The Davey Garden's moment in the Sun(set)

There comes a time in every good garden when you can stand back and recognize that all of your hard work, planning and, yes, frustration is paying off.  Joy and Steve Davey's garden has been a learning process (see our earlier journal article), but now that we've balanced the aesthetic goals with reality and a little time, the results are fantastic.  The garden is having its first moment in the limelight in the current issue of Sunset (page 48!), and there is more to come.

Congratulations and thanks to Joy and Steve, who have given us the gifts of patience and inspiration in building and developing their garden.  It will only get better from here!

Best-ever Coastal Garden?!?

(The Sunset Fresh Dirt Blog is, unfortunately, no more.  Apologies for the broken link.)

Have you seen the wonderful post about the coast garden on Sunset's Fresh Dirt?  I spent a lovely morning there with Jim McCausland, while he shot the photos you'll see in the article (there must be 2000 more!).  The Tersignis' garden has been a delight to develop, and we couldn't be more grateful to have such terrific clients and wonderful backdrop.  More photos and notes on that garden can be found in some of our earlier posts, many of which are here (be sure to scroll down).  And, of course, there are more photos and notes to come!

Four Views of the Coast Garden

Isn't it amazing how physical perspective can change a garden?  Below are four views of the same section of the garden we built on Coos Bay.  

Quiet Entry Garden

The photos below show just one part of a multi-phase project that we think is fast becoming our best garden so far.  Our goal for this entry garden was to create a serene, simple design that allows focus on the beautiful trunks of the Oregon White Oaks and the clean, contemporary lines of the house and entryway.  From the driveway, visitors pass from a bold, colorful street planting, through hedge of golden bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) into a quiet, sweeping, sword fern garden, with a few small trees and some Fargesia rufa, a clumping bamboo.  Our favorite hardscape feature of the garden may be our drystack stone wall along the driveway (see a slideshow of its construction here).  An ipe deck and boardwalk float over the fern garden, past a huge basalt bowl, to the front door. While other areas of the garden feature diverse plantings and bold foliage, this garden focuses on the essentials.  Although, this garden is largely a passageway, as opposed to an area to entertain, it seems to have a profound effect on visitors.  Rather than rushing through the garden, the simple design encourages people to pause for a moment and enjoy a quiet moment, appreciating the view.

This is another garden that will be included on next June's Study Weekend tour.  For more information, stay tuned here or contact the WVHPG.

A Romantic Deer Garden?

Our artist client, Joy, wanted a romantic, flowery, soft planting, in cool and pastel shades.  Her original planting  - largely thuggish ornamental grasses and traditional landscape shrubs - had never been quite what she wanted, and when she called us, she was hoping for something more in keeping with her craftsman house and painterly aesthetic.

We've built the garden in stages, learning the site and its voracious deer as we work our way around.  A large Vietnamese urn and basalt pathway in front are two of our rare hardscape additions, as Joy and her husband were happy with the existing patios.  As we've moved to different areas of the property, we've adjusted our planting style to accommodate lessons learned and changing preferences.  Where spring color was her first priority in the beginning, Joy came to love plantings that provide year-round impact.   In addition to our construction work, we develop the garden over monthly visits, through which we've gradually amended our original plantings, creating a garden that looks fabulous in every season, while still reflecting our original aesthetic, and that accommodates the unusual and ever-changing tastes of the local deer.

This garden owes a debt to trial-and-error, and we could not be more grateful for Joy's trust in allowing us to bring the garden to its current successful state.  We think we've found an elegant balance point between floral color, year-round impact, and, of course, deer resistance.  Our highest compliment is that we often find that many of our monthly chores are complete when we arrive, and Joy, who had never been a gardener before, eager to talk about the latest developments and future opportunities.

Joy's garden is one of four or five of our gardens that will be included in next year's Study Weekend tour, June 1-3.  The Study Weekend is a gathering of gardeners that rotates between Vancouver, BC, Seattle, Portland and Eugene, features talks from some of the planet's best plantspeople and designers, and a tour with the areas' best gardens. We'll post more here, as we learn more, but if you'd like to know more soon, please contact the WVHPG.

Sunset Garden Anywhere!

Just saw a big photograph of Joanne and Peter Alba's garden in Sunset's Garden Anywhere!, a "bookazine" that will be on store shelves until early June (I found it at the Woodfield Station Market of Choice).  You may remember the Alba's garden from this post about their photo in the April '08 Sunset, or this post about gardening with deer.  Cool!

Sometimes these photos catch us by surprise.  If you know of a photo of our gardens that's not mentioned on our press page, please let us know where you found it, so we can spread the word!

Bigger and Better Coast Garden Photos

We brought out the big camera this time.  Here are a few of our favorite potential portfolio shots of the Oregon coast garden.  What do you think?

Hellebore Open Garden Days at Northwest Garden Nursery

Our friends at Northwest Garden Nursery are holding their annual Open Garden and plant sale! This wonderful little nursery and its big display garden are only open to the public only a few days a year. Ernie and Marietta O'Byrne have spent years developing the most gorgeous strains of Hellebores, with attention to the tiniest details of foliage and flower, and working in their inspiring display garden. The garden is full of rare and wonderful plants, combined with an eye for subtle, but striking combinations of color and foliage texture.

Helleborus orientalis and related hybrids are a mainstay of our plantings. Their glossy, dark, evergreen foliage enriches shady to partial sun plantings, even those that are heavily browsed by deer. We love to plant them in groups of 7 to 40, contrasted against a block of lighter or silver foliaged plants, such as Brunnera 'Jack Frost.' Their foliage alone would be good enough for us, but the stunning flowers are a magical addition to the late winter garden. Caring for Hellebores couldn't be easier. In winter, before or just as the flowers emerge, cut off the old leaves. When the flowers start to fade and set seed, cut off the whole flower stalk (with any leaves directly attached to it), leaving the new leaves that emerged after the flowers. These two simple steps will keep your Hellebore patch healthy, full and happy for years to come!

Make a date to visit Northwest Garden Nursery with your best plant buddy in the next few weeks, and start or add to your Hellebore collection.

Northwest Garden Nursery's Hellebore Garden Open Days for 2010 are:

• Saturday and Sunday, February 20 and 21
• Saturday and Sunday, February 27 and 28
• Friday, Saturday and Sunday, March 5-7

Beginning March 11 they are open regular hours on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. through the end of March (March 27).

Click here for directions and a map to the nursery.

Allium

For those of you who are already (or always) thinking about next year's garden, there's still time to plant Allium bulbs - ornamental relatives of onions and garlic - in your sunny beds. The flowers of the most common ornamental Alliums are a whimsical, spherical burst of pink, lavender or white at the top of a tall stalk, but there are low varieties with gorgeous foliage, as well as bizarre starburst and hairy flowers for those of us who can never have enough weird plants. Alliums show their stuff right after the big spring show and before the summer flowers are in full swing.

We love to tuck Allium bulbs in small spaces between plants. You only notice them at their best, and they seem to disappear after they are deadheaded. A dozen or more look terrific sweeping above and through lower plantings.

If that's not enough to inspire you, Alliums are deer resistant, drought tolerant and make great cut fresh or dried floral arrangements. Cool!

Take a moment to gain a little additional inspiration from the Google images pages, and add a few Alliums to your fall garden to-do list!

Three underappreciated perennials

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Thanks to everyone who keeps checking in! We're busy and happy building a garden, but we aren't able to post as much as we'd like this week.... To tide you over until the next update, here are a few of our favorite plants. We can't figure out why we don't see more of these lovely, low-maintenance, hardy perennials. Perhaps there's a spot for one or more in your garden?k

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Eucomis 'Sparkling Burgundy' - Perhaps the #1 "what is that?" plant in our garden. It's big, glossy, DARK foliage contrasts beautifully with our pea gravel (or a silvery groundcover). The foliage fades to a green as the almost alien flowers spike up and up, but you won't mind. Full sun, quite hardy, *usually* deer resistant (ask your deer).d

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Phlomis russeliana - This species of Jerusalem sage has been hardy in our garden since day one, 6 years ago. We love the fuzzy, big green leaves. Crazy lollipop spires of bright yellow flowers last for weeks. When the flowers are done, shake the petals off, and the green flower stalks remain a fun ornamental for even longer. Sun loving, drought tolerant, deer resistant... what more could you ask?d

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Brunnera 'Jack Frost' - One for the shade gardeners out there. This plant starts the season with a cloud of forget-me-not blue flowers. Later, huge almost spray-painted silver leaves contrast with dark, glossy greens of hellebores, ferns and other shade lovers. Best of all, it is ignored by snails, slugs and... can you believe it?... deer.

Two photos of the coast project

We spent three months each of the last two years building a garden on the S. Oregon coast. The plantings are filling in fast, and we were able to get a few good shots before the sun came out yesterday. Below are two of our favorites. We hope to get more photos over the next month or so, so please stay tuned. The view really makes the garden.... Oh - and for those of you who share your garden with deer, this garden has a few hungry does and fawns that come through daily.

Deer??? Deer!

We are rarely visited by deer in our part of Eugene. In fact, the hungry boogers haven't browsed in our garden for a few years now... until today. Fortunately, the damage wasn't bad - just the tips of a rose and some raspberries - but it was enough to remind us of how much damage some uninvited guests can do.

Many of our clients' gardens can seem like deer superhighways, however. With a lot of experimentation and a little help from our friends, we've developed a broad deer-resistant palette. Of course, there's no such thing as a "deer proof" plant, and every garden is different, but these photos of frequently visited gardens might surprise anyone who thinks they can't share a great garden with deer.

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The below page from the April '08 Sunset fails to mention that the garden in the photograph is one of our best testing grounds for deer. The photo features two of our favorite types of deer-resistant plants: dwarf conifers (in the photo - Picea sitchensis 'Papoose') and hellebores (Helleborus x Sternii).

Do you have deer? Have you discovered any plants that aren't on the conventional lists? We're always searching for new ideas, and we hope you'll leave a comment with your "finds" below.