Category Archives: Community Service

Garden of the Month: July 2016

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160 Scenic Drive

On a hot July day, what could be as cooling as the sight and sound of running water in the garden?  The garden of Cheryl Briggs’ home at 160 Scenic Drive is the Ashland Garden Club’s July 2016 Garden of the Month, and it has water features in two places among a small forest of shady trees.  Previous owners installed the recirculating waterfalls, stream, and ponds on a steep lot.

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Briggs has owned the home for five years, and she added the steps, walkways, and driveway with design help from Jeanine Strum of The Seasons Color.  Briggs has weekly maintenance help from Carol’s Colors.  A major project in the recent past removed ivy from the slope leading from the street.  There is a stunning view of the valley and hills to the East, from a deck that has huge pots with masterful combinations of small plants.

Rhododendrons and azaleas abound in the shady areas.  Also featured are Japanese maples and camellias.  The major trees are Douglas fir and cedar.  A photinia hedge lines the street.  Elsewhere in the garden are a Cecile Bruner and Lady Banks roses, dogwood, wisteria, magnolia, and madrone.

N. Mountain Park Workday: Mulching

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Ashland Garden Club members mulching the Heirloom Garden at North Mountain Park

2015: Feast of Will

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Every June members of the Ashland Garden Club create 150-180 beautiful Feast of Will table arrangements with flowers cut from their personal gardens. This Lion’s Club’s sponsored event celebrates the seasonal opening of Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Elizabethan Theater.

2015 Feast of Will

2015 Feast of Will

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2015 Feast of Will

Ashland Creek Pond

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Garden Tour: AGC members visited the Ashland Creek Ponds Monday June 1st, where teacher Mia Driscoll of Helman School lead a tour of the area. Helman School has been a recipient of Club donations for the Ashland Ponds Project for several years. Ashland Pond is hidden away on north side of Ashland in Quiet Village. This pond was re-discovered in 2008, but it was severely overgrown with invasive species.  An ongoing community effort began to restore the pond to a natural riparian habitat. Ashland students, Lomakatsi Restoration, Bear Creek Watershed, the City of Ashland, along with many volunteers and community organizations worked to clear 12 acres of invasive plants and replant native trees and vegetation. All this effort  created a wonderful place to stroll, bird watch and be in nature.  The Ashland Creek Pond is a secret garden in the city. The area is used as an outdoor learning experience for Ashland students and last year AGC made a donation for binoculars so students could observe nature closely. The Ashland Creek Pond is open to the public.

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36th Annual AGC Plant Sale

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2015-Updated-Plant-Sale-FlyerDate: Saturday May 9th, 2015
Time: 9am ’til Noon
New Location: ELK’S PARKING LOT – Lithia Way & First Street
(across from the Ashland Post Office)

Fabulous Mother’s Day Bouquets
Annuals, Perennials, Shrubs, Irises, Herbs, Mums, Daylilies, Siberian Irises, Euphorbia, Crocosmia
Vegetable Starts: Zucchini, Heirloom Melons, Summer & Winter Squashes, Pumpkins, Tomatoes

Proceeds for S.O.U Scholarship

Plant Sale Flyer (.pdf) by Carlotta Lucas

Letter to the Editor

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Check out Heirloom Garden                         
We enjoyed reading John Darling’s Feb. 2 [Daily Tidings] story about the soon-to-open Ashland Creek Park and his mention of the many other Ashland parks adopted by other community organizations and individuals. I’d like to add one other community garden to that list, which is the Heirloom Garden at North Mountain Park.

Inspired by gardens from the late 1800s, this particular garden was largely designed by Ashland Garden Club members in the late 1990s, and is solely maintained year-round by our members. According to Linda Chesney, Stewardship Coordinator at North Mountain Park, “The Heirloom Garden is really the front door of the entire park as its entrance is right on the Mountain Avenue entrance.”

Like other service organizations, AGC serves our community in other ways, including but not limited to the following:

  • At club meetings from October to May, we offer free programs open to the public about various aspects of gardening.
  • We fund both a high school and SOU scholarship (with money raised from our annual plant sale in May).
  • We do all floral arrangements for the annual Feast of Will (with all flowers donated by club members from their gardens).
  • We participate in gardening and environmental programs at the regional, state and national levels.

Anyone wanting more information can check out our website at www.ashlandorgardenclub.org. And we’re always looking for new members!

Susan Zane, President
Ashland Garden Club

Published in the Daily Tidings 2/10/2015