Garden of the Month: August 2024

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Ashland Garden Club

600 Liberty St

Cleome, peonies, and Japanese maples line the walkway to the front door. Photo by Tim MacCurdy

Tim MacCurdy started gardening at 600 Liberty St in 2018 and this is now the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for August 2024. He lives here with his wife, Tricia, and son, Luca. When they first purchased the house there was little in the yard except a few trees. Now it is dense with food and ornamentals.

Cleome and echinacea, with yuzu in the background. Photo by Tim MacCurdy.

Tim has had an interest in gardening since he was a child, growing up in Atascadero California where his father inspired hard work on the family acreage. A kindergarten teacher, whose husband was on the botany faculty at Cal Poly, also encouraged Tim’s interest in plants to the point where Tim was known as the “flower boy” to other students and their families. Later Tim earned a degree at UC Berkeley in environmental sciences. When he was newly graduated, he started his own business tending other people’s gardens.

Lavender and bee balm by the mailboxes. Photo by Tim MacCurdy.

After world-wide travels he settled in Japan where, once again, his interest in plants and gardens was piqued although his primary concentration at that time was photography. He has plants now that are generations later of seeds he collected in Japan. Since his professional gardening days, he has gone on to pursue a career in medicine and now practices dermatology.

Peonies and ceanothus bloom along the walkway in May. Photo by Tim MacCurdy.

Tim does all the work himself in this garden. He estimates he averages two hours per day—more from May through September—in the garden and considers his plants (soil and structure) as part of his extended family.

The back yard is steeply sloped. Fruit trees, including persimmon, Asian pears, plums, olives, figs, and yuzu are dotted throughout the property. Among his favorite plants are cleome, nicotiana, echinacea, ginkgo, persimmons, and Japanese maples (some from seeds collected in Japan). Trees of all kinds have traveled with Tim and his family to homes in different parts of the western states.

Hachiya persimmons hang from the house rafters to dry when the MacCurdys first bought the house. Photo by Tim MacCurdy.

Given current climate conditions, Tim encourages gardeners to lean toward drought-tolerant plants. You should find “clues from your environment” and love your plants. He also suggests that you don’t always have to follow the rules of gardening and garden design, but instead you “should make your own rules.” He says, “engage with your garden, truly engage. Dedicate yourself to knowledge and spirit, and become an expert.”

Cleome and purple Shiso. Photo by Tim MacCurdy.

Article by Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Chair

Blue Heron Park, Phoenix Oregon

Posted on June 3, 2024 by Ashland Garden Club

On September 8, 2020 the Almeda Fire swept through the towns of Phoenix and Talent. More than 3,000 acres, and over 2,500 homes and 600 businesses were destroyed, including the Blue Heron Park in Phoenix.

In 2021, a grassroots-group of citizens in partnership with local businesses and organizations took on the task of rebuilding this park, and on Monday members of the Ashland Garden Club gathered to see how Blue Heron Park has truly risen from the ashes. AGC members donated pollinator plants to add to the park’s community garden.

Photos by Goly Ostovar, Lynn McDonald, and Carlotta Lucas

Garden of the Month: May 2024

Posted on May 23, 2024 by Ashland Garden Club

The Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for May 2024 is John Schroeder and Debbie Beck’s colorful yard at 719 N. Laurel Street.

While the camellia has put on a beautiful show from late winter through early spring, it is fading out now and the gorgeous bright salvias, phlox, lupine, euphorbia, and candytuft are just coming into their own. The Japanese maple tree and barberry bush provide contrast with their deeper spring colors.

John and Debbie have been gardening here since they purchased the property in the spring of 1983. When they arrived, the front yard had only the camellia and a deodar cedar tree that eventually got so large it overpowered the entire yard. Now that they have had that tree removed, the Japanese maple that they planted is thriving. The back yard was steeply sloped toward the back fence. You can see how much they have accomplished in the intervening years, all while working outside the home and raising two children.

John is responsible for the overall landscape design and all the heavy work, including terracing the back yard and planning, and often building, walkways, and Debbie says she handles the details, including small cleanup chores such as dead-heading and weeding. John originally constructed the backyard terraces with railroad ties but when those wore out, he had pros install block retaining walls following his design. He built the stone stairs between levels.

View from the akebia vine. Photo by John Schroeder

Among John’s favorites plants are the Japanese maple, akebia vine, and camellia. Debbie favors daphne and rhododendron. They also have vegetable beds and blueberries in the back. The garden design features lovely vistas throughout with Asian touches of stone lanterns and a sculpture. The newish tree on the left side in front is an autumn blaze maple.

John Schroeder and Debbie Beck in a rare moment of relaxation.

Article by: Ruth Sloan, Garden of the Month Chairperson

Garden of the Month: August 2023

Posted on August 1, 2023 by CS Lucas

Alicia and Jeffrey Welder had their welcoming house at 98 Westwood Street built in 2015. The lovely garden that surrounds it was initiated in stages on the bare earth after that, and is now the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for August 2023. Working with Regenesis Ecological Design and designer Jane Alexanderr, the Welders created a space ideal for their two children and animals including two dogs, two cats and four rabbits, as well themselves and visitors.

The entry garden was designed to include a water feature that is audible from inside the house on days when the windows are left open, a graceful curved bench, and one of Alicia’s favorite plants, a weeping dwarf dawn redwood. The front garden space is meant to resemble a small meadow teeming with life as pollinators enjoy the catmint and salvia while the children are able to spend time playing and observing nature with the many life forms in and around the water. The front grass areas are seeded with Pro Time’s Fleur de Lawn, which is an eco-lawn designed with OSU for low water requirements.

The backyard is a child’s delight with a large grass area for play planted with JB kevlar tall fescue, grown in Oregon, which tolerates the high traffic of children and pets and is drought tolerant with lower water requirements than traditional lawns. A small orchard is planted with a variety of apple, pear and peach fruit trees and seeded with the same Fleur de Lawn as the front meadow. The eco lawn offers additional pollinator support with pink English daisies, Baby Blue Eyes, and sweet alyssum sprouting in the spring. Alicia and the children love picking the wild flowers from the meadow for May Day crowns and small bouquets. Tall grasses and wildflowers surround the childrens’ play structure for nature based play with a slackline for added fun. A gazebo for shade rounds out the backyard space for use year round by the family. A very large rabbit hutch gives shelter to the children’s rabbits who enjoy the cut grasses and trimmings from the garden and in turn, support the garden growth with plenty of bunny manure. A large deck graces the back of the house.

There are many flowers throughout the year, including peonies, euphorbias, daisies, iris, germanders, hydrangeas, and hellebores. The Welders love to watch pollinators hard at work in their garden. Among the many trees are Seiryu and sugar maples that add vibrant colors in the Fall.

For fire prevention, the Garden Club urges homeowners to check lists of firewise plants to make sure that, like the Welders, they have chosen ornamental grasses that are not especially fire-prone and maintained so that there is not a lot of dry grass at any time.

Taproot Landscaping provides routine maintenance for the Welders and Alicia averages one to two hours per week doing the fine-tuning of the garden.

The Oregon Gardens

Posted on June 29, 2023 by Ashland Garden Club

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/