slog: removing a patch of pesky orange monbretia that had volunteered by the back steps.

before and after

Allan’s photo: Removing some carex also. Hard work.

Allan’s photo: Scooter observed our work.

Each project was topped off with one of those bags of Gardner and Bloome.

ready for bulbs and some good flowers for a dining room table view

At home, we offloaded some of the tall clipped plants I was saving for our Halloween Corridor of Spooky Plants.

I was ever so pleased to have only one big fall project left.

I love erasing projects from the work board…

but immediately filled the space with the list for BULB TIME (when the bulbs get here…)

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

I skived off work today to swan off with Garden Tour Nancy in order to hear Lucy Hardiman speak at the Cannon Beach Garden Club.  And took the opportunity to go boating, which will be tomorrow’s post.

Before we left town, Nancy and I got delicious chicken salad sandwiches to go from Roots Juice, Salad and Java Bar in Ilwaco.

photo from summertime because my camera did not click after all

Then we were off on the trip to Cannon Beach.

The garden club meets here.

The Cannon Beach Garden Club clubhouse

the front yard: The club is slowly redoing the garden.

Garden Tour Nancy about to go in, with her Dick and Jane lunch bag from NIVA green. 😉

inside: bouquets with pin oak foliage

center: Lucy herself, one of my favourite speakers ever

We all dined on the lunches we had brought; the club provided luscious chocolate cake for dessert.

The Cannon Beach Garden Club

I simply had to get a luncheon photo of Lucy sitting with June Kroft, who has one of my favourite gardens ever.  I visited it years ago when I took a workshop in Cannon Beach from Lucy and another garden idol of mine, Anne Lovejoy.  And it was on the cottage tour in 2014.  I learned today that Lucy went to school with June’s children and so they have known each other for many years.

Lucy and June

June said to Nancy that she could come see her garden and I later said to Nancy that she must make that happen and invite me!

during the lecture

My lecture notes on Lucy Hardiman’s Beyond Plants: Furnishing the Garden

Lucy said “I would do anything June Kroft asked.” thus she had come to give this lecture.   Because she so admired “the woman and artist that June is.” 

Furnishing and art in the garden

Gateway tells gardener’s personality and the way they see the world. 

Dismal entries are never an invitation 

Looking through a portal into the rest of the garden

Lucy’s thing: Art in the public domain on private property

Pulling the eye in 

From the street a sense of what we’ll see 

Invite people into different spaces the same way you would invite them in from the street

Multiplication by division.  Small garden made bigger by dividing. 

Poetry box by the door

Yellow stopping the eye 

Less lawn equals less watering. Seven percent cultivated space is lawn in USA

Water. Not too big. Little ruffle sound of small water feature. 

Gardens should be about surprises. 

It was a glorious hour or two.  My gardening energy, which had been waning, was revived by inspiration.

On the way home, we stopped at Seven Dees just south of Seaside.

Dennis Seven Dees: “Vampire Free Zone—We Have Garlic”

in the display house

For Mr. Tootlepedal

I almost bought this fountain.  I loved it and yet I wondered if the clack clack clack of the beak would work my nerves eventually.  (My first attempt at inserting a video.  I hope it works!)  I’m still thinking about it.

home again

After Lucy’s lecture, I feel pretty good about the entryway to my garden.  However, I have now decided that YES, I should paint the top board of the wooden fence green.  The weather is too autumnal now, so…next year.

spider web on front gate

The east front gate also makes me happy. Idea by Pam Fleming, executed by Allan. Can you see Mary?

Here she is.

Spider webs are all over the garden and the arbours.

Fatsia japonica ‘Spider’s Web’ was available down at Seven Dees; here it is in Allan’s garden.

Melianthus major ‘Antenow’s Blue’

fuzzy wuzzy verbascum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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27 June: HPSO weekend—gardening neighbours Hardiman & Beadell

Saturday, 27 June 2015

Hardy Plant Society Study Weekend, Portland 2015

There may be nothing I love or envy more than a situation where next door neighbours share a love for gardening and a common gate between two versions of paradise.  We saw this with the Ernst-Fuller gardens during previous tours, and today we enjoyed going back and forth between the Hardiman and Beadell gardens.  Walk with us while we swirl around from one garden to the other…and wish me luck in someday having a gardening neighbour like that.  I’m 60, so time is getting short.

Hardiman‘s Horticultural Haven

Allan’s photo: So happy to get to see Lucy’s again.

The stone bench, Lucy’s gift to the street, with a heart inset in stone, is a much photographed feature of her garden.

Allan’s photo

the curbside garden

Allan’s photo

hebe: Allan’s photo

pebble flying carpet mosaic

curbside

Allan’s photo

lilies towering overhead

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

I remember attending Lucy’s wonderful lectures years ago and hearing how it took her and Fred years to be able to afford to have the stone walls built to create this raised garden.

Hellebore flowers would be at eye level from the sidewalk.

up the front stairs

Lucy has described sitting in this nook, behind shrubs, and being able to hear what passersby say about her garden, comments like “Wow, what’s that?”.  Her slideshows introduced me to two of my favourite plants, Cerinthe major purpurascens and painted sage and also to her concept of a “garden advance” (her welcoming bench for passersby) as well as a garden retreat (private spaces).

entry garden

at the corner where you walk around to the side

Allan’s photo

the house walls facing the back garden.

Lucy got many questions about those planters. (Allan’s photo)

The temperature had been predicted to be 103, so we were grateful it was “only” about 97.  We all made a beeline to fresh cold water on the patio by the apartment building that is part of the Hardiman Horticultural Haven.

 

potting bench

Lucy has a passion for mosaicing things.

Have I mentioned that the sun was hot and bright?

just off the porch

from the lawn, looking back at the house

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

tour guests clustered in a shady corner

spray painted alliums

Allan’s photo

looking back: Lucy chats with tour guests

back porch of Fred and Lucy’s house with their apartment building to the left

I just remembered that Lucy said it was so hot that houseguests (speakers for the event) slept out on the lawn rather than in the upstairs guest rooms.

looking up at the apartment building that Lucy and Fred rent to fortunate friends.

Lucy and Fred’s delightful dog. (I met this dog when it was a puppy, on a previous tour.)

I think I met the puppy when a friend and I were in Portland and I just took her to see Lucy’s curbside garden, and Lucy leaned out the upstairs window and invited us to come in and take a tour!

After getting a belly rub from me, the dog found a place where cool drips from the water jug would fall on his head.

kitty in the window

looking over the garden

a lovely sit spot

rose and the tree with glass balls

resolved: to remember to finally swipe this idea, which has enchanted me for years.

It’s around this tree that we find the gate to the next door garden.

a respectful pause

looking back from the gate to the Beadell garden

Allan’s photo

Kurt Beadell garden

Kurt Beadell garden

just inside the Beadell gate

on the table

back porch

patio with fountain

I think everyone took a turn at standing under the deliciously refreshing mister.

Allan’s photo

Check out the curved porch…I love it.

Kurt told me that all the electrical works, etc (“because the garden lights up at night”) and the lawnmower are stored under the porch

same style of chair as in Hardiman haven

around the side

side garden

It always amuses me to see someone taking photos with a pad. (I know they take good photos; it’s just that the size of the thing seems unwieldy.)

the door leading back to the side yard

Note the giant lantern on the right.

I’ve lost my party so I return to Kurt’s back garden.  There they are!

Todd and Allan under the table umbrella.

another tour guest enjoying the mist

front porch

front of house

Allan’s photo

Todd admiring the curbside planter.

Todd had parked at this side of the house, and thought, as he walked around the corner to enter Lucy’s garden, that he must show it to us…not realizing (because there was no signage on this side) that it was actually a tour garden house.

wish Ilwaco had planters this size

A previous visit to Lucy’s garden in 2001 shows how much it has changed.

Next: onward to more SE Portland gardens.

 

 

 

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prequel: garden touring, 2005

While Allan and I most definitely went to the Northwest Flower and Garden show…and stayed at his parents’ house in north Seattle…I have no photos from that year.  It was completely new and different and fun for me to go with someone who very much wanted to attend every possible seminar and learn as much as he could about gardening.

Garden of Mu, Olympia

In the spring, Allan and I went to Olympia to help a cyber-gardening friend, Mike Unser, dig up plants from his garden to prepare for a move to his new country home near Shelton.

Mike’s garden

There were many plants to dig up (and share). A number of folk from the Pacific Northwest gardening forum showed up to help. (I actually did have some people photos, somewhere…)

Mike’s garden

Here was another good example of gardening friends who met online coming to know each other in person.

Joy Creek and Cistus Nurseries

For the annual trip to Joy Creek and Cistus, we met Sheila and others from the Rainyside.com garden forum for lunch and plant shopping. I was still holding to my frugal plan of buying only for my clients, and none for me.

Sheila by an Echium at Cistus

at Cistus: Echium

Echium

Alki Beach, Seattle

In the summer, Allan and I went to Seattle, stayed at his parents’ house, and indulged in a Northwest Perennial Alliance garden tour weekend.  I think that is the July when we were there because his mom had a hip replacement and someone needed to stay at the house for four days to take care of making dinner for his dad, making sure Dale took his medication, and so on.  Or perhaps we were there for Dale’s birthday in August.

We now come to the very photos that inspired this whole set of prequel journal posts.  I was poking back through my albums and found these and thought “I MUST share these on my blog!”  And then I thought about all the old garden photos that I had…and began the big late winter project of catching up from 198something to the year I began to blog, 2007.  (One year to go at this point!)  So…just LOOK at the plantings all over this house in the Alki Beach neighbourhood of Seattle.  And these were not even on the official weekend tour; we just happened upon this place while on a drive.

the most astounding container display

The fabulous little house was tucked away between two tall buildings.

just…WOW

It is breathtaking.

astonishing!

more flower house photos

and more

As one drives along Alki past the cottage garden of annuals, one then seas a mysterious hillside garden with Asian inspired tea houses….This was the best angle I could get of that fascinating place.

Asian style garden on the hill over Alki beach

Up the hill into West Seattle, I also had to photograph this swoopy brick wall.

bricks

Northwest Perennial Alliance Tour

On spring and summer weekend, NPA members host open gardens for each other.  If I lived in Seattle, I would go to every one.

On the one that Allan and I attended, we saw in the lower U District, near the freeway, a Jurassic garden of huge plants.  This garden was meant to be tall enough to be structurally in tune with the towers that surround it.

Jurassic garden

Gunnera

Below, inside one of the NPA tour houses that was near Allan’s parents’ house in north Seattle…

garden window

outside the same house’s bay window

The same house had its bedroom, in the back, with doors that could completely open to the garden.

bedroom

Those were just two of the several gardens we toured that weekend….

Rainyside Tour in Portland

I was finding the garden touring to be irresistable; I’d never been able to do much touring with Robert because we were too poor and because his behavior was unpredictable. In early fall of 2005 we met up with some Rainysiders, including Sheila, for an overnight stay in Portland and touring of some gardens. I was particularly to see the one below, which was designed with 4 quadrants by Lucy Hardiman and which had been featured in her lectures at the garden show.

in the 4 quadrants garden

a gew gaw in the Lucy-designed garden

center of the 4 quadrants garden

in the 4 quadrant garden

Below:  another Portland garden by…someone famous! a garden writer whose name I have forgotten.  His garden spills out onto the street.

a well known garden

Below:  I think this was in Kym Pykorny‘s shade garden.

water container

I was thrilled to bits to visit Dulcy Mahar’s garden, because her gardening column in the Oregonian was a highlight of my weekly reading.

in Dulcy’s garden

Dulcy’s fire circle

and…somewhere on the tour

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prequel: garden touring ’01

 

In May or June, I took a road trip with Mary from Klipsan Beach Cottages.

Joy Creek Nursery, Scappoose

We stopped at Joy Creek Nursery, of course…

Joy Creek 2001

Joy Creek border

Lake Oswego (and a sad story)

Mary and I stayed at Sharon’s new townhome on the edge of Lake Oswego near Portland. In her divorce case, her  soon to be ex claimed the arbour Robert had built for her, on commission, purchased with her money. It was attached to the house porch railing with two screws, which made it part of the household.  She had to buy it from him for the same price that she had originally paid to Robert, so she bought it twice!   (I had remembered Robert having to build her a second one, but no, she just repurchased the original.)  She was still sad about losing the wonderful garden we had made at her former home on the bay.  Her new rented home had little space for gardening. I had testified at the trial that all the plants had been purchased with Sharon’s money, so she was allowed to take some, most of which took refuge in my garden and the gardens at China Beach Retreat and Klipsan Beach Cottages.  The ex had then sprayed the garden area (still with many plants and bulbs) with Casaron and then covered the area with landscape fabric and river rock.  Goodbye to all the lilies, tulips, alliums and narcissi.

Sharon’s double price arbour

Lucy Hardiman’s garden in Portland

Sharon wanted to show me the Hawthorne neighbourhood in Portland so the three of us went there for an afternoon.   I remembered that Lucy Hardiman (from whom Sharon and I had taken three workshops over the past couple of years) lived near there, and we found her address through the phone book.   Such garden celebrity stalkers we were!  Sharon, Mary and I were nosing around Lucy’s well known sidewalk garden (she calls it a “garden approach” rather than “a garden retreat”) when she saw us from her upstairs window and invited us in.

Below, we walked around the side of the house…

entering the garden

and the garden is revealed.

Lucy’s back garden

looking to the house from the arbour

Lucy had a VERY sweet dog.   You may be disappointed if you click to enlarge the photo;  unfortunately, my scans appear to be small.

containers in Lucy’s garden

Lucy had begun to make mosaic pieces.

mosaic table

I was very taken with the shrub (below) but even though I have bought a couple since then, I have never managed to grow it successfully.  When I returned to tour Lucy’s garden some years later, the shrub was gone so it may be rather tender.

Cestrum

bronze fennel….now called by some a noxious weed because it reseeds so freely

The tiny paths in the back of her garden made me feel better about the little tiny path running up the north side of mine.

tiny secret path

pots on Lucy’s deck

We lingered by the beautiful sidewalk garden atop a stone wall.   Ludy often tells in lectures how she and Fred saved for years to have the wall done.

atop the wall

atop the wall: Origanum rotundifolium (ornamental oregano)

In one of her garden show slide presentations, I had first seen, growing on this wall, Salvia viridis (painted sage) and Cerinthe purpurascens, still two of my three favourite annuals.  (Number three?  Cosmos, of course!)

The centerpiece of the wall is the famous heart that reaches out to passersby.  It is overgrown with a plant in this photo:

Lucy’s wall

Another favourite Lucy story of mine is how she would sit above the wall in a hidden area behind some shrubs and listen to people’s comments about the garden.

Heirloom Roses in St. Paul

On the second day of our road trip we went to Heirloom Roses, in St Paul, Oregon, where the front arbour was more thickly covered than on my previous visits.

shop entrance, with cat

Below:  I think the pillar rose is Eden, which Mary of KBC fell for hard but which never grew well for us at the beach.  The flowers are so full that in our damp air, they browned off before opening fully.

Eden? and a clematis

at Heirloom Roses

roses

roses trained and free

Ferguson’s Fragrant Nursery

We also went to the wonderful Ferguson’s Fragrant Nursery nearby.

at Ferguson’s

2001 was the year that Cathy Peterson, who wrote a weekly gardening column for the Daily Astorian, asked me if I would organize a garden tour for her and some friends, and I did.  Such fun it was!   My garden was on it, and Sheila helped me get it weeded and cleaned up in time.  I also featured Seagarden,  Patti’s garden, The Shelburne, Jo’s Long Beach garden, and Klipsan Beach Cottages.  I have no photos to show that it ever happened, but I do recall that we all had dinner on the deck at the Depot restaurant afterwards, and Cathy bought my dinner as a thank you.   I believe she wrote something about it, and it would be so wonderful if I could find it.  Why is my file cabinet of gardening articles no longer in alphabetical order?  Next winter’s project!

A few years later, Cathy retired from writing for the Astorian.  Someone else took over “In the Garden” and wrote two excellent columns, and then the Astorian dropped the column altogether.  I still miss it.  A lot.

 

A digression:  The Depot restaurant had been bought the year before by two young locals and had turned into a very good restaurant.  Before, during the year 1993 when we lived at the Sou’wester, it had been a noisy tavern with much drunken whooping every night at closing time.  Then it had sat vacant for several years.   We were so happy to see it revived.   It became the restaurant we know today (our favourite!) after Michael Lalewicz and Nancy Gorshe bought it a few years later.   Below, the Depot in 2000:

The Depot well before it had its north side gardens.

Below, in 2000:  The new garden being created by the new owners, Nat and Domique, and by Dirk Sweringen of the nearby English nursery. I ended up pruning these ornamental grasses every spring. They make a great rustling privacy screen for the outdoor deck.

Depot ornamental grasses, 2000

 

 

 

 

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prequel: garden touring 1999

In June, 1999, Sharon and I and Mary from Klipsan Beach Cottages went to see the amazing rose gardens at Heirloom Old Garden Roses in St. Paul, Oregon, and also to Joy Creek Nursery in Scappoose. We were on a buying trip for Sharon’s garden and Klipsan Beach Cottages.

Heirloom Roses in 1999

I had been to Heirloom once before with Mike Kitzman on a buying trip for the Fifth Street Park in Long Beach, but it had been before the roses were in bloom.  This time, I got to see the rose garden at its peak.

Heirloom Roses

arbour near the shop

banks of roses

Fourth of July’ rose at Heirloom Roses.

To this day, roses ‘Polka’ and ‘Jude the Obscure’ from Heirloom Roses are showpieces of the Klipsan Beach Cottages gardens.

Joy Creek Nursery

My visit with Sharon and Mary was my first of many yearly visits to Joy Creek.

Robert and I worked in the spring and summer for a millionaire named George Fiske-Hammond III, whose meticulously designed small garden in Seaview I wish I had photographed. The second time I went to Joy Creek Nursery, shown here, was on a buying trip with him, during which he generously lavished me with plants and a good lunch.

Joy Creek 1999

Joy Creek 1999

The George job would all come to grief later in the year when George, who was in Al Anon, had a deep rift with Robert over an incident where he felt Robert was argumentative. When he wanted me to keep working for him and not allow Robert to be there, I resigned.  He encountered me at the grocery store and lamented “You were a huge disappointment to me.”  If I had NOT resigned, my home life would have become even more difficult.

Seaside

On the way to buy plants at Raintree Nursery in Seaside, Oregon (now Seven D’s), we would take a detour to admire the streetside plantings there.  That is a detour that Allan and I take years later.

Seaside, Oregon

Cannon Beach

Here is where my memory fails, because in  my photo albums I have TWO sets of photos for Haystack Rock summer education program workshops with Ann Lovejoy and Lucy Hardiman.  Did I really attend these two years in a row with my friend Sharon?  I do know that 1998 was the garden tour one, which I have already written about.  But apparently in ’99 there was another one, the garden design focused one (so what was the ’98 one?)   The second day of the ’99 workshop, Lucy Hardiman’s spouse gave a workshop on building copper garden structures, and I have photos to prove it.

Fred Hardiman

Fred’s copper spiral

copper pipe arbour

Below, Fred cutting the copper with a special cutter, which I simply could not get the hang of, thus I was hampered in trying to make things like this.

cutter

Fred cutting the copper with a special cutter, which I simply could not get the hang of, thus I was hampered in trying to make things like this.

making a trellis

If I could only operate the pipe cutter thing, I could make things like this!

On lunch breaks, Sharon and I took walks through Cannon Beach and admired the gardens. I think 80% of each commercial property’s surrounds have to be landscaped by law there. Or something like that.  The effects are marvelous.

 

And we walked through the Presidential blocks of Cannon Beach where I photographed my favourite little house. It’s almost always the tiny ones that catch my eye.

a favourite sight in Cannon Beach

Even thought I have claimed that during the ’98 workshop, Sharon saved for me this Bubble and Flow sketch by Ann Lovejoy and gave it to me later as a gift, maybe that happened in 1999!  If I ever go through all my years of seminar and workshop notes, I might find out.

bubble and flow

Joy Creek again

In fall of 1999, I took a design workshop with Sharon at Joy Creek Nursery;  Anne Lovejoy and Lucy Hardiman supervised the redesign of one of the display garden borders.  Below, some class members and the Joy Creek work crew (who RAN with wheelbarrows full of gravel and soil!) rework the border.

border redesign

the new border being planted

at Joy Creek

Joy Creek sculpture

mesh and metal sculpture

sculpture

sculpture

Had a digital camera been at hand in 1999, I am sure I would have more photos, including pictures of Lucy and Ann teaching.  I was kind of shy of taking photos of them….would not be so today!

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prequel: Cannon Beach Garden Tour 1998

Way back in 1998, my friend and then-client Sharon and I went to a Haystack Rock summer weekend in Cannon Beach for which Ann Lovejoy and Lucy Hardiman taught a garden design workshop on Saturday and took us garden touring on Sunday.  (Sharon and I had become fast friends when we had created a garden for her earlier in the year; a few years later she moved away and the garden faded back into lawn.)

Digression:  Making Sharon’s Garden

In 1998 we created this garden around Sharon’s house where once had been just three scraggly rosebushes.

..and we made a rock wall garden along the bay side of her lot.

above: back in the days before the “straighten”button!

…and turned a mound into a little pond waterfall area.

Sharon’s beautiful bird bath.

And here is Sharon’s garden in 1999:

Shaz garden with pineapple sage

Shaz’ garden with new arbour by my former partner, Robert Sullivan

Back to the tour story:

On the weekend of the Haystack Rock garden design workshop, we toured the big country garden of Cannon Beach garden designer Beth Holland first, just on the other side of Highway 101 and down a short quiet road..

Beth Holland’s garden just outside Cannon Beach.

Beth’s greenhouse was constructed with large old windows from a school.

In Beth’s garden

After the lovely tour of Beth’s estate, we drove to the Tolovana neighbourhood of Cannon Beach and saw this lovely sight by the sea.

a Cannon Beach garden overlooking the sea

garden detail

in Cannon Beach

One of the gardens had a train layout.

train garden

train layout in ocean view garden, Tolovana neighbourhood of Cannon Beach.

My favourite garden was that of local writer and quilter and gardener June Kroft.  (I was deeply saddened in 2010 to learn that the one year (2009)  when I had forgotten due to my mother’s ill health to go to the Cannon Beach Cottage tour, June’s cottage had been on it. I would love to see the inside.)

in June Kroft’s garden

In June’s garden (left, in blue, Lucy Hardiman)

June’s glorious garden shed

I have an old book from the Cannon Beach Historical Society, a bit worse for wear from years in my old damp cottage.  I got it when the society had a photo exhibit called “A Village of Flowers”  at their museum in 1999.  The booklet is created from a manuscript by June Kroft and I share here a few pages from it in hope that perhaps you may be inspired to find yourselves a copy.

From the book:  Old Timer: Throw out a bunch of nasturtium seeds around a piece of driftwood.  That’s a beach garden.”

Now that’s my idea of a garden tour.

For my next birthday after the garden design workshop, Sharon gave me this framed sketch that Ann Lovejoy had made in Sharon’s notebook to illustrate the design concept of “bubble and flow”.  I treasure it to this day.

Ann Lovejoy: bubble and flow

It helped a great deal with my garden design confidence, that while Lucy Hardiman makes design drawings that are intricate and scaled to the inch, Ann’s a more of a sketch, an idea, a chicken scratch….like mine.

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22 & 23 June, 2007 — a weekend of revelations

Hardy Plant Society Study Weekend, Friday and Saturday

What a joy it was to be among plant nuts…all but Sheila strangers to me except for the lovely Lucy Hardiman, from whom I have taken a couple of workshops…but it did not matter that we knew almost no one as we all had so much in common. The touring of gardens also impressed upon me that I have not been devoting enough time and attention to my own garden because of so much time being consumed with work. If I reduce our schedule to only loveable jobs, I’ll have a day or two off each week at home. (And yet, must make enough money to buy plants!)

And oh, the gardens! Friday Sheila and I toured the lovely Bishop’s Close and some large estate gardens that were part of a Garden Conservancy tour….gardens which went on and on, beyond each curve another acre or two of amazing plants.  Gardens with room for a perfect lawn about a mile wide AND room for plenty of collectible plants.  One garden was begun by a “Sir and Lady”, and we do think all had a staff of gardeners keeping them in perfect condition.  They were breathtaking but could be said to arouse a twinge of envy and dissatisfaction at one’s own humble double lot or even, as in Sheila’s case, one’s own almost-acre.  We were able to enjoy without much covetousness…not too much.

(above left) a stream garden in The Bishop’s Close; (right) an island bed in a vast expanse of lawn at The Bates Garden

(above) The Bates Garden wonderful rock garden; in the neighbouring “High Hatch Garden”, Buddha presides on the way to a grand swimming pool and hot tub…with camellias in his hands, perhaps to thank him for so much prosperity.

Friday night the  weekend opened with Dan Hinkley’s lecture, following Saturday morning by three more scintillating talks by Bart O’Brien, Cole Burrell, and Sean Hogan.  Then we were off to tour as many gardens as possible of the lavish number opened by members of HPSO.  We chose Southeat Portland for Saturday afternoon and even guided by Sheila’s godlike GPS unit we barely made it to the last garden by closing time.

Lucy Hardiman’s garden

We chose Southeast first because I very much wanted Sheila to see Lucy Hardiman’s inspirational small city garden in all its witty detail and amazing plant collection, and indeed it proved to be our favourite. Above left is her famous rock wall and bench along the street, which she called a “garden advance” rather than a garden retreat, a gift to the neighbourhood and to passersby. Inside the garden, blue pillars and colourful balls lighten up a shady area.  (Oh how I need time to do this sort of thing under my big spruce tree, the one section in my garden that I never get around to fixing up.)

Rosemary and Walt Ellis garden

The garden of Rosemary and Walt Ellis, above,  rich in exuberant plants, was also a favourite of ours with its inviting sitting spots and tiny pond full of koi.

Dulcy Mahar garden

Above, we had seen the garden of Dulcy Mahar (Oregonian garden writer) before, and it’s even better now, with an expanded vegetable garden (right), but with the same urn and grasses focal point as last time one which I still desire to copy! Sheila did not mean to pop into the photo, but emerged from a secret nook just in time to provide a sense of scale.

Above, Dulcy’s black kitty lounges by the pool….and one of many impeccable details in her garden.

Marlene Salon and David Goulder garden

In the much more formal garden of Marlene Salon and David Goulder another charming cat lounges on a bench next to a courtyard pool, where Sheila ponders garden design.

Woodland Way Nursery garden

By 4.30 p.m. we were in an astonishing garden called Quercus Terra, whose owner did not allow photos (we were sad), but which had a most photogenic enormous garden which fell away from the house in a series of levels with a pond and streams. Onward we rushed down the street to the last garden, Woodland Way Nursery, arriving fifteen minutes before the end of tour time. The owners were kind enough to not rush us.  We examined with interest the small well planted area by the house with its skateboard seats and water feature (above left), and only toward the end did I wander across the back lawn and discover that the garden continued into a ravine by a streamside planted with cultivated and natural areas and seemingly going on for blocks (above right).  I thought Sheila would find me, but she did not realize for some time that I had disappeared into the wilderness.  By the time I emerged seeking her, the owners were lounging with their dog and glasses of wine on lawn chairs, amused as I went back round the house looking for my lost friend, who soon followed looking for me around the other side of the house.  At last she had found the glorious ravine and got to see some of it, and eventually we were reunited at the entrance of the garden and departed for the speakers’ reception and dinner at the World Forestry center.  To conserve energy for Sunday, we left during the horticultural spelling bee.  An HPSO member with a garden outlying Portland was so kind to us newcomers that we particularly wanted to have the strength to drive out to his garden the next day.

[2012 update: Dulcy Mahar died in 2011. I miss her gardening columns.  I won’t say rest in peace because I bet she is like me, not wanting to rest too much in an afterlife but wanting instead to be gardening in some beautiful place with the dogs and cats that preceded her there.]

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