Author Archives: Ashland Garden Club

Wildflower Seed balls For Butterflies

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What are seed balls?

Introduced in the 70s, seed balls are a form of “guerilla gardening” whereby seeds, soil and clay are mixed together into tidy germination bombs that are said to have an 80% higher success rate than simply broadcasting seeds onto soil.  Adding red potters’ clay to the mix protects the seeds from being blown away by wind or consumed by insects or birds.  Generally, seed balls don’t require watering and you should NOT bury or plant them.  Simply toss them in a vacant lot, your front yard, or a wildscape situation like a ranch or roadside.  Wait for the rain to melt away the clay casing, and nature will do the rest.

Texas Butterfly Ranch Seed ball Recipe

3 parts local soil or potting soil

1 – 2 parts red potter’s clay powder, also known as “terracotta powder” at pottery supply stores

1 part native wildflower seeds

Water, as needed.

Newspaper and cookie sheets for drying seed balls

Stainless steel bowls or pots for mixing

  ****

1.  Assemble ingredients.

2.  Mix soil, clay and wildflower seeds together in bowl.  Mix well.

3.  Add water to attain dough-like consistency, much like tart or pie dough

4. Pinch off or use spoon to grab gumball-sized amounts of the mix.  Roll between your palms to get round form.  Drop onto newspaper covered cookie sheet to dry.

5.  Sprinkle generously with red chili pepper.  Let set for 24 hours.

6.  Once the seed balls set up, usually after 24 hours, store them in paper bags for later use or toss them right away.  Remember to use only native seeds for wildscaping situations.

SOURCE

http://texasbutterflyranch.com/2011/12/20/happy-winter-solstice-celebrate-with-seedballs-a-recipe-and-step-by-step-directions-on-how-to-make-them/

‘Lasagna’ Sheet Mulching

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Here’s how to create a lasagna bed, also called sheet mulching:

  • Start in fall so the bed has all winter to start decomposing.
  • Cut grass as low as possible. Or start a lasagna garden on top of an old planting bed.
  • Loosen soil with a digging fork to increase aeration. Even punching holes in the ground will work.
  • Remove weeds.
  • Build a raised bed frame or just mound up the layers of organic material into an unframed bed.
  • Put a layer of cardboard overlapped an inch or two and water it.
  • Cover with 2-inch layers of green organic material like grass clippings, fresh plant debris, fresh animal manure and food scraps that provide nitrogen and brown materials like dry leaves, wood chips, straw and shredded newspaper that are carbon sources. Repeat layers until the bed is about 18 inches.
  • Top off with a 2- to 6-inch brown layer; thicker if you want to plant right away.
  • Create beds only wide enough to reach into the middle and create paths lined with straw to walk on so soil doesn’t get compacted.
  • Lasagna beds will shrink as materials decompose and may need refreshed layers each year.
  • Using transplants is easier in no-till gardening systems; the mulch layer is easier to transplant directly into rather than direct seeding, especially for small-seeded crops like lettuce and broccoli. To transplant, use a trowel or other tool to make holes large enough to plant into. If directly seeding into the bed, pull back the mulch layer and smooth over the surface layer with a rake before seeding.

Instructions from OSU Extension website https://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/no-till-garden

The term “Lasagna Gardening” was coined by Patricia Lanza, who wrote a book on the subject in 1998. The illustration above is from her book.

Garden of the Month: September 2023

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623 Prim Street

Elysian Graham and Lou Martinez bought the handsome house at 623 Prim Street in 2020 and promptly set about re-imagining the front landscape.  This is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the month for September 2023.

They hired Banyan Tree Landscaping and landscape architect Lucretia Weems to do the job.  Among their primary goals were to achieve easy maintenance for their steep yard, conserve water, and be deer resistant.  They also wanted a subtle color palette, but color and interest all year, and to be pollinator-friendly.  They have achieved all this and more.

Only the large sweet gum tree on the left side of the garden and the thicket on the far right side, which is seasonally favored by deer, remain from the original yard.  Overhead sprinklers were replaced by a drip irrigation system.  The rock retaining walls and graceful stairs were added.

Ornamental grasses are highlights at this time of year and on through the winter.  As the homeowners and designers of this garden have done, the Ashland Garden Club urges gardeners to take care in choosing ornamental grasses that are not fire-prone, and to remove dead and dry growth.

The couple handle all the maintenance themselves and, as busy professionals, they are grateful that their yard is so easy-care.  Elysian particularly likes the guara and Lou likes the Japanese maple.

Photos by Lou Martinez

Article by: Ruth Sloan, AGC GOM Committee Chair

Garden of the Month: July 2023

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500 Holly Street.

Notice the welcoming stone entrance to the garden at 500 Holly Street.  This is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for July 2023, home to Kathy and Stephen French.  

July 2023 photo by Larry Rosengren

A massive redesign of the entire yard in 2009 was conducted by Kerry KenCairn of KenCairn Landscape Architecture, with graceful curved stairs featured in both front and back gardens.

Spring 2023 photo by Kathy French

The Frenches purchased the property in 2021 from Nina and Paul Winans who had masterminded the earlier redesign.  Kathy French especially appreciates the sequential blooming times for different components of the garden which include iris, rhododendron, tulip, and hydrangea.  And both Frenches enjoy the bounty of the many fruit trees that the Winans had specified in working with KenCairn, only two of which were already on the property and now include two apples, pear, sour cherry, and fig.  

Spring 2023 photo by Kathy French

Before the 2009 overhaul, Paul Winans personally dug up many rocks on the steeply sloped lot, which were later incorporated into the retaining walls in back.  Raised beds in the side yard allow for a fine kitchen garden, currently filled with tomato plants and an essential assortment of fresh herbs—including thyme, basil, rosemary, and chives—to season any meal.

Spring 2023 photo by Kathy French

Currently, Rudolfo Ramirez and his crew mow the lawns and do the more routine maintenance.  Kathy French averages about an hour a day more closely grooming the garden.  And Stephen French does the occasional big jobs, including pruning the many trees.

With thanks to Marilyn Love for suggesting this garden.

Article by: Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Chairperson

The Oregon Gardens

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After years of hearing about the Oregon Gardens from garden club members, my husband and I finally visited this garden located in the charming town of Silverton, 12 miles NE of Salem, Oregon. The Oregon Gardens is a lovely 80-acre botanical garden featuring twenty themed gardens, many with water features and sculptures and it has a historic Frank Lloyd Wright house, called The Gordon House. When we arrived we first took the narrated tram tour. The driver told us the garden’s history and pointed out each featured garden and interesting facts. She explained that the wetland area in the gardens is used to cool the City of Silverton’s effluent water.  The water moves through a series of pools and is used to irrigate the gardens before it’s returned to the local river. We were impressed! After the tram tour, we purchased iced chai-tea from the Little Leaf Café in the visitor’s center, and then walked through the gardens using a brochure map to guide us.  The Conifer Garden was grand and we could have stayed here for hours, but we still had to visit: the Bosque Grove, the Sensory Garden, the Rose Garden, the Children’s Garden, the Medicinal Garden, the Garden Market Garden, the Tropical Greenhouse, and the water features. Picnicking is encouraged at the gardens, so we ate our lunch at a picnic table surrounded by trees and flowers. The garden is pet-friendly, too, there’s even a pet-friendly demonstration garden. I couldn’t leave without purchasing a plant from the retail nursery, so I bought a Dicliptera suberecta also known as a firecracker plant or hummingbird plant. This plant is a deer-resistant drought-tolerant herbaceous perennial with felty blueish-grey leaves that blooms early summer into fall. It has   clusters of tubular orange flowers that are a hummingbird’s delight!  It’s winter hardy in USDA Zone 8-10, and needs full sun. Visit the Oregon Gardens, you’ll love it. ~Carlotta Lucas Read more about the Oregon Gardens https://www.oregongarden.org/about/
Photo above was provided by the Oregon Gardens Website Photos below were taken by Carlotta Lucas, AGC Member