Awarded Gardens | 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

128 E. Nevada

The garden of Kim Larson and David Minter at 128 E. Nevada is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for July 2022. When they purchased the property in 2002, the front yard was almost entirely huge juniper bushes and the back was dominated by a large concrete pad with a laundry line plus a photinia hedge. David tore out the junipers by tying a line to the roots and dragging them out with a truck.

Initially, Kim, who loves to work in the yard, created gardens in both front and back without an overall plan but discovered they were very high maintenance. Bonnie (Criswell) Engelhardt of Shooting Star nursery advised the couple, who have two children, on plant selections that would prove much easier for maintenance and require less water. Sage Hill Landscape installed much of the hardscape from a plan developed with Jane Hardgrove. Kim and David average less than two hours per week now, doing all the maintenance themselves.

Among favorite plants are older hellebores that line the walkway beside the house on the eastern edge of the property, autumn ferns, coral bells, and hardy euphorbias. Kim has transplanted shoots from a passionflower vine that they thought had died, and was pleased to discover them doing well in their new location.

They keep chickens in a charming coop and use their droppings in the compost they regularly manage.

Kim, especially, finds joy in gardening. She says that it is therapeutic even to weed and prune, but planting too to make things beautiful.

Article by : Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Coordinator

Photos by Larry Rosengren.

ASHLAND GARDEN CLUB

A Gathering of Gardeners Passionate About Growing Things in Ashland, Oregon

Tag Archives: Awarded Gardens

Garden of the Month: July 2023

July 2022: Garden of the Month