December 4th member’s met at the Bellview Grange to celebrate the Holidays! Member’s were introduced to Yurritzy, and her parents, who received our Rogue Community College Scholarship. The room was decorated with wreaths made by club members, colorful tables full of entrees, salads and desserts and lively festive entertainment was provided by Jeff and Julian Jones, of Generation Jones.
In the Garden: October 22
Photos by: Carlotta Lucas, AGC Member
Heirloom Gardeners: October in North Mountain Park’s Heirloom Garden
Pictures by Lynn McDonald, AGC Member
Here’s how to create a lasagna bed, also called sheet mulching:
Instructions from OSU Extension website https://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/no-till-garden
The term “Lasagna Gardening” was coined by Patricia Lanza, who wrote a book on the subject in 1998. The illustration above is from her book.
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
Alicia and Jeffrey Welder had their welcoming house at 98 Westwood Street built in 2015. The lovely garden that surrounds it was initiated in stages on the bare earth after that, and is now the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for August 2023. Working with Regenesis Ecological Design and designer Jane Alexanderr, the Welders created a space ideal for their two children and animals including two dogs, two cats and four rabbits, as well themselves and visitors.
The entry garden was designed to include a water feature that is audible from inside the house on days when the windows are left open, a graceful curved bench, and one of Alicia’s favorite plants, a weeping dwarf dawn redwood. The front garden space is meant to resemble a small meadow teeming with life as pollinators enjoy the catmint and salvia while the children are able to spend time playing and observing nature with the many life forms in and around the water. The front grass areas are seeded with Pro Time’s Fleur de Lawn, which is an eco-lawn designed with OSU for low water requirements.
The backyard is a child’s delight with a large grass area for play planted with JB kevlar tall fescue, grown in Oregon, which tolerates the high traffic of children and pets and is drought tolerant with lower water requirements than traditional lawns. A small orchard is planted with a variety of apple, pear and peach fruit trees and seeded with the same Fleur de Lawn as the front meadow. The eco lawn offers additional pollinator support with pink English daisies, Baby Blue Eyes, and sweet alyssum sprouting in the spring. Alicia and the children love picking the wild flowers from the meadow for May Day crowns and small bouquets. Tall grasses and wildflowers surround the childrens’ play structure for nature based play with a slackline for added fun. A gazebo for shade rounds out the backyard space for use year round by the family. A very large rabbit hutch gives shelter to the children’s rabbits who enjoy the cut grasses and trimmings from the garden and in turn, support the garden growth with plenty of bunny manure. A large deck graces the back of the house.
There are many flowers throughout the year, including peonies, euphorbias, daisies, iris, germanders, hydrangeas, and hellebores. The Welders love to watch pollinators hard at work in their garden. Among the many trees are Seiryu and sugar maples that add vibrant colors in the Fall.
For fire prevention, the Garden Club urges homeowners to check lists of firewise plants to make sure that, like the Welders, they have chosen ornamental grasses that are not especially fire-prone and maintained so that there is not a lot of dry grass at any time.
Taproot Landscaping provides routine maintenance for the Welders and Alicia averages one to two hours per week doing the fine-tuning of the garden.
