Tag Archives: garden showcase

Garden of the Month: May 2015

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There is a spectacular IMG_0256garden at 777 Jacquelyn Street where Claire Marie has her home and runs a Waldorf preschool aptly called The Children’s Garden. Inspired by Tasha Tudor who was the creator of magical gardens as well as children’s books, Claire aimed to achieve a woodland paradise and fairy habitat, and has made huge strides toward that end on her ¾ acre property that edges Clay Creek, since she moved to Jacquelyn Street 15 years ago.

Claire had help from landscape designer Ian Wessler, who drew up plans for the hardscape from Claire’s ideas. She also credits Carol McBride and Micheline Wessler for their help, and Victoria Eckart (of Bi-Mart’s plant department) for advice on plant selection and help with planting. With assistance from many willing hands, Claire planted 4,500 bulbs in 2012.IMG_0269

The front yard is anchored by a large maple tree; redbud trees; a gorgeous Japanese maple; a prolific cherry tree that many people enjoy, including her graduates who return at cherry-picking time for the bounty; mock orange; fringe plant; and foundation plantings of otto luychen laurel. There is a low privet hedge behind the white picket fence and a Cécile Brüner rose on an arbor near the garage.  There are peonies, rhododendrons, daffodils, narcissus, and Mariposa tulips that deer don’t eat!

IMG_0102The side yard has English laurel, crepe myrtle and a crab apple tree plus many varieties of bulbs, including bridal pearls.

The back yard is anchored by many large trees, including ash, aspen, and spruce, plus six varieties of apple trees, and blueberries. There are helleborus, oriental poppies, bleeding heart, columbine, roses, ferns, snowdrop, lily-of-the-valley, forget-me-not, lilac, dogwood, anemone, clematis, photinia, and allium—just to name a few.IMG_0263

There are far too many different plants to even begin to list them all. Among the more unusual are fritillaria meleagris, epimedium, erythronium, eranthis hyemalis, camasia quamash, ornithogalum, and calochortus.

IMG_4417In addition to the lush plantings, there are charming arbors (one covered with wisteria), gates, playhouses, a sandbox, a large deck, and a tree house for the enjoyment of her students and other visitors to the garden.  There are sculptures of angels, mushrooms, St. Francis, Buddha, and other charming features throughout the landscape.

by Ruth Sloan

Letter to the Editor

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Check out Heirloom Garden                         
We enjoyed reading John Darling’s Feb. 2 [Daily Tidings] story about the soon-to-open Ashland Creek Park and his mention of the many other Ashland parks adopted by other community organizations and individuals. I’d like to add one other community garden to that list, which is the Heirloom Garden at North Mountain Park.

Inspired by gardens from the late 1800s, this particular garden was largely designed by Ashland Garden Club members in the late 1990s, and is solely maintained year-round by our members. According to Linda Chesney, Stewardship Coordinator at North Mountain Park, “The Heirloom Garden is really the front door of the entire park as its entrance is right on the Mountain Avenue entrance.”

Like other service organizations, AGC serves our community in other ways, including but not limited to the following:

  • At club meetings from October to May, we offer free programs open to the public about various aspects of gardening.
  • We fund both a high school and SOU scholarship (with money raised from our annual plant sale in May).
  • We do all floral arrangements for the annual Feast of Will (with all flowers donated by club members from their gardens).
  • We participate in gardening and environmental programs at the regional, state and national levels.

Anyone wanting more information can check out our website at www.ashlandorgardenclub.org. And we’re always looking for new members!

Susan Zane, President
Ashland Garden Club

Published in the Daily Tidings 2/10/2015

Garden of the Month: July 2014

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At first glance, past the tastefully built fence, is a small front garden, struggling a bit as are all of our gardens at this time of year and in this weather. Many of the plants are drought resistant – lavender, rosemary, and ornamental grasses leading up to the front porch. The fence was originally built by the owners, Alan Steed and Jo Wayles. Later, probably as the deer multiplied, Dale Shostrom added an extension that looks like it has always been there.01-P1010141
The real treasure is the garden in the back of the home.
Originally a gravel driveway leading to the garage, the back was fenced off and the garden planning began. After a lovely remodel and addition, Ted Loftus, Landscaper, graded the area, adding terraced elevations, walls, walkways and an inviting private patio laid in a circular design – a trumpet creeper climbs above the bench.02_image[1] 2
Fruit trees, heavy with peaches, pears, plums and the first season of cherries, dot the garden. Blueberries and raspberries grow among a Japanese Maple, penstemon, dahlias and honeysuckle. And, much to my surprise, barely July and the earliest red ripe tomatoes I’ve ever seen. 
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In addition, from Leave Your Mark, a beautiful rock water feature stands at the top of the garden amid lilies and springtime tulips.
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Alan and Jo will open their garden for Ashland Garden Club members.
The date and time has been email to members.  Alan will be available to answer questions

05_P1010140by Kaaren Anderson

Garden of the Month: June 2014

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IMG_0151Pam Lucas works nearly every day in her beautiful garden at 420 Taylor Street and it shows! Her husband Sherm does some of the heavy work, but mostly this is Pam’s labor of love. They purchased the house in June of 2005, but Pam was still working then and didn’t have much time to devote to the yard. She did design and have constructed an interesting complex of decks, walkways, and arbors that look so good now with the garden she has established to replace the lawn, since retiring in 2008. Pam also designed the unusual deer fence. Interesting sculptures dot the property,IMG_1407 many of them metal art by Les and Diane Rasmussen of Steel My Art. Some are collaborations between the homeowner who found metal pieces and asked Diane to work with them, including a wonderful angel made from a bomb and other parts! There are actual headstones, purchased at a yard sale. Large boulders were brought in to add texture and background. The trees are tended by an arborist who visits every other year. Recently, they had the irrigation system improved by a professional.

In back, large Douglas firs create a backdrop and privacy with pin oak, English laurel and bamboo. In front, Japanese maples, thunder cloud plum, flowering cherry trees, and mountain ash provide a canopy. Pam has combined many ground covers to create a colorful and textured surface surrounding a river rock walkway to a deck. Gorgeous collections of artfully placed potted color adorn the decks.

IMG_0182Among the plants in pots are calibrachoa, bee balm, lobelia, mums, begonia, fuchsia and a rare oregano. A well-established wisteria climbs the arbor and provides shade for the largest deck. Trumpet vine and honeysuckle adorn the lattice that lines the driveway, with a little pyracantha to discourage deer nibbling. An incense cedar and yarrow thrive to the right of the driveway, but deer have feasted on most other things that Pam has tried there.

To the right of the front door is a specimenIMG_0189 yew. The front includes yucca, lavender, smoke tree, barberry, rosemary, daphne, sedum, mahonia, zebra and other grasses, gaura, manzanita, iris, lithodora, several kids of euphorbia, columbine, lupine, heuchera, crocosmia, agastache, eryngium (sea holly), spiderwort, Russian and other sages (including a wonderful blue flame sage), and many more ground covers

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Blue Flame Sage

It’s hard to believe that a retired accountant, not an artist, created this garden.

Submitted by:
Ruth Sloan

Garden of the Month: May 2014

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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.IMG_1

The gardens surrounding the church are lovingly tended by church members, notably Brad Inman, Beth Hite, Toby Deller, and Evelyn Moore.  Last year, we caught pictures of Brad Inman and Charlie Brown manicuring the boxwood hedges out front.  Volunteers from the congregation attend work parties at the church the last Saturday of each month, tending the facilities inside and outside.IMG_2
The sanctuary of the church was built in 1908, but when more modern structures were added in 2008, a formal landscape plan was formulated by John Galbraith and Byron Williams of Galbraith & Associates and implemented by Seth Barnard of Solid Ground Landscaping.
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The front of the church features Japanese maples, rhododendrons, maple and magnolia trees, in addition to the boxwood and dogwood.  A courtyard on the Laurel street side has a lawn for people to gather on, a low wall, many Japanese maples and crepe myrtles.  Also viburnum, azaleas, daylilllies, dogwood, iris, and hydrangeas.  Annuals are added for color each year by the volunteers.

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The garden on Laurel nearest the street is called the Memorial Garden, where church members’ ashes can be interred. Included there are more Japanese maples, mugo pine, false cypress, mock orange, kinnikinnick, barberry, nandina and sedum.  Even the parking lot has been landscaped.

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Submitted by Ruth Sloan
 With thanks to Sherri Morgan for plant identification.