A Gathering of Gardeners Passionate About Growing Things in Ashland, Oregon
On Monday club members toured six member’s gardens and discovered the creativity, passion and diversity in each member’s landscaping style! The tour included two small gardens tastefully landscaped with flowering plants & art, a medium-sized garden revamped and transformed into an tranquil garden, a splendid pollinator & waterwise garden full of color and pollinators, a lovely Ashland hills landscape surrounded by trees with lots of rockery and cool private sitting areas, and a colorful English-style garden nestled along a babbling creek.
There are several nice garden surprises at the unpaved end of Ohio Street, northwest of Laurel. One is the fabulous garden and fence at 265 Ohio Street. This garden, designed and maintained by Gene Leyden, is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for June. This is a naturally wet parcel (note the giant pond next door) where dampness- and shade-loving plants thrive and carefully placed sun-loving plants also flourish. Gene planted the willow tree, now enormous (14 feet in circumference!), when she moved in with her family in 1987, transporting it to the site from the nursery in the back of the Volkswagon bus. Garden observers can walk or drive down the alley to the right of the house to get more views.
In addition to the prospering plant life, there are remarkably beautiful constructions by Gene’s friend, the artist and carpenter Nathan Sharples. Look carefully at the gorgeous fence, installed only three years ago. Note the unusual wooden screen door. Now catch a glimpse of the fabulous gazebo in what appears to be the back yard but is actually the front of the house which was moved to this location shortly before Gene moved in. Sharples built the gazebo of many species of wood, rarely using straight planks, but fitting curved pieces together with exquisite workmanship. Multicolor glass in clerestory windows adds light to the interior.
Also salted throughout the garden are sculptures by Gene’s friend Cheryl Garcia, as well as other items of interest.
Gene has the advantage of access to Helman ditch water. She has had to amend the soil over the years because the site was ill-used before she (and the house) arrived. She refers to it as a “wild garden” that reseeds itself each year and “does its own thing.”. She insists that she doesn’t spend as much time working on it as its beauty suggests, and she does have help now with weeding and mowing. Gene says she has a special fondness for fragrance in the garden and chooses many plants on that basis, including roses, jasmine and nicotiana.
Among the many highlights in the garden are a selection of huge hostas loving their location under the willow, Lady Banks and Cecile Brunner roses climbing through the vegetation, and a smoke tree and smoke bush lending their rich dark foliage as contrast to the riot of greens plus colorful blossoms. There’s a little bit of everything here. This is clearly the work of people of great imagination, especially the primary gardener.
There
is a special quality to the gardens at 164 Sixth Street, the Ashland Garden
Club’s Garden of the Month for May. It’s not just that children are so
welcome and comfortable here and that plants seem always to be blooming, but
that they are such interesting combinations of plants and hardscape. This
is Karen Loop’s garden, where she has lived for 25 years, raised her two
children–now adults, and has run a preschool, Sunflower Cottage, for 18 years.
Over
the years, Karen planted everything on the property except the street tree, and
created every pathway, planting bed, deck, and fence. Ten truckloads of
soil were brought in. She collects heart-shaped stones that are displayed
throughout. With both help and hindrance from young children, Karen
maintains the garden with three-to-four hours a week of work, on average.
The bare spot on the right side of the front yard is destined to be a
tiny patio when Karen has recovered from a back injury.
This
is a magical space where children are encouraged to explore. Right now,
the dogwoods are in bloom, along with redbud, daphne, lilac, and
viburnum. Among Karen’s favorite plants are peonies, feverfew, and
foxglove. Camellias, Rose of Sharon, pieris, hellebore, hydrangea, and
rhododendrons abound. There are beds for vegetables, blueberries,
and raspberries toward the back, and play equipment in its own area.
The Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree, is the showiest of all cherry trees. It’s light and dark pink blossoms are doubled, so its petal production creates more blossoms than any other flowering tree. Its blossoms are large thick clusters of 3-5 flowers, which look similar to carnations, and loads the tree with stunning flowers! This is an ornamental cherry, so it does not produce fruit. Kwanzan Cherry Trees bloom in April.
Since 2000, the Ashland Garden Club has been selecting Ashland gardens as Garden of the Month, from April through September. From late fall through early spring, no gardens are chosen because most gardens don’t look very good at that time of year. The garden at 500 Parkside Drive is the exception. It looked good all winter, looks great right now, and is being honored as Garden of the Month for April 2019.
This property is owned by Terry and Barbara Oldfield. This year
they spent the coldest months of the year near grandchildren in Arizona, while
the Ashland house and garden were looked after by family and neighbors.
Terry usually does the garden maintenance. The side and back yards were
designed by Banyan Tree Landscape about three years ago and the front was
designed by Solid Ground Landscape five years ago.
Mostly this garden is attractive because the plants were chosen to look good
all year and/or because of their early- or late-season beauty. Among them
are hellebore, nandina, pieris, and heathers. The colors are especially
nice right now. The plants are also situated nicely, with larger plants
framing smaller plants. In the back yard, a magnolia is blooming now, the
daffodils are just finishing up, and strong shoots herald a lovely display of
peonies in the coming months. There are many comfortable spots to sit and
enjoy the view.
There are surprising features in this yard which are small lawns of artificial turf both on the side and in back. While some Garden Club members applaud its water-wise qualities, artificial turf is not without its detractors, and a garden with fake grass has never been selected as Garden of the Month before. While air pollution caused by power tools to mow, blow, and trim real turf counter the oxygen-providing benefits of real grass, fake grass contains known allergens, potentially harmful substances that leach into the earth beneath it and into waterways from runoff, and is not, at the end of its approximately 25-year life, biodegradable. It’s difficult to remember drought after the wet winter and early spring we have had, but it must be anticipated, and this is certainly one way to maintain an attractive green space.
Article submitted by: Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Chairperson
