NARGS Emerald Chapter

Archive for the ‘Chapter Events’ Category

Peter photographing in the lava.

Last week, the Emerald chapter was host to Peter Korn, an extremely knowledgeable gardener from Sweden. He was in town for three days as part of this year’s NARGS speaker tour. His October 14th talk, “Building for Growing: How to Create Different Environments in the Garden from Deserts to Bogs,” was a virtual tour of his 5-acre botanical garden near Gothenburg. For the last 8 years, he has been transforming the original spruce forest into an amazing garden where he seems to be able to grow almost anything. Much of it is an extraordinary rock garden built by dumping huge amounts of glacial till sand (he brought a little for us to feel!) directly onto old lawn and his soil, which he claims is so bad even the weeds don’t grow in it. His site is blessed with a natural bog, something he has taken full advantage of, growing numerous wetland plants and also growing tricky plants that like the good drainage of sand but need cool conditions and moisture from below. I don’t think I was the only one in the audience to be inspired to go home and redo their garden. Read Loren’s write up (Building for Growing: An Inspiring Talk from Peter Korn) for more details about the talk. For more about Peter’s garden, visit his website at http://peterkornstradgard.se/english/eindex.htm. Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday, September 19, eleven hardy members drove out to Fall Creek to join me making troughs for our plant sale. We also decided to try something new and have our annual end-of-summer picnic at the same time. Despite a few showers, we had a good time and got a lot of work done. Most everyone made a couple of troughs, one to keep and one for the chapter. We’ll have a good selection of troughs to sell next year including a few left over from this year’s sale. We’ll need people to “adopt” and plant some of these, and we’ll sell a few empty ones as well.

Thanks to all who made the drive out to the country to help out. It was great to catch up with members after we’ve all gone off to do our own things this summer. I think combining the picnic with the workshop worked well. Maybe we’ll do it again in the future.

Tasha King photographing a drift of fawn lilies

Last Sunday, eight of us headed up to the Portland area for a day of garden visits. While the weather was overcast and gloomy when we met at the Sebring Garden in Eugene, as we drove north, the weather steadily improved, blessing us with a wonderful warm spring day for our trip. It didn’t cloud up and start sprinkling until we headed back down the freeway at the end of the day. Perfect timing!

We started our day at Elk Rock Garden at Bishop’s Close (www.elkrockgarden.com), just north of Lake Oswego, and one of the hidden gems of the Portland area. The garden was as beautiful as I remembered. It was first built by Peter Kerr around World War 1, making it nearly 100 years old, and was given by his daughters to the Episcopal Bishop of Oregon with the stipulation that it be open to the public. It contains an amazing collection of some of the grandest trees you’ll ever see in a garden. Rather than high maintenance perennial borders, it is mostly filled with mature woody plants. Their fresh spring foliage and flowers color the grounds in an elegant manner. Many of the trees were clearly chosen for their attractive bark, and there is an amazing variety of foliage texture from both deciduous trees and conifers. Read the rest of this entry »

Selaginella scopulorum, a spikemoss native to Oregon

At our March 9th meeting, Judith Jones spoke to us about her favorite topic—and one of mine—ferns. She showed us photos of many of the wonderful rock ferns, hard to find but worth seeking out, as well as larger ferns suited for the woodland garden. Lately Judith has been growing spikemosses (Selaginella sp.). These look very much like mosses, hence the name, but they are actually vascular plants. Many grow on sunny rock outcrops and are quite suitable for rock gardens. She brought loads of wonderful ferns and a few spikemosses with her for sale. Quite a few now have new homes in Oregon!

Judith is one of the experts on ferns in the Pacific Northwest. We were very lucky to be able to get Judith to speak to us on her way back to Washington after Western Winter Study Weekend. For more about her and her lovely ferns, visit her Fancy Fronds Nursery website at http://www.fancyfronds.com.