Garden on the Month: August 2019

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333 Harrison Street

Check out the eye-catching garden at the corner of Harrison and Holly.  Becky and Will Sherman’s beautiful property at 333 Harrison Street is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for August.  Becky is the primary gardener and stone-wrangler.  Will built the handsome fences and deck, and manages the irrigation system.  When they purchased the home in 2010, the yard was a blank slate.  It is anything but that now.

The dahlias and zinnias are sensational.  Golden bamboo, controlled by constant monitoring and a deep barrier, provides privacy and a graceful background to smaller plants.  Nandina is a favorite “filler” for its year-round interest.  Vegetables are interspersed with flowers.  The southwest edge of the property is dominated by a small pine and cedar forest.

Becky says the one piece of advice she likes to give to novice gardeners is that it’s OK to cut plants back radically.  Her love of blooming plants is a way to fondly remember her late mother who also loved flowers.  She averages eight hours a week in the garden, but enjoys the work which she says is better for her than a gym membership.  She is constantly adding and changing the plantings.

Becky credits neighbor Jennifer Loizeaux for giving early garden advice, and friend Tom Bradley for building wood deck furniture and planter box projects.

Women’s Civic Improvement Club

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The Ashland Women’s Civic Improvement Club was founded in 1908 for the purpose of improving and beautifying Ashland. The home for this civic organization was built from 1921 to 1922, and was later known as the Winburn Way Community Center. The Civic Club, instrumental in obtaining additional land for Lithia Park and in supporting Ashland’s Fourth of July parades, always saw its role as promoting civic pride (and incidentally boosting tourism by providing a place to welcome women visitors to town). The work of Ashland’s Civic Club was typical of these progressive era groups around the country. Raising funds to build a clubhouse was not easy and it was only through the philanthropy of Jesse Winburn (for whom the building was later named) that the club ladies found the funds to erect their Arts and Crafts bungalow, with a central covered entrance porch.

After the formal dedication of the clubhouse it was used for meetings, banquets, shows and tourist events until it became a USO headquarters during World War II. After the War it served as the home of the Ashland Parks and Recreation Department for a number of years. The building became quite run down, and in 1985 the City of Ashland took control of the property, which was restored and rededicated to its original use for local club meetings, dances, exhibitions and presentations. Thus, it continues to contribute to the original ideals of its founders.


The Women’s Civic Improvement Clubhouse, now the Ashland Community Center, located across from Lithia Park at 59 Winburn Way, is open to the public as a meeting space, and is also available for private rental for a nominal fee. Call 541-488-0231 for further information.

The Ashland Women’s Civic Improvement Club is now the Ashland Garden Club.

Women’s Civic Improvement Clubhouse c.1923
Courtesy of The Terry Skibby Collection

Central covered entrance porch of the Women’s Civic Improvement Clubhouse
Photograph by Terry Skibby

Gardening Tips: Tomato Plants SAR

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How to use aspirin on tomato plants to prevent diseases:

“The concept is well researched and documented. The aspirin mimics a hormone in the tomato plant used to trigger tomato stress defenses. This is call the Systemic Acquire Resistance (SAR) response. Your beefsteak is fooled into beefing up its natural defenses before fungal leaf diseases arrive. This makes it harder for future diseases to establish on their leaves.”

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