Ashland Garden Club Member
AGC’s April tour of Marydee’s gardens
Photos by: Lynn McDonald, AGC Member
Garden Art
Ashland Garden Club Member
Tag Archives: Ashland Oregon Garden Club
Ashland Garden Club Member
Backyard Birds; Black-capped Chickadee
Black-capped Chickadees: Black-capped chickadees are found in deciduous and mixed deciduous-evergreen forests, especially near forest edges. They are commonly found near willows and cottonwoods. And, they prefer nesting in alder snags and birch trees. Their diet varies by season, in the summer they eat mostly caterpillars, insects, some spiders, snails, and other invertebrates. In the winter their diet consists of insect eggs and pupae, seeds, small fruits and berries. At feeders they take mostly sunflower seeds that they stuff into bark crevices, but they will also eat peanuts, peanut butter, mealworms and suet.
Photo by: No machine-readable author provided. Mdf assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Garden on the Month: April 2024
The condo complex called Ridgeview Place is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for April 2024. The 12-unit development faces Mountain Avenue just southwest of the corner with East Main Street. The five homes that are numbers 51 through 59 face the street and the other seven homes are behind. The complex was built in 2015 by KDA Homes. KDA’s owner, Laz Ayala, hired landscape architect Laurie Sager (now Thornton) for the initial design.
Since then, owners have taken opportunities to express their individuality, occasionally with professional help. Note, for example, the wonderful use of magnolias to heighten the screening from the street at numbers 51 and 59.
The use of yuccas along Mountain Avenue, part of the original design by Sager, provide a unifying theme and present a stunning sight when in full bloom each summer. Boxwoods, choisya, day lilies, and daphne were also liberally specified. Common areas are maintained by Miguel Cabrera and his crew from Promack Landscaping.
Each unit has a private patio where owners can plant whatever they want. Other changes must be approved by the homeowners Board. A fountain was added later for the soothing sound and lovely sight.
Article by Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Chairperson
Backyard Birds: Red-breasted Nuthatch
Red-breasted Nuthatch: Red-breasted Nuthatches are tiny colorful song birds. At the bird feeder they like to eat peanuts, sunflower seeds, nyjar seeds and suet. During the summer, they eat mainly insects, beetles, caterpillars, spiders, ants, and earwigs. Red-breasted Nuthatches breed and winter throughout Oregon. They live in conifer and mixed hardwood forest and in winter they can be found in woodland areas from the valley floors to the mountains.
Photo by Kathy Munsel, Oregon Dept. Fish and Wildlife
Backyard Birds: American Goldfinch
American Goldfinch: The American Goldfinches are songbirds found throughout the United States in riparian areas, woodlands, orchards, weedy fields, agricultural lands, gardens and parks. The males’ bright yellow and black plumage makes them very recognized at the bird feeder. Females are brownish yellow with brownish black wings with white streaks; both are identifiable by their short conical bills and short notched tail. They are year-round residents west of the Cascades in the interior valleys. In the wild they eat sunflower seeds, thistle, asters, grasses, and tree seeds of alder, birch, western red cedar and elm. At the feeder they prefer sunflower seeds and nyjer thistle seeds.
Photo by Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons
Backyard Birds: Lesser Goldfinch
Lesser Goldfinch: Lesser Goldfinches are in great abundance in the Rogue Valley where they are year-around residents. Lesser Goldfinches forage on grains and seeds so they are often seen in weedy fields, steam side trees, bushy thickets by open fields and in the treetops by open areas. Their habitat is lower valleys to high in the mountains. They are very common in the suburbs during the winter when they migrate to lower elevations for food. Lesser Goldfinches are regular visitors to backyard feeders where they eat black oil sunflowers seeds, hulled sunflower seeds, nyjar thistle seeds and suet.
Photo by Richard Griffin, Flickr