23 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
The rain has lightened up and the tulips are starting to hit the peak bloom this week. The replication of Elizabeth and Edith’s 1956 bulb planting plan makes for a spectacular show!
18 Thursday Apr 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
Finally a spring day with some soul warming sunshine! 75 degrees in the garden today felt amazing! I took a brief walk around and snapped a few photo’s of the beautiful pre easter day.
16 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in camellias, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, gardening, Lord & Schryver, Uncategorized
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May 5th, 1942. It was a Tuesday. On that day in History, the US began rationing sugar during World War II. In Tremont, Mississippi, Tammy Wynette was born. She would go on to record some great hits with “the Possum” George Jones and become known as the first lady of Country music.
And on that day in 1942, Elizabeth and Edith bought 5 distinct cultivars of Camellia, from the purchase records: May 5th 1942:
The Camellia Collection of Lord and Schryver is still going strong, while we have some work to figure out what all the old names are, it’s a spring pleasure to enjoy the hard contrast of the shades of White, Pink and Red set so strongly on the dark green background of the evergreen foliage.
This is one of my favorites in the Garden, the Double dark pink under the oak tree in the West Entry, it’s probably the most well behaved of the collection, only dropping a few flowers at a time. Which makes it a favorite of the gardener, because you don’t have to clean up a 100 lbs of spent blossoms every morning!
Spring Marches on
The Urn from the Pergola with the dark red blossoms of Magnolia on the brick.
11 Thursday Apr 2019
Posted in Deepwood, Lord & Schryver, Uncategorized
Thursdays are Deepwood days and some fun projects are underway! Besides the usual planting of the teahouse garden, the great room has had some new flower additions this spring. We also replaced a historic Malus ‘Firebird’ Crabapple in the Scroll garden.
The Teahouse Garden is looking splendid with the early season tulips, and the trade mark Lord and Schryver Forget-me-nots providing the foil for the spring bulbs.
Thanks to a generous donor the Lower Terrace renovation project is underway! This photo shows after the removal of the patio pavers that were crumbling away. The project is getting the steps redone, a new pathway surface to prevent erosion, the patio relaid, and the historic arbor rebuilt. The Lord and Schryver drawing hanging at Gaiety Hollow shows the arbor with Clematis on the West side and a canopy of Lilacs with Peonies underneath. Stay tuned for updates on this wonderful restoration taking place.
09 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Bulbs, Drying Garden, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Lord & Schryver
We are so fortunate that Edith and Elizabeth kept amazing records of the Bulb Plantings they did at Gaiety Hollow.
This is the layout of the 1935 planting plan, and while many of those old varieties are no longer available, we do have the ability to make comparisons to modern selections and essentially recreate the garden at a point in time.
Tulipa ‘Yosemite’
The bulb planting plan for this season was based on the drawings from a 1956, the old cultivar of Tulip on the drawing, which was a cultivar from 1944 called Tulipa ‘Wilhelm Tell’, which interesting enough, got translated onto the planting plan as William Tell, is no longer available a similar rose colored selection was made and Tulipa ‘Yosemite’ does an outstanding job of shining above the brick.
Tulipa ‘Christmas Dream’
On the walk through the drying yard, Tulipa ‘Christmas Dream’ is a stand in for the 1956 choice of Tulipa ‘Pink Perfection’, which I couldn’t find a good reference to in the volumes that have been written on old tulips, there is mention of ‘Perfection’ and also a ‘Purple Perfection’.
It’s been buckets of rain here in the first week of April, with the Willamette River set to crest at a tiny bit below flood stage in Salem, but spilling it’s banks througout much of the Valley. Lot’s of the modern breeding work in tulips was done to produce strong stems that can stand up to the torrential downpours of April.
Best,
Mark
01 Monday Apr 2019
The blog is back! I’m Mark the new Garden Manager/Curator for the Lord and Schryver Conservancy and I’m excited to share this lovely garden with you.
The Parterre Garden at Gaiety Hollow in Early April
Flower Bulbs are my Jam and this Narcissus ‘Marieke’ by the reflecting pool is stunning!
The reflecting pool on an overcast April Day, the Pieris, Camellia’s, Daffodils and Anemone are starting to add more color everyday.
“In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”
— Mark Twain
That Mark Twain quote can’t be more appropriate for an Oregon Spring, Sun, rain, showers, hail you never know what you are going to get. This week the weather is lining up a bit grey and damp.
Cheers,
Mark
Garden Manager/Curator
Lord and Schryver Conservancy
08 Friday Sep 2017
Posted in annual flowers, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, House, Lord & Schryver, Open Garden, Summer
Tags
annuals, Gaiety Hollow, garden, Historic Gardens, Lord & Schryver Conservancy, Lord and Schryver, Zinnias
I had a meeting at the house this morning so I snuck in the back gate a little early to see the garden…gorgeous even on an overcast and smoky morning…the last open house of the season is coming up this Sunday the 10th, $5 each for adults…545 Mission Street starting at 10:00 a.m….you won’t be sorry. The zinnias are beautiful and so is everything else! Come walk through for a summer memory.
19 Wednesday Jul 2017
Posted in Deepwood, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, House, landscape architecture, Lord & Schryver, Open Garden, Summer, Tours
Tags
brick pathways, Deepwood Gardens, Gaiety Hollow, garden, Garden Tours, Historic Gardens, Historic House and Garden, Lord & Schryver, Oregon, women landscape architects
We took a twilight tour of the gardens at Gaiety Hollow this evening and as usual found the garden beautiful and restorative.
If you want to ease into the Salem Art Fair this weekend let me suggest the Lord and Schryver tours which are Saturday the 22nd at 9:00 at Deepwood Museum & Gardens and at Gaiety Hollow beginning at 10:30. The cost is $5 for those 16 and up.
So why do this? Why go visit gardens planted in the 1930’s by people long gone? Well in Garden Curator Lindsey Kerr’s absence I’ll suggest a few reasons.
These women, Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver, lived here in Salem. They designed cutting-edge gardens of great beauty for Salemites and for others across the Northwest. They were rigorous, talented and interesting, and if you live in Salem they are a part of your history! Come see the garden and learn their story, your back-story.
Walk through these garden gates and step back in time. For the most part people don’t design or maintain gardens like this anymore. We are now into efficient, low water, low maintenance gardens. Here is a chance to see a house and garden designed and now maintained from another world altogether…and it is a captivating garden and a captivating world.
Come and see plant varieties and combinations that are “old fashioned” and yet totally up to date. Giant white hydrangeas, Nicotiana alata spilling out of beds, delphinium, grapes…ideas abound in this historic garden for modern gardeners.
Escape. And this garden has been providing a breathing space for me and many others for years…always delightful, ALWAYS ALIVE, always a balm.
See you Saturday!
20 Tuesday Jun 2017
Posted in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Open Garden, Summer, Tours
Tags
Gaiety Hollow, garden benches, Garden Tours, Historic Gardens, Lord & Schryver, Lord & Schryver Conservancy
Garden manager and curator Lindsey Kerr is away this week so I’m jumping back in for a quick post. The garden will be open this Saturday at 10:30 for touring ($5.00 per adult) and if you haven’t been in a while it is worth the trip. Lindsey Kerr has worked miracles in the garden along with the team of volunteers who trim and weed and tidy…not to mention to the volunteers who are replacing the hard-scape in the garden…i.e. the rotting wooden fences, benches and gates. But first…the garden. I stepped in the gate this morning and was just delighted…
Fresh, organized and the smells…yum. Lindsey has been working with the many garden plans and lists that Lord and Schryver made for their own garden over the years, and has replanted many of the old-fashioned favorites they often used. Noticable this summer are the Canterbury Bells…the bells are back!
and this morning I sat briefly in my favorite shady benches for views of the garden…
And the pergola and bench under the grape arbor are COMPLETE! (I spent a whole week here a few years ago drawing!)
Mark your calendar…Saturday June 24th!
24 Monday Apr 2017
Posted in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, House, landscape architecture, Lord & Schryver, Spring, Uncategorized
Tags
"Documenting the Cultural Landscapes of Women", April, Gaiety Hollow, garden, Historic Gardens, Lord & Schryver, Restoration, spring garden
I came in the back gate today for the event, and a quick walk through this garden makes you appreciate anew the power of commitment, focus and pure love of place.
This garden has been maintained and renovated and cared for thoroughly for years by volunteers. Just this year we have been joined by garden curator Lindsey Kerr, the first salaried position. Lindsey quickly saw the volunteers were key and she has intuitively networked with everybody…gardeners, carpenters, artists and photographers, archivists…the large team of people whose interest in the work of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver has made this project go forward for two decades. Lindsey wasn’t with us today, but I snuck up to her office (stopping on the landing for a quick look in to Lord and Schryver’s office)
for a couple of the views she sees everyday…
From up here I saw the clematis on the newly-completed pergola renovation just bursting into bloom (as planned by L&S)…here’s Lindsey’s photo of last week and then how it looked today…
We were offered refreshments,
and a look at some of the drawings of Lord and Schryver on the walls in the public rooms…(I liked this one which was Edith Schryver’s senior thesis project at the Lowthrope School)
and then to stroll the garden, returning to the house to tell what was our favorite spot in the garden…
Today all these volunteers were appreciated in the best way…each of us was handed a thank you note or two and asked to tell what we do for the garden and the conservancy, and in the story-telling there was a grace and a humor and a sense of commitment that seems rare in these days.
The Board master-minded a surprise gift for Board Chair Bobbie Dolp who really has worked full time doing everything from grant-writing to weeding…her favorite vintage photo of the house…(with a drawing by me of a cherry original to the garden)…she liked it…
…and before I forget I rounded the corner of the garage today to see the crab apple planted last fall in full bloom…
Volunteers we appreciate you!!! Thank you for this work.
Lord & Schryver Conservancy blog 