The City of Ashland is preparing for the impending drought
and water curtailment for the summer of 2014.
For more information contact:
Julie Smitherman- City Water Conservation Specialist. 541-552-2062
Check out the city’s website on how to conserve water.
http://www.ashland.or.us/citynews.drought
The First United Methodist Church of Ashland, at 175 N. Main Street, is especially lovely at this time of year when the dogwood is in bloom.
Karen McClintock says she’s lucky her husband, Mick Smith,never saw a 
weed he wouldn’t stop to pull out. Indeed! Mick also plants and prunes, and last year brought a photinia hedge back to good health from disease. Their garden at 2790 Diane Street to the left of the walkway reflects the hard work they both put into it. Right now the Spring blooms and colors are spectacular.
They purchased the house eight years ago. The previous owner did the bulk of the hardscape and some of the basic planting. Karen and Mick, without any formal training, frequently add and rearrange. 
This fall Karen moved all of the iris around to mix, rather than bunch, the colors, and she’s eager to see what emerges in the next few weeks. They get occasional help (quarterly) from a handyman gardener for the biggest jobs such as pruning the grape vines that fill the side yard. Among the challenges of gardening on
this property are deer, of course, a street light lamp post and three (count ‘em!) utility boxes in the front garden. They use bone meal to discourage deer and it also fertilizes the tulips. To keep everything green they use organic fertilizers sparely. In the fall they purchased and covered the front garden with wonderful organic mulch from Plant Oregon. In front of the house, in addition to the tulips, daffodils, and grape hyacinth currently putting on a show, are Japanese maple, forsythia (the one to the left of the driveway is currently at the peak of its color, the one to the right of the driveway has gone from yellow to green leaves), manzanita, bayberry, variegated pittosporum, blue fescue, shasta daisies, euphorbia, rosemary, oregano, and sedum.
In the back yard a small garden provides privacy and beauty. It includes a crepe myrtle tree, roses, lilac, lavender, huge red oriental poppies, sweet woodruff, lupine, strawberries, wall flower, azalea, nandina, day lilies, foxglove, and hellebore. They use oyster shells in back to thwart snails–with limited success. Along the back wall of the property a lovely backdrop of photinia provides the frame for this picture perfect garden.
Ashland’s spring deer count is being held April 10th from 7-7:30am!
100 volunteers are needed to cover all of Ashland! If you can help please contact the Ashland Parks & Recreation at 541.488.5340 to volunteer and receive detailed information about locations.
Below is the schedule for deer counting:
Tuesday, April 8th, 7-8 pm. Pick up maps.
Thursday, April 10, 7-7:30 am.
Count the deer following your assigned map.
Thursday, April 10, 5:30-6:30 pm.
Return results to Standing Stone.
Results can be returned to Standing Stone from 12pm until 6:30 pm.
Organized by the Ashland Oregon Wildlife Committee
Living with wildlife:
https://www.ashland.or.us/livingwithwildlife
The first major change was to move the driveway to the far right of the front yard from its former location closer to the house and entry way. This gave a much broader area to reconstruct the garden. The entrance to the garage, which originally faced the street, was reoriented to create a turnaround at the end of the new driveway. Broken concrete pieces from the driveway were used to form walkways leading to the entry and around the house to the garage.
One challenge with the design involved mitigating a seepage problem located at the right rear of the front yard. This was done by lowering the grade to create a gravel and rock lined dry creekbed, directing water through the front yard to a gated front vegetable garden. As you will see, it is this creekbed that is beautifully lined with boulders and various tall grasses. Winding back through these grasses one can find a Triflora maple, Zelkova and palm along with lila
c and wild currant.
Original rhubarb, quince and raspberries were kept and moved to various locations throughout the property. Blueberries, Asian pear, persimmon and other fruit trees share the backyard with many of the original camellias.