Garden on the Month: April 2024

Posted on April 3, 2024 by Ashland Garden Club

The condo complex called Ridgeview Place is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for April 2024. The 12-unit development faces Mountain Avenue just southwest of the corner with East Main Street. The five homes that are numbers 51 through 59 face the street and the other seven homes are behind. The complex was built in 2015 by KDA Homes. KDA’s owner, Laz Ayala, hired landscape architect Laurie Sager (now Thornton) for the initial design.

Since then, owners have taken opportunities to express their individuality, occasionally with professional help. Note, for example, the wonderful use of magnolias to heighten the screening from the street at numbers 51 and 59.

The use of yuccas along Mountain Avenue, part of the original design by Sager, provide a unifying theme and present a stunning sight when in full bloom each summer. Boxwoods, choisya, day lilies, and daphne were also liberally specified. Common areas are maintained by Miguel Cabrera and his crew from Promack Landscaping.

Each unit has a private patio where owners can plant whatever they want. Other changes must be approved by the homeowners Board. A fountain was added later for the soothing sound and lovely sight.

Article by Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Chairperson

Garden Poster

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Ashland Garden Club

The Untended Garden in March!

Excuse the weeds, but the bumbles bees like them.

~Garden and Poster by Goly Ostovar, AGC Member

Backyard Birds: Lesser Goldfinch

Posted on March 18, 2024 by AGC

Lesser Goldfinch: Lesser Goldfinches are in great abundance in the Rogue Valley where they are year-around residents. Lesser Goldfinches forage on grains and seeds so they are often seen in weedy fields, steam side trees, bushy thickets by open fields and in the treetops by open areas. Their habitat is lower valleys to high in the mountains. They are very common in the suburbs during the winter when they migrate to lower elevations for food. Lesser Goldfinches are regular visitors to backyard feeders where they eat black oil sunflowers seeds, hulled sunflower seeds, nyjar thistle seeds and suet.

Photo by Richard Griffin, Flickr

Backyard Birds: Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Posted on March 14, 2024 by AGC

Chestnut-backed Chickadees: These birds frequent backyard bird feeders regularly where they eat black oil sunflower seed, hulled sunflowers seeds, suet, nyjar seeds and some fruit, but 65% of their diet is made up of insects and other arthropods, including aphids, caterpillars, spiders, leafhoppers, tiny scale insects and wasps. Chestnut-back Chickadees are found up and down the West Coast and in the Pacific Northwest. Their habitat is dense wet coniferous forests of Douglas firs, Monterey pine, Ponderosa pine, Sugar pines, White firs, Incense-cedar and Redwoods. But, while these social noisy little birds prefer dark wet forests they have moved into cities where they utilize stands of willows and alder trees along streams, madrone trees, shrubbery along the edges of oak woodlands and ornamental shrubs in parks and gardens.