Plant Name: Dierama pulcherrimum
Plant Name: Muhlenbergia capillaries 
Cultivar: Pink Muhly
Plant type: Evergreen Ornamental Grass
Height: 3 foot X 3 foot wide
Bloom Time: Fall
Flower Color: Rosy Red
Exposure: Full Sun
Soil Requirements: Well drained soil, dry conditions.
Water Needs: Once established, Water only occasionally.
Attributes: Showy Fall Color, Water Wise Plant, North American Native.
Note: Adapted to reflected heat, dry sites and poor soils.
Uses: Borders, Screening, Containers, Fall color, Mass Plantings.
USDA Zone: 6-9
870 Cambridge Street: If you read the letters to the editor carefully, or are involved with Climate Energy Action Plan Ad Hoc Committee or Southern Oregon Climate Action Now, you know that Ashland resident Louise Shawkat is very concerned with environmental matters and very careful about how she lives on the earth to minimize impact. Her garden, at 870 Cambridge St. in the Quiet Village neighborhood, reflects her concerns. With a wonderful mixture of food crops and ornamentals, it is a practical yet pleasing setting. She is a Master Recycler as well as a Master Gardener. Louise’s garden has also been designated an official Pollinator Garden by Bee City USA of Ashland.
Ken Cairn Landscape Architecture developed the original plans six years ago, and the hardscape and many of the front plantings are still the same, but Louise has taken pleasure in adding or replacing plants as she wishes in the intervening years. She averages about an hour a day maintaining and improving the garden. The airy wood and metal screens in the front yard are based on the design of stained glass windows in her previous home.
The quarter-acre property, which Louise purchased in 2010, backs up to a bioswale that serves the Billings Ranch subdivision, with agricultural land beyond that. So her view out the back is pastoral. The front is a rain garden. The back yard has a mixture of curving planting areas and geometric raised beds.
There are no lawns that require excessive water here. The tall grasses (Shenandoah switch grass and tufted hair grass) in the front turn a beautiful golden color in the Fall. Creeping bramble adds an interesting low texture. Trees on the property include a large cedar in front and a long-established liquidambar in back. Red-twig and yellow-twig dogwoods were added more recently. Among the vegetables are tomatoes and cucumbers, with asparagus finally flourishing this year, as well as hyacinth beans, with their pretty purple blossoms. Among the many flowers are hellebore, asters, iris, and giant allium. A passionflower vine is thriving. Sunflowers abound.
This garden cannot be Garden of the Month because Louise is an active member of the Ashland Garden Club, which sponsors that honor. The Club selects Gardens of the Month, usually from April through September. Nominations are gratefully received at aogardenclub@gmail.com. 
By: Ruth Sloan
Below are a few plants that can entice pollinators to your garden. This plant list can go on and on, but remember your not just planting for honey bees, pollinators include other kinds of bees, birds, butterflies, moths, beetles, and even ants.
The gardens at 170 Logan Drive are the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for October. Chris Eberhardt and Gene Miller bought the property in 2008, and the gardens then were nice enough. But in 2013, they decided to re-landscape to update and unify the property, and to make it deer resistant. They refer to certain sections of the garden, and the adjacent v-shaped plot at the corner of Logan and Scenic, held by the property owners’ association, as the “deer highway.” They hired Solid Ground Landscape Inc. to develop a comprehensive plan and provide regular maintenance. Solid Ground included a pathway for the deer to encourage a certain route.
The back is on a steep grade, dotted with tall oaks, from a lovely balustrade terrace, with rhododendrons and daisies providing seasonal color. A charming and private outdoor “room” featuring Japanese maples, was created just outside the hexagonal dining room that was previously exposed to the street. A yew hedge provides much of the privacy. This room has a more formal look than the rest of the garden, with its manicured boxwood border. In addition to specimen plants, the front features drought-tolerant grasses and large boulders, some of which are indigenous to the property. Enormous pots, filled with gorgeous plants, flank the front door.
Photos by Larry Rosengren
Check It out !
The Ashland Daily Tidings ran an article about
Ashland Garden Club’s Lonely Bouquet activity!
Read all about it here…http://www.dailytidings.com/news/20161003/ashland-garden-club-lonely-bouquets-for-ashland
