painted lady
For the first time, the Peninsula Garden tour would be held in late July so the July 14th Astoria garden tour came first. As always, the tickets were sold next to this beautiful painted lady high on the hill overlooking the Columbia River.
I have never seen this house look less than perfect. Note that the colour scheme of the garden (and even the fire hydrant) echo the paint colours.
According to the programme, the first garden would be at the Millpond
colour coordinated garden
Village. Excitement did not fill my heart as we drove downhill and to the east. I very much like the Millpond Village and admire its landscaping but figured we were in for a repeat of the tour in 2009 which had featured a lot of attractive curbside plantings. (Ann Lovejoy and Beth Holland were among the designers for the Millpond landscaping so I certainly did not mind a stop to see how the parklike areas were coming along.)
However, when we got there we were treated to a lovely garden on an empty lot between two townhouses. I had always thought a drawback to living there would be the tiny garden spaces. What a brilliant solution to just (if one could afford to) buy an extra lot.
street view
From the tour programme: “Helen Westbrook garden: This splendid young garden features a lovely river rock rain swale to manage storm water. With the high water table here, birds enjoy the temporary pond surrounded by “wet feet” plants. Birds are also attracted to shrubs…planted as a border for the neighbour’s patio. …It’s hard to believe this gem was once part of a plywood mill.”
As we approached, I still did not realize that an entire lot would be given over to garden.
narrow curbside garden….and bindweed in training!
curbside detail
beside the arbour entrance
garden lot
The main garden is between two townhouses on a lot which originally was planned to be another townhouse.
What a pleasurable oasis it has added to this area of otherwise tiny sidewalk gardens.
And what a joy it would be to be lucky enough to be the gardener’s neighbour. We were told that the neighbour across the lot also participates in some of the gardening.
dry creekbed for water run off…
I very much liked the water swale between the townhouse and a central patio. In mid July, it still had some water. I wonder if the little creek bed (right) has water in it all winter long? In fact, if I remembered, I would love to look at this garden on a wet winter day.
water swale, looking east
swale, looking west
seasonal pond
I love the seasonal pond and admired the attention to detail: no underwear showing!
looking west from just outside the garden
townhouse at NE corner of garden
The neighbour toward the river carried the garden theme around to the front of her own townhouse. The little front garden is more the usual size of the Millpond Village gardens.
neighbour’s front garden
I LOVE gardening neighbours. Here’s the wall of the house north of the Westbrook Garden lot, where the neighbour has added to the ambience. Her potting bench shows a simple but clever way to display plant tags.
neighbour’s patio
view of the garden from the neighbour’s sit spot
We circulated around the Westbrook garden several times, admiring all the details.
tags: painted paint stirrer and gold paint
little fence
birdbath with sand dollars
tablescape with little polka dot plants
a planted chair
bird nest accent
choice plantings
another planted chair
Across the street from the planted chair at the edge of the garden, you can see a vacant lot gone to yellow dandelions which is probably the same size as the garden whose every nook we had been admiring.
Our own garden would be on the Music in the Gardens tour in just seven days, and after seeing all the bright annuals tucked into Ms. Westbrook’s garden, I knew we had to make haste and see all the gardens in time to fill our car with still more plants for our garden open day.
I needed more colour!
So on we went headed west through downtown Astoria to the next garden.
Tangly Cottage Gardening 