(Old information - thank you to all who attended!)
Please stop by, walk through the garden and say hello! We've spruced the garden up for the Hardy Plant Garden Tour, and would love to share. Our garden is open to any and everyone interested, but the larger tour is for plant group members, by prior reservation.
We hope to see you tomorrow!
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.
- We put our first plants in the ground in 2003 and had our first photo shoot for Sunset. That's a pretty quick start for a garden! The original plantings were boisterous and brimming with variety, partly because we were using the garden as a testing ground for unusual and new (to us) plants. As the plantings have matured and the garden has grown shadier, we have edited the plantings to masses of our favorites, with room for more than a few highlights and oddballs, of course. We wonder what you'll think of the changes at the Open Garden....
- The galvanized fence was one of the few elements that we knew would be a part of the garden from the start, and it was the first thing we installed. We had a hunch that the brightness and subtle texture of the fence would be an asset in our narrow, urban lot. While metal fences clearly aren't for everyone (it's still the only one we've built!), we love how it seems to pull the sky down into the space and sets off the dark foliaged plants in front of it.
- We built almost everything by hand. From removing tons of concrete (be sure check out the "before" pictures in this post), to hauling each rock to its final location, we held true to our belief that people build better gardens than machines do. The one major exception was the driveway, which Buell swore he was going to dig by hand.... About 10 minutes with a pick convinced him that using a bobcat would be a better idea.
We look forward to sharing our garden with you on July 9. In the meantime, remember to follow us on Facebook for updates, photos and more!
Saturday, July 9, 9am - 2pm
Please join us on Saturday, July 9 for an Open Garden! The plants are loving the long, cool spring, and the garden is gorgeous this year. It's a small, diverse space that has been featured in Sunset, Fine Gardening and Garden Design magazines. There's a little something for everyone - sun, shade, dry stack stone walls, seating areas, mature plantings, new additions and lots of design ideas. Buell and Rebecca will be on hand to answer questions about the garden and Mosaic, but, introverts, never fear, we're happy to let you wander on your own.
If you don't know our garden, this photo history is a fun place to learn more, and our press page includes several articles about the garden.
We hope to see you on the 9th! Drop by anytime between 9 and 2, and feel free to bring friends and family. We'll have limeade and shade if it's warm (or even if it's not), and space to explore or just sit and enjoy the day.
Join us on Saturday, July 9 for an Open Garden! Our garden is gorgeous this year, and we want to share it with you during its peak season. Please join us to walk through the space, ask questions, say hello or just enjoy some limeade in a pretty spot.
If you've seen the garden before, you may be surprised at some of the changes. As it has grown older and shadier, we've changed and simplified some of the plantings, to what we think is an elegant effect. Of course, the maturing specimens and beautifully aging stonework don't hurt, either. Our little space offers a wealth of ideas for gardens of any size or age, and, of course, Buell and Rebecca will be on hand to chat and answer questions.
Please mark your calendar and spread the word! More information coming soon....
Thanks so much to everyone who organized and attended the Music in the Garden tour. We were delighted to share our space with so many lovely people, and we hope you had as much fun as we did.
Our summer promises to bring lots of posts and new photos, so be sure to check in at the journal now and then! Many of our updates are spontaneous, but there are a few semi-definite posts to look forward to. We are taking a photographic series of the gorgeous stone wall we're building right now, we should have some great new photos coming in early summer, and, of course, our next newsletter is due in about a week and a half.
We look forward to sharing more of our work with you!
Rebecca & Buell
Garden photographers live for forecasts like tomorrow's - mostly cloudy with a high of 73. The plants will love the comfortable, but not-too-warm temperatures (us too!), and gardens look their best under a little cloud cover. It's shaping up to be a great tour.
See you tomorrow,
Rebecca & Buell
With the Eugene Symphony Music in the Garden tour coming this Sunday, it seems like a good time to share a short photo history of our space! We began hardscape construction in fall of 2002, put the first plants in the ground in 2003. The ipe deck we installed in 2004 completed the garden's structure, but a garden is never finished. We make large and small changes to the plantings every year.
Our garden has been featured in Garden Design, Sunset, Pacific Horticulture and Fine Gardening magazines. A few of those articles are available on the press page of our main website and offer a much more complete account of the design of our space than we can offer here. For now, we just hope to entice you to visit the garden and support a great cause this Sunday!
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Click on the images below to enlarge.
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Please join us for the Eugene Symphony Guild's Music in the Garden tour on Sunday, June 14, 10am - 4pm. The tour will feature seven terrific Eugene Gardens, including ours, as well as music, food and a plant sale.
Advance tickets are $12 and available at many local nurseries, including Down to Earth, Gray's, Jerry's, Johnson Brothers and Little Red Farm. Tickets are also available on the day of the tour for $15.
We will be available all day for questions and conversation. We hope to see you then!