Tag Archives: Oregon Gardens

Garden on the Month: April 2024

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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.

Photo by Ruth Sloan
Photo by Jeffrey Seideman

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.

Photo by: Ruth Sloan

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.

Photo by Larry Rosengren
Photo by: Ruth Sloan

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.

Photo by Jeffrey Seideman

Article by Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Chairperson

October: N. Mt. Park’s Heirloom Garden

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Heirloom Gardeners: October in North Mountain Park’s Heirloom Garden

Gaura dancing in the wind
Red Mums
New addition to the rock garden
Refurbished Paths
Yellow Garden
Salvia still blooming

Pictures by Lynn McDonald, AGC Member

The Oregon Gardens

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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/
Photo above was provided by the Oregon Gardens Website Photos below were taken by Carlotta Lucas, AGC Member

Garden on the Month: June 2023

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59 Sixth Street

The front yard at 59 Sixth Street delights all who see it.  The home of Sarah and Dennis Jeske is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for May 2023.  The cheerful paint on the buildings, the art in the garden, the charming fence and gate, and the prolific flowers mix all together to create an enchanting display.

The garden design and installation were done by previous owners, Zelpha and Harry Hudson, who owned the property until 2017.  Zelpha, especially, is credited with much of the creativity now on view.  The Jeskes have made their mark, however, with the addition of the glass flowers as well as the fence and gate designed and built by Dennis.

Daisies of three kinds dominate the garden in May; shasta, marguerite, and erigeron.  Also on view now and through much of the summer are nepeta, lavender, and wooly lambs ear.  Pomegranate, pieris, rhododendron, and a gorgeous camellia surround the welcoming front porch.

Sarah calls herself the chief weeder in the back yard and veggie garden, Moises and his crew from Reyes Property Management provide routine maintenance.

This is a garden meant to be enjoyed by all who pass by.

The little house to the north on the Jeske property

Article by Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Coordinator

All Photos by Larry Rosengren

Garden of the Month: May 2023

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784 Park Street

A riot of color greets passersby at 784 Park Street in April and May as many bulbs burst into bloom.  The garden was developed by Lois Breedlove, owner of the condo at that address.  It is the Ashland Garden Club’s Garden of the Month for May.

The landscape was previously entirely water-thirsty grass until Breedlove arrived eight years ago.  A financial windfall allowed her to redesign the space and hire Gustavo Rodriguez and his crew from Alpine Landscaping to install and maintain plantings of Lois’ choice. Daffodils, tulips, and grape hyacinths dominate now, but peonies are on their way.  Daphne, euphorbia, barberry, and spirea provide contrast of size and color.  Lois especially loves older varieties of hellebore.  She has a beautiful “cameo” flowering quince near the sidewalk.

The bulbs thrive because their bloom time coincides with leaves off the maple tree in the side yard that, once leafed-out, provides needed shade in the summer.  She spaces allium plants among other bulbs to discourage deer.

Bulbs are a drought-tolerant way to add color to a garden, Breedlove says. They’re punctuated with other drought tolerant perennials and shrubs. As the garden matures the shrubs will eventually play a larger role. “But there will always be the bulbs for color.”

Breedlove says the garden isn’t a garden retreat, but a ‘garden advance’  — something to be enjoyed by others in the complex, and by passersby as well.

Lois relies on Alpine Landscaping for much of the work, but she tries to walk through the garden daily. “The best garden advice I ever heard is that a garden profits most from the daily touch of the gardener’s hand,” she says.

Article by: Ruth Sloan, AGC Garden of the Month Chair

Photos by: Lois Breedlove, Larry Rosengren, and Ruth Sloan.