28 June: Hardy Plant Society Study Weekend—Barrager garden

Sunday, 28 June 2015

Hardy Plant Society Study Weekend

Barrager garden

Just up the street from Barbara Ashmun’s garden, her nearby neighbour Doug Barrager’s garden was also on tour.  I do love when tour gardens are walking distance from each other.

from the street

lilies

lily and dogwood

side garden rose borders

Allan’s photo, back garden

Allan’s photo

into the shade

more shade beds: Allan’s photo

hydrangeas

I want this lace cap hydrangea.

I like the precisely cut flowers.  Allan overheard some tour guests saying this is an unusual cultivar.

Jeanne and I marveled at the perfection of the hostas.

more perfect hostas

work area around the other side of the house

the sunny side of the house

variegated dogwood at the corner

roses along the front street

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

another starry dahlia

bonus garden

We enjoyed the view over the picket fence of a garden across the street.

another gardening neighbour

Next: We return to Floramagoria, one of our favourite Portland gardens.

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19 July: Music in the Gardens Tour—Darla’s Garden

 

Saturday, 19 July 2014

Music in the Gardens Tour, Long Beach Peninsula

a benefit for the Water Music Festival

We continued to do the gardens out of order, having done the ocean side first instead of last.  Our GPS shows our route heading from Steven and John’s garden to Darla’s garden.

down one side and up the other goes the tour; we were heading north along the bay to Darla’s garden.

Darla’s Garden

My friend Debbie Teashon of Rainyside.com described this garden best, saying that Darla had let her inner child out ot play.  When Garden Tour Nancy and I met Darla on a pre-tour day in early June, she told us of her plans to improve the walking flow through her garden and add to certain theme areas.  This great grandmother had been working on the garden every day since then.  Because she has owned, or maybe still owns a couple of coastal antique stores, she has more ingredients to work with than most of us could ever dream of.

Out of the woods, she has carved rooms on various themes after retiring and moving to the beach about 17 years ago; before then, this large lot was the family’s summer getaway.  As soon as Nancy and I realized how happy we felt in the garden (and in my case, it reminded me of the way I felt as a child in my grandmother’s garden), we wanted it to be on the tour.

a woodsy, sandy lot

At the previous garden, I had advised our friend Carol Clearman to be sure to go to Darla’s garden as Carol’s young granddaughter would love it.  As we arrived, Carol was leaving with her daughter Amy and her granddaughter, and she told me the little girl had not stopped talking delightedly since entering Darla’s playful garden.

Carol coming around Darla’s enormous gunnera

Carol and family at Darla’s (Allan’s photo)

in front of the garage

by the garage: the fire circle

south side of garage driveway: the gunnera and garden shed

 

by the garage, the “Farmville” garden

“Farmville” (Allan’s photo)

a rustic path beckons

Since my last visit, Darla had widened and barked this path toward the house

 

 

passing by the wooden bridge, we come to the patio on the south side of the house.

Darla loves annuals in pots and gets many from the Basket Case Greenhouse; in fact, Basket Case Fred was the one who told us about her.

photo by Kathleen Shaw

to the north of the house, a garden boat

This was the boat on June 4!

and tiers of plants in containers

She has over 60 birdhouses and over 60 birdbaths, I believe; she told us the exact number and I can’t find where I wrote it down!

on the patio

Kathleen Shaw was there earlier than we were and got this photo of Shelley Loring playing the flute.

photo by Kathleen Shaw

on June 4 pre-tour

looking back toward the street

east of the house: the “Military Garden” in red white and blue

Darla giving a white buddleia cutting to a tour guest

seating in the military garden

the military garden

My mother, a Marine in WWII, would have loved this.

further along the east side of the garden

another sit spot

Allan got this photo of Water Music Festival board member Rita Nicely with Darla.

exploring to the northeast

Darla found this sign discarded at the Port of Ilwaco and snagged it!

Allan’s camera battery had died (a repeating story on these tours!), so I gave him my camera and went on using my iPhone camera.

along the east fence that borders busy Sandridge Road

Darla loves baby’s tears (so did my Grandma) and grows them in many shady spots.

mossy log

more moss

more seating: Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Darla’s love for all extends to respectful burials for roadkill animals. (The road she lives by is busy and notorious for that.)

sunny glades in the woods among sword fern and evergreen huckleberry

We follow a path to a space between a playhouse and the garage, to the east of the fire circle.

playhouse porch

grandkid’s playhouse

work area

behind the fire circle

over the garage doors

Emerging again by the road:

Allan’s photo: Rita and I are looking at Darla’s memorial garden for her friend Shirley.

When Nancy and I visited on June 4, Darla told us that within six months of each other, seventeen years ago, her husband, her sister, and her best friend died.  She has a memorial garden for her friend just to the north of the walkway up to her house.

Shirley’s memorial garden

angel in a tux

On June 4, Darla showed me a sign with her friend’s name on it which she had, amazingly, found at a rummage sale.

Allan’s photo

by the road (Allan’s photo)

I went back to say goodbye to Darla and tell her how much I love the way her soul is expressed throughout her garden.  She invited me to come back any time and I hope to take her up that that.

As we left, another group of tour guests were just entering Darla’s garden of wonders.

I would have liked to go through again (I realize now I did not go around the south side of the house!) but we had one more garden to see, and the tour time was almost over.

 

 

 

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our garden on tour: the bogsy woods

Here is a mystery:  Why does this post get several hits a day?  Do comment and tell me why, if you know.  P.S.  I have figured it out; it’s traffic stemming from a fairy door pin on pinterest.

July 21, 2012

outside the south gate

We’ve walked through the front garden and the back garden on Peninsula garden tour day  Now we have worked our way to the very back of our large double city lot: the bogsy woods that back up on to the Port of Ilwaco meander line and parking lots.  Here was the site of a cathartic clean up in September of 2011.  Much grooming and decorating had followed.

The southernmost fence had a couple of would-be tour guests outside on tour day morning.

I have deliberately left groves of salmonberry in the bogsy wood but cut paths through and between and cut some halfway down to make sightlines through, and in the center cleared a view corridor that lets us see out to the port year round.  The tour guests seemed to greatly enjoy walking through the paths and over the bridge to the area outside the fence where a big seasonal water ditch separates us from the parking lots.

Even though I have never been a lawn fan, I left a large lawn space between the flower beds and the woods with the idea that comfortable gathering spaces are necessary for a garden party.

our fire circle with bogsy wood behind

signs

On the east fence along the woods I had more quotations painted on old boards, an ephemeral and last minute idea.  “A massive dose of inspiration should result in drastic action.  Be bold and never question inspiration-driven ideas.  Timidity results in inactivity and a stagnant or non-existent garden.”  (Thomas Hobbs)

and “Some people spend their time dreaming of a paradise in heaven.  I would rather create it here on earth.” (Jenny Ferguson)

Next comes one of my favourite gardening quotations, by Helen Dillon:  ” are always told that the first thing we must do on getting a garden is to make a plan…But, in fact, the last thing I ever want to do is make a plan–I feel weak just thinking about it. My idea of heaven was (and still is) to indulge in a lavish buying spree. And the consequences? Too bad. Bugger plans!”  It is something I always want to tell a potential client who asks me to drawn a plan.  Because I just can’t.  (Or, er, won’t.  Or am really simply artistically incapable of it.)

At the end of the east side grass path one turns left to a path leading by the bogsy wood swale than in winter is full of water.  Past the bridge the swale jogs over a bit to the north and curves around to the west fence….all full of water in winter.

swales

blue door (in spring)

In the center we had a big plant table of moss and ferns, inspired by George Schenk, that Allan had built for me from an old door.  We had fairy doors that Allan had found at Home and Garden Art (that shop on 85th in Seattle) and embellished with stairs (although a friend of ours pointed out the fairies don’t need stairs because they can fly.  So we say the stairs are for their pet frogs.)

When garden writer Jolly Butler came through on tour day (exciting!) she told me I simply must watch this video of the song “There are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden.”

fairy door with stairs

paths in the bogsy wood

A plant table inspired by George Schenk sits to the right of the center path to bridge.

plant table with moss and ferns

Down the center clearing, the view corridor to the port, one comes to the bridge to the southern gate.

the bridge

And then, if one turns and looks back to the garden, one might be drawn back to the three large sunny borders.

looking north from the bogsy wood

On your way back, look to the right of the fire circle, back against the salmonberry, for another of my favourite garden quotations (and my big excuse for the rather huge amount of money I have spent on this garden).

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