After years of hearing about the Oregon Gardens from garden club members, my husband and I finally visited this garden located in the charming town of Silverton, 12 miles NE of Salem, Oregon.
The Oregon Gardens is a lovely 80-acre botanical garden featuring twenty themed gardens, many with water features and sculptures and it has a historic Frank Lloyd Wright house, called The Gordon House. When we arrived we first took the narrated tram tour. The driver told us the garden’s history and pointed out each featured garden and interesting facts. She explained that the wetland area in the gardens is used to cool the City of Silverton’s effluent water. The water moves through a series of pools and is used to irrigate the gardens before it’s returned to the local river. We were impressed!
After the tram tour, we purchased iced chai-tea from the Little Leaf Café in the visitor’s center, and then walked through the gardens using a brochure map to guide us. The Conifer Garden was grand and we could have stayed here for hours, but we still had to visit: the Bosque Grove, the Sensory Garden, the Rose Garden, the Children’s Garden, the Medicinal Garden, the Garden Market Garden, the Tropical Greenhouse, and the water features.
Picnicking is encouraged at the gardens, so we ate our lunch at a picnic table surrounded by trees and flowers. The garden is pet-friendly, too, there’s even a pet-friendly demonstration garden.
I couldn’t leave without purchasing a plant from the retail nursery, so I bought a Dicliptera suberecta also known as a firecracker plant or hummingbird plant. This plant is a deer-resistant drought-tolerant herbaceous perennial with felty blueish-grey leaves that blooms early summer into fall. It has clusters of tubular orange flowers that are a hummingbird’s delight! It’s winter hardy in USDA Zone 8-10, and needs full sun.
Visit the Oregon Gardens, you’ll love it.
~Carlotta Lucas
Read more about the Oregon Gardens https://www.oregongarden.org/about/
Photo above was provided by the Oregon Gardens Website
Photos below were taken by Carlotta Lucas, AGC Member
The theory of companion planting is by placing beneficial plants together they help each other grow. Some ways companion plants help each other are:
Taller plants can provide shade for sun-sensitive shorter plants.
Vine plants cover the ground below taller plants for weed control, or to support vine plants.
Companion plants discourage pest, for instance onions repel some pests, while other companions, like marigolds, lure pest away from desirable plants.
Companion planting can attract beneficial insects to the garden, and improve flavor to some fruits and vegetables.
Below is a beginner’s guide to companion planting.
Basil Plant near: most garden crops Keep away from: rue Comments: improves the flavor and growth of garden crops, especially tomatoes and lettuce. Repels mosquitoes
Beans, Pole Plant near: corn, marigolds, potatoes, radishes. Keep away from: beets, garlic, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, shallots Comments: same as for bush beans.
Beets Plant near: broccoli, brussel sprouts, bush beans, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, kohlrabi, onions Keep away from: mustard, pole beans
Borage Plant near: squash, strawberries, tomatoes Keep away from: Spreads by seed!! Comments: repels tomato worms. Improves flavor and growth of companions.
known as a firecracker plant or hummingbird plant. This plant is a deer-resistant drought-tolerant herbaceous perennial with felty blueish-grey leaves that blooms early summer into fall. It has clusters of tubular orange flowers that are a hummingbird’s delight! It’s winter hardy in USDA Zone 8-10, and needs full sun.
Visit the Oregon Gardens, you’ll love it.
~Carlotta Lucas
Read more about the Oregon Gardens https://www.oregongarden.org/about/
