sprig to twig

Last Saturday was the one truly perfect day in recent memory. As luck would have it, that was the day my book club was heading up the gorge to gather at a vacation home perched over the Columbia River outside of Stevenson, WA. Some of us gathered at Stan and Steph’s house to car pool, and I couldn’t resist snapping some shots of their three year old garden.

In the gravel-mulched parking strip there are two of these variegated cornus.

Dahlias are sprinkled throughout, with their colors worked beautifully into the overall design. We who grow dahlias are always ready to share the bounty, so I’m looking forward to a swap next time we dig.

Those iris were passalongs from me, but I have been less successful in using them as part of a textural mix. Back to the drawing board.

Stan is the gardener here, but Steph gets into the act with touches like the Jack ‘O Lantern lights along the walk.

And her “installation” art along the fence leading to the back of the house.

The dry gravel beds in back have a dry river bed of river rock meandering through, punctuated with boulders (Stan is always on the lookout for interesting rocks when he’s exploring our great out-of-doors.

This fabulous chocolate mimosa towers over the corner of the deck. I gasped when I spotted the plant tag, with a price tag in the thousands. Stan just chuckled, and allowed as how his tree had been in the nursery’s “hospital”. Stan was only too glad to take on the foster parenting role, and just look at the result.

OK, all you townies who are ending the season less than satiated…here’s the deal. Joy Creek Nursery is open through the end of October, with all plants at least 20% off, and some as much as half off. I discovered this only because when our friends from Denver oohed and aahed over our garden, I decided to show them the real deal. We popped on over (it is only 5 miles from home) to stroll through the extensive display gardens. These friends are not real gardeners, so you can imagine my frustration when we whipped through the paths, and dashed for the car when the first raindrops hit. A puzzled employee wondered what was up, and that was when I learned of the deals to be had. I would have gone back anyway, just to enjoy the gardens at my leisure.

A long view of one of many paths.

A bamboo grove marks the entry

Within the grove, this seat invites contemplation. The last time I was here, several children were playing house in this imagination-inducing enclosure.

The puffball seedheads of the clematis are weaving their way through the grass on the left.

And another shot with the grass as the star.

I have one of these ‘Thunderhead’ pines…hope it will look like this one day.

The variegated pieris virtually sparkled in the late season sun.

Love the way the two heathers become one, for a bi-color spill over the boulders containing the raised bed.

Design ideas abound in these gardens.

Here is what came home with me. Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’, on the left. Ceanothus impressus ‘Vandenberg’ will go in the evergreen border developing along the driveway. Three little Cornus canadensis will be added to the woodland where the one planted last year is spreading nicely. Yucca ‘Bright Edge’ will go into the dry berm where the agave conked out. (Don’t worry, Loree…there will still be room for an agave in the spring. Fuchsia mag. v. m. ‘Tricolor’ was a knockout in the border, and guess what! The last one available was half price.

Sequoia sempervirens is a gift to Richard to add to his sequoia “collection”. It will sprawl massively and obliterate its share of the dreaded “lawn”.

We just got back from a few days at the beach, sharing a condo with lifelong friends that we rarely get to see. It was a gorgeous spot, as you can see. This shot was taken from the deck overlooking the ocean in Neskowin.

While others went golfing (not my thing), I took my camera on a walk around the town. There were giant phormiums everywhere.

While hydrangeas in town are doing the fading act, turning shades of russet, at the coast they are still in full swing.

The gunneras seem to thrive in a coastal climate.

I especially love the flights of fancy in coastal gardens. People here seem to take themselves less seriously and just let it all hang out.

Using materials at hand, this homeowner crafted a stone wall with a driftwood gate and large stone post caps.

This colorful cottage was only the beginning.

Its entry was a mosaic fashioned of colorful bottles. In a conversation with a neighbor we learned that each bottle was filled with sand, and yes, the whole area had been dug to a depth to accommodate the entire bottle, placed upside-down and then filled in with sand so that only the bottoms appear at the surface.

Here’s another view. Pretty neat, huh?

The bright red and blue paint job on this house looked right at home in this setting. Adirondak chairs on the porch were painted the same bright red.

A more restrained approach can exist cheek by jowl without looking out of place. Moral of story: at the beach, anything goes.

Yesterday was a fine day for a drive in the country. Good thing, too, as I managed to get us thoroughly lost more than once. The garden created by Craig Quirk and Larry Neill was well worth any extra time and gas expended to find it (coming from the opposite direction from the directions can be confusing to the spatially challenged). We feared an extended stay when it took us half an hour to work our way down a short side walkway to the garden proper. There was so much to see…not only spectacular plantings, but artful surprises tucked in here and there and everywhere.

Eventually, we emerged into the Mediterranean garden, where we were greeted by Craig Quirk, who graciously offered to answer any questions we might have. I had to do some self-editing, as everywhere I looked were plants I had never seen before (didn’t want to swamp our poor host right off the bat). In the foreground of the first picture is a yucca just coming into bloom, backed by a stand of Asdenophile with feathery foliage and a plethora of tiny pencil-like buds which open fully towards evening (I liked them like this). I forgot to ask about that spiny character in the lower right corner, but the leaves entering the frame from the lower left are Melianthus major.

And here is the Melianthus in a starring role center stage in a muscular aqua pot with an arrangement of Echeverias and sea glass at its feet. The background blue is not the sky, but a concrete wall backing a pool with a tall column spilling water into it. On the other side is a secret shade garden of which I have no pictures (in respect for its secretiveness).

This grass keeps popping up, and this is the most success I have had capturing the luminous seed heads on long, stiff stems. Stipa gigantea is, I think, the name it goes by.

These guys are not about to be thwarted by lack of color. Once the petals fall, they paint the poppy pods to enhance the carefully plotted color scheme.

This was as close as I could come to an overview of the main garden. It is divided into color quadrants around a grassy center anchored by a tall wind sculpture. The impressive red banana to the right has a fellow sentinel to the left. They reside in giant pots, and are treated as annuals (no room in the greenhouse).

Standing at the back of the blue quadrant, the defining golden cypresses can be glimpsed through a haze of blue salvia.

A whimsical palm tree…can you identify those coconuts?

On the far side of the garden is a shady oasis, where this giant cast concrete Gunnera leaf drips water into a waiting pool.

While nearby a Crinus has formed handsome pods to rival the dramatic flowers that went before, flanked by leaves of glass catching the light.

The tablescape of succulents where we ended our tour also included a platter of to-die-for cookies flavored with exotic spices and lemonade enhanced with basil and mint. We observed that gardeners are invariably excellent cooks, and generous to a fault.

The open gardens feature of HPSO is my favorite of the many perks that come with membership. I urge you to join if you would like to be invited into wonderlands such as this.

Those of us participating in the ANLD garden tour this coming weekend had an opportunity to see the gardens the other day. Cameras were snapping. Mine captured the following pictures, which I will run with no comment, just to whet your appetite.

Richard and I grew up in families with very different attitudes towards death and dying. The women in my clan all lived well into their nineties, and by the time they finally relinquished their grasp on life, they had lost any resemblance to the women we admired, resented and cherished. But even when my dad and uncle passed before reaching sixty, there was no funeral, no memorial, no forum of any kind. My cousins and I felt a vacuum, and when it came our turn to be in charge, we instituted a kind of wake/memorial, where we all gathered in some special place to tell stories, pore over family photos, cry and laugh and remember.

Given my background, I never quite understood the pull of the Union cemetery on Richard and all of his kin on Memorial Day. Having recently returned from our most recent trip to Union and points east, I think I am finally beginning to “get it”. It is where all of the family is buried…a place to honor the ancestors and reconnect with the living.

The old part of the grounds has a wealth of monuments, with horses grazing in the distance,

and a small chapel, but few flowers

except for the roses in the arms of this most graceful sculpture marking the resting place of a beloved daughter who died young, long ago. I suspect they were placed there for the visual effect as much as anything.

The newer graves are more humbly marked, but well tended and graced with living plants and bouquets of fresh flowers placed there by relatives in remembrance. The groundskeepers put small American flags on the graves of all who served in the armed forces. The overall effect is a kind of mournful gaiety.

Having duly paid our respects, we decamped to an idyllic spot on Catherine Creek for a family picnic.

Here is Richard gabbing with Caven (his dad’s namesake) while Corbin (the future) indulges in the endlessly fascinating sport of throwing rocks into the river.

While Connie does some rustic cooking with very modern ingredients (roasted asparagus…yum!

On the way out of town, we always swing by the little house in Union where the White grandparents lived. For years it has been in a state of steady deterioration, and we gird ourselves to find it razed to the ground. Well guess what! Two young men have taken it on. They are pouring sweat, love and imagination into its revival.

They are planting a garden in newly constructed raised beds, and have incorporated the old porch posts into the design. There will be cascading ponds with a waterfall. They were tickled to learn the history of the place, and, in a quirk of fate, one of them has the last name of White.

We followed Kathrin and John on a picturesque drive through the mountains to Orofino and wound up here, at their newly remodeled home. What began as a little cabin in the woods has morphed into a grand “spread” that would have made Caven White proud.

After having worked in the garden all week under mercifully cloudy skies, last Saturday dawned clear and bright. What better way to celebrate than with a road trip? We decided to follow The Oregonian’s advice and go with their “Pick of the Week”. Besides, Richard’s old homestead was in the area, and we thought it might be fun to check it out. We both grew up in and around Oregon City, so it became a trip down memory lane as well as a gardening adventure.

The high school years can leave a mixed taste in the mouth, but at this long remove, we found ourselves viewing the area through less biased eyes. The setting is spectacular, with the confluence of the Clackamas and Willamette rivers, the fishermen in their boats, the lovely old span across the Willamette between Oregon City and West Linn. Rounding the bend, the Willamette Falls dominate the view. Familiarity had rendered them less impressive all those years ago, but now…WOW! Head on, they are bracketed by hulking paper mills on both sides of the river…picturesque in their ramshackle decrepitude. At the end of town, the road curves past a wall of basalt to the top of the bluff, where we could look down on the falls from a different angle. How, we mused, has this escaped becoming a scenic wonder on our state maps?

Following the river past Rock Island, the scene of one memorable canoe picnic, we reached the turnoff for the nursery tour just before entering Canby. Rare Plant Research opens to the public only once a year. I have been meaning to go for years, but finally, here we were. All of the greenhouses, filled with tropical wonders, were open for inspection and purchases. Still reeling from the losses brought on by last winter’s storms, we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to invest in non-hardy plants, so we cruised the area (appreciatively) and moved on.

Amber Hill Nursery was just a short way up Criteser Road. This is a nursery that I have come across time and again at various farmers’ markets. They always have knowledgeable vendors (also friendly) and an array of interesting and unusual plants. I was predisposed to like the place. Other than falling for a couple of trees that proved to be unavailable, we were not disappointed. The nursery nestles in a little hollow with an expansive field on one side, waiting for Wyeth’s Christina to come crawling, and a conifer forest on the other. Display gardens and goods for sale weave artfully around a couple of greenhouses chock-a-block with great stuff.

Though our mission was less about buying than about seeing plants in the landscape, Tetrapanax papyriferus ‘Steroid Giant’ demanded to be taken home. Also known as rice paper plant (notice the papyriferous part?), it takes up a lot of space (can’t miss the ‘Steroid Giant’ part)…something we have plenty of. As we headed for the car, someone said, in passing, “hope you have a huge space for that baby.” Yes, we do, and I can hardly wait for it to begin reaching skyward. A friend had one in a courtyard, where it was obviously quite happy. It reached mammoth proportions, the leaves nearly three feet across. In autumn, said leaves turned parchment white (highly appropriate, don’t you think?) and made for some stunning arrangements.

We made one more stop before looping back through Oregon City, this time driving down Main Street. There are signs of life there, after several ‘lost decades’ once the shopping mall sucked the town dry in the 1960’s. We reminisced about the thriving place it was in our youth: the Cochran’s store, with the system of airborne brass cylinders to zip your order up to the mezzanine and then zip the receipt back down; the old, rickety wooden elevator that gave way to the monstrous new concrete one; the stone stairway between downtown and the bluff; Kelly Field, with its covered bleachers…the site of civil war games between OC & West Linn footballers. The renaissance seems to be under way, with new icons for new generations to mourn when they fall.

Continuing the sentimental journey, Redland Road beckoned. Winding our way across streams and through verdant hills, Richard commented that here progress seemed to be working in reverse. Back in the day, most families had some kind of livestock, which kept back the growth of blackberries and grasses now in lush abundance. The people living here now were in it for the ambiance, it seems…no time for chickens and sheep and cows…and what modern kid would knuckle under to farm chores? The old White place was no exception, with fields growing wilder than Cavin would have allowed. The buildings are well kept and freshly painted, and there are more of them. The old pump house has been taken down to the bricks and converted into a charming greenhouse. A metal cutout over the mailbox declared “Howling Wolf Ranch”, but no evidence of any ranching going on could we see…more some gentleman rancher’s fantasy.

In the interest of equal rights to nostalgia, we swung by Oatfield Road to see my folks’ place. It, too, had been altered significantly. We took all these signs to mean that new families were using, enjoying and caring for our onetime homes…a good feeling.

I have long hankered for a visit to see the Bellevue Border, having seen and heard of it for many years. On the last weekend in October, we took a trip to Seattle to visit with family. Since a three year old was part of the gathering (actually, more the focus of the gathering) everyone took to the idea of a day spent wandering in wide open spaces.

Of course, the big draw for the border has to do with blooms. This late in the season, most blooming plants have passed their peak…on top of which, the border was undergoing a major overhaul. What I hadn’t known was that the border is only a small part of a botanical garden spreading over many acres. The trails are beautifully maintained, and weave through woodlands, meadows, a Japanese garden, a water-wise garden, a garden of natives, and maybe more (three-year-olds are, as you may know, somewhat distracting).

The woodlands were a study in green, with the occasional hydrangia sparkling in the sunlight filtering through the canopy.

I can just imagine what this dry streambed would be like with the primulas in bloom, but that is to take nothing away from its quiet charm here.

I wanted to include a human, to give an idea of the massive scale of the rocks in the Japanese garden.

Here they are again

I would still like to return in early spring or high summer, to see the much-touted border in full glory, but left the garden fully sated by beauty of a different order.

We had the good fortune to be staying with friends in Carlton OR on one of the rare open garden days held by Windy Hill Farm Nursery in Yamhill OR. Kuon, the owner and chief plant nerd/propagator, was kind enough to show us around the display gardens with a running commentary on the highly unusual plants featured there.

Appetites thoroughly whetted, we were turned loose in the greenhouse. In the green pot on the right, potted up with Phormium ‘Margaret Jones’, is a Solanum that no one can pass by without comment. If you look carefully, you can just make out the long, bright orange thorns that protrude from both surfaces of the leaves. In the smaller green pot to the left is Cestrum parqui, or willow-leaved jasmine. It was tiny and in bloom in early June. It is now tripled in size and blooming again two months later. I guess the folks at Kew Gardens in England were accurate when they proclaimed this one of the top 200 plants of the last 200 years.

Some of the things we fell for in the display garden were unavailable, but Kuon put us on her wish list with a promise to call us whenever they could be successfully propagated. The promise came with a disclaimer: we might wait as long as three years for that call. It will be worth the wait. Every plant I brought home from Windy Hill is thriving and growing to beat the band.

Dancing Oaks Nursery had been on my radar for some time. All it took was a piece, with photos, in the Oregonian Homes and Gardens section to send me to the phone to plan a trip with Amy. It is always handy when your pal is also a design professional. Many’s the time Amy has saved me from horticultural horrors with her vast knowledge of plants’ habits far beyond what goes on the plant tag. And, let it be said, she’s a heckuva lot of fun. So off we went, detailed directions in hand, for a trip through the countryside, with an exciting destination in mind. It was a beautiful summer day, and we planned to stop somewhere for lunch and be back in town by five. Amy had a meeting at five-thirty, and I was going to Nancy’s first public reading at seven.

I don’t want to get hung up on the odyssey of getting there. Suffice it to say that it is on the back side of beyond, and while it doesn’t look far on a map…it is. Even so, it is well worth the trip, and the trip itself is a lovely ramble on the backroads near Salem. It is not only the plants that make this place such a treat (though the plants are glorious, with many I had never seen). The artistic sensibilities of the owners, Leonard Foltz and Fred Weisensee, is evident in every detail, from the generous sprinkling of garden art to the arrangement of plants to the hardscapes and fountains. The photo here is of a water feature in the main plaza. Giant Gunnera leaves surround planted urns raised on pedestals with water splashing from them into the pond below. At water’s edge grow carniverous plants, in the only such display I have ever encountered where they are beautiful and appropriate, rather than simply an oddity. One gets the impression that TRex might lumber around the bend at any second.

There is a pergola that gives new meaning to the word. It is mamoth in scale, built of rustic reclaimed lumber and clad in a variety of vines, to create an inviting tunnel. You can enter in one part of the garden and emerge in another to the surprise of a new vista that had been hidden from view until you burst upon it. Amy and I were in horticultural heaven. By the time we had looked into the heart of every flower, drunk deep of the heady perfume, and set aside a few things that needed to go home with us, it was five o’clock. Oops!

Not one morsel had passed our lips since we had left town eight hours earlier, so there was nothing for it but to stop for dinner somewhere along the way. The guy who rang up our plants assured us that we could take a more streamlined route. Still, it was eight o’clock by the time I arrived at the reading…just in time to hear the poet, and then Nancy. I hadn’t turned into the world’s worst mother-in-law after all…whew. Once the anxiety over missing the reading subsided, I realized: my camera was back at the nursery. I might have slashed my wrists right then and there, if not for the fact that I needed to go to Carlton to install custom banners at Cuvée, and once in Carlton, we would be halfway there.

Richard was very nice about the whole thing. Despite a little grumbling about the long and twisted drive, he was knocked out by the place once we arrived. It was past closing time, but I had called ahead and we were invited to go ahead and look around as much as we liked, and to help ourselves to nibbles in the vegetable garden. It was even more impressive to me this time, perhaps because I was looking more at the big picture rather than focusing on individual plants. As we were about to go, we fell into conversation with Mr Foltz. We learned that despite the remote location, and four hundred acres to act as a buffer, their immediate neighbors are about to put in a rifle range. So much for getting away from it all. As we drove away, Richard paid the place the ultimate compliment by saying that he would like to come back when we have more time…perhaps he has the makings of a plant nerd after all.