Garden of the Month: September 2024

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Ashland Garden Club

2025 Green Meadows Way, Ashland Oregon

Miriam Weissberg’s creativity and love of color shows throughout her garden at 2025 Green Meadows Way. This is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for September 2024.

When Miriam and her late husband Rob first moved to the property in 2018, the front yard was mostly grass and the back yard was dominated by blank space for an above-ground pool that the previous owner removed. Miriam and Rob planned and gardened together until he passed away in 2023. Now Miriam does all the designing and fine-tuning in the garden.

Carlos and Pam Maya do much of the routine maintenance and larger projects. Miriam estimates that among herself, Carlos and Pam, they spend an average of about 18 hours per month on the garden.

Although she has access to TID water, she doesn’t use it very much because she didn’t want to design a landscape that would be reliant on water that is available such a small fraction of the year. She figures that, with added hardscape and drought tolerant plants, she uses less water than was the case when they moved in. The zoned irrigation system employs about two-thirds drip lines.

Flower beds and walkways in the back yard replacing pool site. Photo by Ruth Sloan, August 2024

Deck stairs with edging for safety, painted and photo by Miriam Weissberg. June 2019

Miriam’s advice to other gardeners is to try different things and see what works best given the many factors in your garden. Also, to encourage maximum blooming, keep your plants well pruned.

Among her favorite plants are verbena and roses. In the recent past, she has planted many annuals, including beloved zinnias, to add color with the knowledge that her choices don’t require much water. This year, she didn’t have time to plant her usual annuals but the garden is still lovely.

Article by Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month
With thanks to Marilyn Love for bringing this garden to my attention.

Zinnia Garden Bliss: Monarch Butterfly, Hummingbirds, and Cooler Temperatures

Posted on August 23, 2024 by CS Lucas

A monarch butterfly spent the whole afternoon in the zinnia garden, and it seemed like she was deposited some eggs the milkweeds. Several humming birds continue to visit the zinnias and the trumpet vine. The garden is so much happier with cooler temperatures. ~Goly Ostovar, AGC Member

AGC Garden of the Month: July 2024

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Ashland Garden Club

1160 Bellview Ave, Ashland Oregon

Mary Kyman’s beautiful garden at 1160 Bellview Ave. is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for July 2024. She started gardening here in 2009. Her garden was on the AUUW Garden Tour in 2014 and it was gorgeous at the time, but she has made many changes and improvements since then.

Mary does all the planning and design work. For many years, she did much of the physical labor as well, but has now turned over the day-to-day maintenance to Molly McConnell and her crew from Bee Kind Gardening. Nevertheless Mary estimates she spends about five hours a week on the garden and continues to be fully involved.

She has to be fully conscious of deer preferences in her plant selections and placement. The back yard is not accessible to those pesky intruders.

The prolific hydrangeas that line the front of the house on the west side are at the height of their glory this month. But many other plants, including rudbeckia, calla lilies, and hotlips salvia are also in their prime right now and these are among her favorite plants.

Both the house and the garden are art-filled. There is a stepping stone and gravel spiral in the front yard.

The garden in back has many fruit trees and berry plants. Raised beds harbor vegetables and herbs. An enormous elm, with fabulous bark, shades a good portion of the patio and back garden.

Mary has kindly suggested that those pedestrians who wish to see the front yard in its entirety, since a hedge blocks much of the view, can walk up the driveway but are asked to stay on the driveway itself.

Article and Photos by Ruth Sloan, AGC GoM Coordinator

Garden of the Month: September 2023

Posted on September 11, 2023 by Ashland Garden Club

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

Red, White & Blue Poster: Happy 4th of July

Posted on July 4, 2023 by CS Lucas

Rw 1- Red Hot Poker (Kniphofia), Shasta daisy with Two lady bugs

Row2- Red and white Zinnias
Row 3-Forget-me-not, Love lies bleeding (pendant Amaranth)
Row4-Sweet onion head, Cock’s Comb, (Celosia Cristata)

Garden of the Month: July 2023

Posted on July 4, 2023 by Ashland Garden Club

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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