Julia Sommers’ August Garden of the Month article about Scenic Park has been published in the Ashland Daily Tidings.

Read Here:

http://www.dailytidings.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110822/NEWS02/108220306&cid=sitesearch

Winding downhill path to North Main with view of Grizzly

Scenic Park-

August Garden of the Month is Ashland’s newest park: Scenic Park, a 1.5-acre neighborhood park at the dead end of Scenic Drive that can also be accessed from North Main and the dead end of Greenbriar Place.

The city bought this parcel in 2000 to build a neighborhood park in compliance with its Comprehensive Land Use Plan, which states that every Ashland resident should be within a quarter mile of a city park. It took a decade to get Scenic Park up and running, but you could say it was worth the wait: it’s a gem.

Stairway down from Greenbriar Place

The park has sweeping views of Grizzly Peak and the mountains, which you can enjoy from a long bench or picnic tables at the top of the park, which sweeps down to North Main. There are two playgrounds for children — one for preschoolers, the other for older children with climbing wall and a view of Mt. Ashland. The park’s winding path is ADA-accessible, which makes it a popular spot for Linda Vista patients and their families.

Long bench gives sweeping views of Grizzly

Scenic Park is herbicide and pesticide-free and was designed for low maintenance. The irrigation system runs perpendicular to the hill to save water, and the lawns are tree-less and edge-less for easy mowing. Native rock from the site was incorporated into pathways, seats, and retaining walls. Deutzia cuttings from Lithia Park and fountain grass recycled from Siskiyou Boulevard medians can be found near the North Main entrance. Plum and apple trees from the original site continue to bear fruit.

A community garden near the Scenic Drive entrance has 10 well-maintained plots protected by deer fencing. (The garden’s waiting list is about a year; call 541-488-6606 for more information.) Plumbing was installed nearby for possible bathroom and drinking fountain in the future.

Deer Fenced Community Garden

The Parks and Recreation Department planted about 35 trees in 2008, including red-blooming horse chestnut, black maple, maackia, upright hornbeam, redbud, Hall’s hardy almond, Italian oaks, Vanderwolf pines, blue spruce, flame willows, cinnamon, fruiting quince, hackberry, ornamental cherry, and a parrotia. A neighbor has already used the quince in a pie.

Scenic Drive entrance leading down to playground with climbing wall

Shrubs, with drought-tolerance in mind, include vibernum, saponaria, lavendar, yarrow, Jerusalem and Russian sage, poppies, Oregon sunshine, hybrid manzanita, silk tassel, rock rose, forsythia, germander, and low-growing sumac.

Railroad-tie steps lead through small fields of native grasses and wildflowers. In 2009, hundreds of bulbs were planted, mainly along the North Main entrance: narcissus, tulip, daffodil, iris, crocus. They already produce a spring show.

In the top corner of Scenic Park is Mary’s Grove, planted by her friends with five Italian oaks in memory of Mary Douglas, a former park neighbor.

On-site rocks used in retaining walls

With input from the community, neighbors, and the Parks and Recreation Commission, the master plan for Scenic Park was drawn up by Lango.Hanson Landscape Architects of Portland. Construction documents were provided by KenCairn Landscape Architecture of Ashland, and hardscape was constructed by Batzer Construction of Medford.

Because Scenic Park is a neighborhood park, there are only three parking spaces (made of permeable paving) at the Scenic Drive entrance, intended primarily for community gardeners and maintenance vehicles. You can park nearby on Maple, Scenic or Greenbriar and walk in. – Julia Sommer

519 Liberty Street-
The front garden at 519 Liberty Street is always eye-catching. In April, there was a stunning show of daffodils. In May and June, it was irises and peonies. Now it’s daisies and coreopsis with foxglove just ending its reign. Garden Club members, friends, and families will have an opportunity to see inside the intriguing gate to the equally breath-taking and very private courtyard, side, and back gardens at 1:00 on Monday, July 11. This is a small garden, jam-packed with beautiful plants.

Sue Harmon has gardened on this property since 2003. Some years earlier, she took a two-year series of horticulture courses at UCLA that is the equivalent of Master Gardener training here. And when she first moved to Ashland, she took a garden-planning workshop at SOU. A Master Gardener from that program helped her plan the courtyard garden. Sue does all of the gardening herself. She spends approximately eight hours a week during the busiest seasons of Spring and Fall, and about four hours a week the rest of the year. It shows.

In addition to the ever-changing show of blooms in front is a large mimosa tree with lacy foliage that will have fringed pink blossoms later this summer. The front also is home to a holly tree, two dogwoods, and numerous evergreen shrubs. A clematis vine tops the arbor over the unique gate.Through the gate, you arrive in the private bower that is the courtyard, with a bistro table and chairs, as well as a well-established wisteria framing the left side.A bubbling urn fountain provides soothing sound.
Two Japanese maples anchor either side of the space that is filled with azaleas, ferns, heuchera, daphne, camellias, hellebores, nandina, toadwart, and teucrium germander.The side yard, featuring roses, lilacs, tulips, more irises, and fragrant geraniums, are visible through a wall of windows in the family room. A Cecile Bruner rose–now just past its peak—separates the side from the back and screens the compost bin. It’s sharing its arbor with a different kind of clematis.

In back, a tall hedge of Leland cypress screens the neighbors and continues the feel of absolute privacy. A small lawn is bordered by a riot of color. A tiered fountain, dining patio, bench swing, and romantic garden bench furnish the back yard. Among the many varieties of plants in back are hostas, bear’s breech, sedum, columbine, bleeding heart, tulips, fuchsias, Japanese anemones, ajuga, and creeping jenny. There is also a kitchen garden in half-barrels and large pots with lettuce, tomatoes, and herbs.

Garden of the Month Committee /Ruth Sloan

550 Fordyce Street-
Up until eight years ago, June’s Garden of the Month at 550 Fordyce Street was pastureland hosting llamas and pigs.Alla and John Farrell and their three sons moved into the new house in 2004.The garden was professionally installed, but since then, Alla (with some help from her sons, now 19, 15, and 11) has developed the garden into a showplace.

An attractive redwood fence (alas, not high enough to keep out deer) separates the front garden from a carefully planted verge along the street, giving pleasure to all who pass by.(The verge includes deer-resistant Oregon grape, pampas grass, flowering plum trees, rock rose, burning bush, rhododendron, and various evergreen shrubs.)

Approaching the front door, a birch tree, drought-tolerant evergreen ground covers, and a bed of annuals greet the visitor.Alla tries different annuals every year.This year, it’s geraniums with a verbena border.Bright blue ceramic balls from Legends Pottery Outlet in Central Point add a whimsical touch.Tea lights in glass holders and year-round Christmas lights add a festive touch at night.

Three separate patio gardens give welcome shade and entertainment spaces in the summer.A small one in the corner of the front yard is covered by an arbor with climbing rose coming from one side and wisteria from the other.Walking through an archway of clematis, a side patio attached to the house is framed by a wandering Chardonnay grape.(Unfortunately, raccoons love this grape.)Large pots are planted with mixtures of shade-lovers, especially begonia, for a splash of color.In 2007, Alla built a terraced back patio garden, planting a fruitless mulberry for shade, as well as dogwood, oak leaf hydrangea, and smoke bush. A variety of honeysuckles and trumpet vine adorn side and rear fences, attracting hummingbirds and giving privacy.

The south side of the property – a narrow strip outside the kitchen window along a driveway to a rear flag lot – is devoted to a delightful kitchen garden, with blueberry, black currant, red currant, and gooseberry bushes (Alla uses them for jam and jelly, as she did in her native Russia); cherry and pear trees; a white, seedless grape framing the kitchen window; and two small raised beds with a variety of vegetables and herbs. Bright blue ceramic pots along this side of the house on a stream of small river rock continue the whimsical theme from the front yard, softening the driveway further.

The front south side is bordered with a thornless climbing rose along a low fence. Japanese maples, burning bush, and fall mums dot the property for a blaze of autumn color.Alla has mixed various shades of evergreen shrubs for added interest.

Other attractive plantings in the Farrells’ garden include a silver dollar eucalyptus by the front patio; iris, azalea and rock rose; mimosa, veronica, camellia, Blaney’s blue rhododendron, baby lilac, and star magnolia; chocolate mimosa and chocolate maple (Alla loves chocolate); black lace elderberry, a columnar blue spruce, and even a fan palm. A small garden with a longleaf pine tree and a border of boxwood and annuals softens driveway concrete.Weeds are kept at bay with a thick layer of bark mulch (and the help of sons).

The Farrells’ garden will be open for viewing on Saturday, June 11, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

— Julia Sommer

Winn Frankland’s beautiful garden at 122 High Street is a perfect spring garden, with
abundant flowers as well as buds and shoots appearing with the promise of more to
come. Frankland has gardened in this spot since coming to Ashland 16 years ago. She used to do all but the heaviest lifting herself, spending at least one hour a day. Now she has help in the garden four hours a week, while she practices Energy Medicine as developed by Donna Eden. Before coming to Ashland, she was a professional landscape designer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and transformed gardens in Tampa,
Florida.

Among the profusion of plants are many roses throughout the garden, including a hedge
of Simplicity roses and a climbing Peace rose which, at ten or eleven feet in height,
affords lovely views from a high deck and breakfast room. There are also David Austen roses and several Cecile Brunners.

Seeking equal-opportunity blessings for the garden, she has statuary of Buddha and
Saint Francis, and many smaller pieces, including a great frog who often wears a
charming hat of a blossom from the huge camellia nearby (the bush and its blossoms
are huge). There is a large tiered fountain in the back yard.

Frankland has custom-designed fences, screens, and gates—adapted from others she has seen—that allow views of the lovely garden, but keep the deer out. Because the crafty deer had discovered they could leap between the top of a gate and the bottom of an arbor that topped it, she designed a secondary section to the gate, creating an airy and clever Dutch-door effect.

The two largest trees are a huge spruce in back and an artfully-pruned deodar cedar
in the side yard. There are prolific fig, apple, pear, and cherry trees, including her first
foray into espaliering. She has a “grandfather” peach that doesn’t have a huge crop,
but that which it has are delicious, and remind her of her southern roots. There are many Japanese maples of varying ages, size, and varieties. The large tree to the left in the front yard is a maple with burgundy leaves. A dogwood along the driveway has been protected from deer with a wonderful wooden screen that matches other garden hardscape features. In addition, there are elderberry, madrone, and she recently added
a Hinoki cypress to the front yard for its architectural shape.

Vegetable plants are primarily on the left side of the fenced area in front, but placed
so carefully as to appear purely decorative. Among the many herbs throughout
but concentrated in back are sage, thyme, lavender, rosemary, sweet woodruff, and feverfew. Other plants include Korean forget-me-nots, euphorbia, lilac, butterfly bush, rose of sharon, lamium, tulips, hydrangea, gloxinia, wallflower, star magnolia, hellebore,foxglove, stewartia, peonies (including tree peonies), heuchera, daphne, cotoneaster, bleeding heart, columbine, viburnum, spirea, and forsythia. Laurels of several kinds as
well as photinia, Oregon grape, and a mugo pine add interest.

This is a lush and beautiful landscape.

Linda Truax and Rick Jacobs have owned the property at the northwest corner of Park Street and Hope Street for 26 years. They have gardened the nearly half-acre here seriously for nearly twenty years and have developed a beautiful and serene, mostly shady garden working slowly and deliberately almost entirely on weekends only. Linda, especially–consulting occasionally with Jane Hardgrove–has developed an uncommonly fine eye for color, texture, and shape. She has created an enchanting space.

A colorful, constantly changing, border draws the eye in from Park Street. Bright yellow Coreopsis are noteworthy in August. Massive trees, including a beautifully spreading and healthy walnut that is over 100 years old, as well as Deodar Cedar, pine, birch, and Liquidambar dot the emerald green lawn (Rick’s specialty). A charming, whimsical metal sculpture by Cheryl Garcia is featured in a shady spot, and colors are everywhere.

Sections of the garden have names to distinguish them. There is the herb garden close to the house with its sculptural rock retaining wall; the “railroad-tie” garden features a pleasant place to sit among the many blooming and thriving plants that include Rhododendron, ferns, and candy tuft; a “woodland” garden that was revealed when the lowest branches of the Cedar deodara were trimmed away where plants that thrive in shade were added and volunteered; the “bird bath” bed includes Japanese anemone, Daphne odora, Acer suminagastui, and Forsythia; and other sections that have character all their own. The enormous walnut tree provides shade for a terrace paved with flagstone and lined with Helleborus, Geraniums, Hydrangeas, and Impatiens. Secret spaces are shared with neighbors to the north.

At other times of year, two types of Viburnum (davidii and shasta) draw attention in the front yard. Also featured there are Daphne odora, Winter and Summer heather, and Japanese anemone. A Japanese Maple adds a touch of contrasting color most of the year and a perfect shape and mass year-round. Grouped potted plants ornament the deck and entry. Fragrance near the front door comes from Jasmine both planted in a pot and growing against the chimney.

The owners have made minor changes (by eliminating certain plants) over the years to acknowledge the increasing presence of deer. But the many squirrels who covet the walnuts are welcome, and Linda reports that they don’t do much damage. Lilac hedges line the driveway that has been paved interestingly with exposed aggregate and plain concrete, including a bump-out for parking an additional car. A lilac hedge also lines part of the Hope Street side of the property although it was recently cut back drastically at the city’s demand.

Anyone lucky enough to have Linda guide them through the gardens (she’s a gracious hostess) will be rewarded with gorgeous sights in every direction.