Osmanthus or tea olives are outstanding small evergreen trees and shrubs in the Oleacea family. Gaiety Hollow is home to one particularly outstanding specimen of Osmanthus x fortunei that Edith and Elizabeth planted in the mid-1960’s. It’s a fall bloomer with flowers so fragrant you can smell the blossoms all down the alley on a calm, cool morning.

The plant is named for Robert Fortune (1812-1880), the intrepid Scottish botanist best known for his exploits of stealing tea plants (Camellia sinensis) from China and smuggling them to India on behalf of the British East India company in the mid-1800’s. He introduced this hybrid of Osmanthus fragrans and Osmanthus heterophyllus in 1858. During his three years in China, Robert Fortune sent thousands of plants back to the British Isles in Wardian cases. These were glass terrariums filled with plants and sealed so the plants would survive the long ocean journey back to England.

The Osmanthus x fortunei in full bloom now at Gaiety Hollow

Osmanthus delavayi from Yunnan and Southern China

Osmanthus heterophyllus

Closeup of the fragrant flowers

It’s not surprising that throughout the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, Edith and Elizabeth tried quite a few different Osmanthus in the garden, as these stately shrubs and small trees would have met their many design requirements  including extreme fragrance, glossy evergreen foliage, screening capability, elegant structure and varied habit from shrub to small tree.

Records show Edith and Elizabeth grew Osmanthus armatus, fragrans, illicifolius and delavayi, as well as x fortunei and heterophyllus over the years. If you don’t grow Osmanthus in your garden you should…there is a species or cultivar to fit any size garden. In my home garden, I have the smaller Osmanthus delavayi and Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘purpureus‘, and after experiencing the wonderful tree form that Edith and Elizabeth planted so many years ago, I think I’ll be adding Osmanthus x fortunei to my planting list.

Cheers,

Mark

If you have been following the blog and the goings-on of the Lord and Schryver Conservancy, you know that a funding from a generous donor enabled the restoration the Deepwood’s Lower Terrace and Grape Arbor this past spring. Although the hardscaping and Arbor were completed, we decided to wait until fall to replace the vines that historically graced this structure. Last Friday, I visited the Rogerson Clematis Garden in hopes of locating several clematis varieties that records show were used by Edith and Elizabeth.

I was fortunate enough to time the trip to run into Linda Beutler, the curator of the clematis collection. I showed Linda the historical records I had on the clematis that were planted at Deepwood long ago. Linda was familiar with Deepwood as she had taken a group of National Clematis Convention participants on a tour of Deepwood some time ago. She wasted no time in compiling a list of possible clematis candidates, selecting several appropriate varieties and generously donated them to the project!

Linda Beutler the Rogerson Clematis Garden Curator is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Clematis. Here she is showing Mark some historic Clematis texensis hybrids that would have been available to Lord and Schryver.

The diversity of Clematis that Brewster Rogerson accumulated is staggering.

The Rogerson Garden is a beautiful collection of amazing plants just on the outskirts of Lake Oswego.

The grape arbor at Deepwood is ready for the fall planting.

What an amazing gift from a generous horticulturalist, teacher and author who took the time to go through lists of old cultivars with me. Linda even explained some of the name changes that have taken place over the years. Thank you, Linda, for helping select plants that reflect Edith and Elizabeth’s work at Deepwood.

If you haven’t been to the Rogerson Clematis Garden, it is more than worth the trip:  https://www.rogersonclematiscollection.org/about-us  I visited in October and there were dozens if not hundreds of species and varieties still in bloom, but Linda tells me that the peak bloom time to visit is July. I hope to put together a field trip next year for our garden volunteers so we can all personally thank Linda for the generous donation, helping to make the restoration of another Lord and Schryver garden a reality.

Mark

We had a very special visitor in the garden this past summer.  Ellen Egan, the owner of Egan Gardens visited Gaiety Hollow for the first time!

In 1875, the Egan family established a farm on the deep Amity silt loam soils just west of the tiny hamlet of Brooks, Oregon. Later in the 1950’s, Bill Egan, Ellen’s father, started a nursery on the property.  Later still, Ellen took over operations from her father and has continued to run a wonderful nursery business on the same property as the old farmstead.

Elizabeth and Edith started buying plants at Egan Gardens in the 1950’s. Records show that they were frequent customers throughout the 1950’s and 60’s, purchasing a variety of dahlias, cineraria, alyssum, hydrangeas, petunias and marigolds. However, it appears that Edith and Elizabeth were particularly fond of Egan’s premium quality geraniums.

Ellen Egan at Gaiety Hollow-Photo by Mary Anne Spradlin

The Lord and Schryver Conservancy has kept this long running relationship alive to this day. Visitors to Gaiety Hollow this past summer would have admired the many Egan-grown alyssum and salvia in the Parterre garden.

Over time, it seems that many mom and pop, brick and mortar stores have gone by the wayside. We are proud of the long-running relationship we have with this fine local grower. Supporting local businesses is one of the best ways to keep our local economy strong and thriving.

We hope to see Ellen in the garden more often. We look forward to shopping through  her wonderfully stuffed hoop houses for garden offerings come spring, just as Edith and Elizabeth did many years ago.