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

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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!

The Dobson Garden in Fine Gardening

Ted and Nancy Dobson's Asian-inspired garden is getting a lot of attention these days!   It is  featured in the May/June issue of Fine Gardening, where you can see some of Buell's gorgeous photos and get a few ideas for your own small space from Rebecca's article.  Subscribers will receive their issues any day now, and non-subscribers can pick up their copies at Market of Choice, Jerry's and some of the bigger bookstores on or after April 3.

We are delighted for the Dobsons!  While we helped them lay the foundation of their garden, they have made it absolutely their own.  The garden reflects not just their eye for detail and hard work, but their joyful and peaceful personalities, as well.  Congratulations on a job well and beautifully done, Ted and Nancy!

Much more on the Dobson garden here.

See the Dobson Garden in Sunset!

Have you seen the terrific little garden on p. 44 of the latest issue of Sunset?  Ted and Nancy's Asian-inspired space is getting a bit of well-deserved attention!

You can learn more about the Dobson Garden in this journal entry, *and* in the next issue of Fine Gardening, which will feature lots of beautiful, new photos by Buell!

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Much, much more to come!

One to Watch

Even fall rains can't get Ted and Nancy Dobson's garden down.  This tiny, magical space only gets better with age and the careful attention of its inhabitants.  Readers familiar with the space through garden tours or the journal may note the beautiful new water feature at right, one of the Dobson's summer projects.  Stunning, isn't it?  It seems that we're not the only ones who love this intricate and collaborative space, and you may get to see this fabulous garden in print soon (more details to come, of course)!

While photos may be worth a 1,000 words, a visit to this garden speaks volumes.  The Dobsons' garden (and several of our other gardens) will be on the tour for the Hardy Plant Study Weekend next June 7-10, 2012.  Save the date and stay tuned for more information!

More Dirt on our Gardens!

(The excellent Sunset Fresh Dirt blog is, unfortunately, no more.  Apologies for the broken links.)

While we've been working away in Salem, of all places, two more of our gardens have put in an appearance on Sunset's Fresh Dirt!  These shady gardens are just a short hop apart in the Fairmount neighborhood, but they have dramatically different styles.

A post featuring the entry of the Summit garden includes some of Buell's terrific photos.  You may remember that space from our earlier post here.  It's an evolving space that will be open for the first time on next spring's Hardy Plant Study Weekend tour.

Another fabulous post about a garden shared by neighboring families, the Englishes and the Bascoms, highlights a young and very successful space in the Fairmount neighborhood.

There's more to share in each of these gardens, so you can expect to see and learn more in future posts!  For now, we're back to stonework in Salem and creating a wonderful new garden that we hope to show you when it's finished and a little filled in.

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!

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.

The Ahearn Garden on Sunset's Fresh Dirt Blog!

(Sunset's Fresh Dirt blog is, unfortunately, no more.  Apologies for the broken link.)

July is off to a great start!  In addition to beautiful weather, we had an Independence Day treat of seeing one of our gardens on Sunset's Fresh Dirt blog.  "Perfect Small Patio" by Jim McCausland features Debbie and Gary Ahearn's little courtyard.  The patio is an inviting, outdoor extension of their kitchen and dining area.  Packing a lot of garden into a small space was our first challenge, and the second was providing a cozy, intimate and private space not far from a well-travelled residential street.  The redwood fence balances privacy with a flow of light and air, and the custom metal furniture gives the focus and warmth that make the courtyard a well-used outdoor room.

If the Ahearn's courtyard looks familiar, you may remember it from earlier posts in our journal, like this one about outdoor seating areas.

Questions?  Leave a comment, drop us an email at mosaic@mosaic-gardens.com or ask us in person on Saturday!

New Photos of Watershed - The Exception That Proves the Rule

The Watershed is a mixed-use commercial/residential building and a rare exception to our  residential garden focus.  We can't say enough good things about the structure (green materials, local artisans, just fantastic inside and out), and we couldn't be more grateful for the trust that the owners had in allowing us to design and plant their garden.  The plantings at ground level and on each of the many terraces are diverse, super resilient, and require very little water from the rainwater catchment system.  We think that the courtyard and rusting metal water feature are a strong, grounding center to an unusual,  beautiful space.  Buell took a few new shots of the garden yesterday, and we'd love to know what you think!

(More info on the July 9 Open Garden coming soon!)

Q&A - Birch Tunnel

Have a question? Want more frequent updates? We’d love to hear from you! Read more here and write us in the comments or at mosaic@mosaic-gardens.com.

Last week, Brooke left a very nice comment and a couple of good questions:

I am in love with the birch tree tunnel -- how beautiful! What type of birch trees are those? What is the system that is holding them up? How would one go about replicating this amazing design?

The trees are good old Betula jacquemontii, or Whitebarked Himilayan Birch, a fairly common landscape tree in our area.  In this shadier area of the garden, we wanted the trunks of the trees to stand out, and this birch had both the eye-catching light bark and the tolerance for cool, moist (but well-drained) soils that we needed.  We should note that this is the first time we've used this tree for this application, so it isn't yet "proven," but, as you can see, so far so good!

The structures are round steel tubes that we had bent to a specified radius.  Believe it or not, there are shops dedicated just to bending metal!  If you wanted to replicate an arch like this, you can talk to a pipe bending company or you may have better luck a local metalworker who can oversee the project for you (most pipe benders are not accustomed to working with homeowners).  Alternately, you may be able to carefully fabricate a supporting structure from a smaller diameter metal, such as rebar, but it is very difficult to get and keep a perfect curve and straight sides.  No matter what your method, be sure to make the "legs" of your arch extra long, in order to sink them below grade in concrete.

Design-wise, this is obviously not a new concept.  For centuries, landscape designers have understood the power of focusing attention with geometry, and our take on the allee is nothing new.  When considering a feature with this aesthetic weight, it is vital to get your lines just right.  Make sure your "tunnel" is straight and centered, and carefully consider the views or focal points at the ends.

This is our only allee, but the balance of soft and hard lines in a metal arch can create a striking effect in many spaces.  Below are a couple more photos of arches we have created.  If you missed it, you can get another view of the arches in our last post.

Thanks for the questions, Brooke!

 

 

 

 

Q&A - photo request

Have a question? Want more frequent updates? We’d love to hear from you! Read more here and write us in the comments or at mosaic@mosaic-gardens.com. Our last post prompted a great comment from Jennifer:

"I check out garden blogs mainly for the pictures – the more the better!"

Point taken!  It's a bit early and rainy for great new photos of our gardens, but your words will inspire us to start shooting sooner rather than later.  For now, we hope a scroll through this link to some of our biggest and best photo posts might bridge the gap.  And, thanks to Jennifer, here's a view of the coast garden we haven't yet shared.  Enjoy!

 

 

The Gregory Garden (and house) are for sale

Our friend and client Joy Gregory is moving out of town, and her wonderful North Eugene house and garden are for sale.  We are sorry to see her and her awesome son leave Eugene, but we have no doubt that they'll take their new home by storm.  We wrote the garden in our first newsletter, and you may remember the garden from Sunset, the Register-Guard or Pacific Horticulture (you can find an article or two on our press page).

If you happen to be shopping for a great house, neighborhood and garden, take a look!

http://www.remax.com/homes-for-sale/OR/Eugene/10060366-MLS_Number/

Studies in Texture at the Bancroft Garden

Our trip to Northern California was brief, but we are so glad that we made time to visit one of our favorite gardens.  The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, CA is a mecca for hortitexturephiles and garden lovers of all stripes.  We wrote a short post about the Bancroft Garden last year, but we may not have been emphatic enough in our praise.   It is magical.  You should visit.  Soon.

As you probably know, a sunny summer afternoon is less than ideal for photographing gardens, but Buell managed to get a number of fun shots and (we think) a few pretty darn good ones.

Enjoy!

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