Category Archives: Flower Garden

The Camellias of Gaiety Hollow

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by 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:

  • Camellia alba plena
  • Camellia Cheerful (Chandler)
  • Camellia ‘Francine’
  • Camellia ‘Kumasaka’
  • Camellia ‘Purity’

 

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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.

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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!

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Spring Marches on

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The Urn from the Pergola with the dark red blossoms of Magnolia on the brick.

Bulbs of Lord and Schryver

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Bulbs, Drying Garden, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Lord & Schryver

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We are so fortunate that Edith and Elizabeth kept amazing records of the Bulb Plantings they did at Gaiety Hollow.

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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.

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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.

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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

 

 

 

January in the garden

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in brick paths, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, gardening, landscape architecture, Lord & Schryver, Restoration, Uncategorized, Vintage Photos, winter

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After a two week break and a trip back to the frozen tundra of Michigan, I am back at Gaiety Hollow and Deepwood.

Earlier this week, contractors finished building the pedestal at the center of the Parterre Garden at Gaiety Hollow. It is beautiful!

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We don’t know why the pedestal was removed or when it came down. Our last photo of it was taken in 1969. Photos from 1973 show that it had been replaced by a pot.

Elizabeth, June 1969

Edith, April 1973

And where, oh where, did the dear putto go? We have no clues as to where he ended up. We think he was cast in bronze and measured 18-24 inches tall. Our earliest images of him are from glass slides taken c. 1930.

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He may have come from the Lord family garden. We have lots of eyes looking for a suitable replacement, but as of yet none have turned up.

I am thrilled by the attention to detail that the mason, Julian, gave the pedestal. After showing him pictures, he made sure to line up the mortar joints as they were historically.

Many thanks to our grant partners, the Oregon Cultural Trust and the State Historic Preservation Office, and to our donors, for their support of the brick walks project.

What else is going at Gaiety Hollow and the Conservancy?

Our winter flowers are beginning to bloom. Visitors might notice the scents of Sarcococca and Viburnum x bodnantense near the kitchen porch. Those who venture into the West Allee will find an early-blooming Camellia japonica. Primroses are blooming in the Evergreen Garden, hellebores are in bud, and I can see spring bulbs beginning to push up their greenery in the Parterre Garden.

Meanwhile, we have a new class of docents being trained to lead guided tours of both Gaiety Hollow and Deepwood. Volunteer gardener enrichment programs will take place in late January and February. Plans are underway for a film screening at Salem Cinema in March (more details to come!). And the Treatment Plan for the restoration of the garden is being written.

Update: Brick walks

12 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by in brick paths, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, gardening, landscape architecture, Lord & Schryver, Restoration, Uncategorized, winter

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It has been more than a month since I last posted about our brick walk restoration project. They are not finished, but we hope to have them completed by the end of this week. I should note that we have concentrated our efforts on the paths in and around the Parterre Garden (sometimes called the Flower Garden) because they were in an obvious state of disrepair.

Returning visitors to Gaiety Hollow will immediately notice how much better the walks look and feel under your feet. They are now straight and level. The bricks that edge the path are all new and give the paths a crisp, clean look.

We aren’t completely clear on the history of the brick paths. There is speculation that parts of the paths were originally part of Elizabeth Lord’s mother’s garden. The modes Lord house was located at the corner of High Street and Mission Street, but the property encompassed approximately 1/4 of the city block. Juliet Lord was well known for her extensive flower gardens and Elizabeth credited her mother for teaching her to love gardens. Undated hand-colored lantern slides show the Gaiety Hollow property, but we are uncertain if they are of Juliet Lord’s gardens or Edith and Elizabeth’s gardens.

Undated; the Parterre Garden, looking north

We can say, however, that the paths were constructed by the early 1930s. Edith and Elizabeth moved into the Gaiety Hollow house in 1932. Dated photographs and plans from the 1930s show the layout of the paths.

Early plan for Gaiety Hollow

In the intervening 85 yeas, the paths fell into disrepair. Between the untold number of enthusiastic gardeners who have trod these paths, and the countless wheelbarrows of compost rolling over them, and seasons of freezing and thawing, many bricks had sunken, shifted, and broken. We discovered that a few of the paths had been redone during the intervening years and set in concrete mortar. Those paths we left as-is. Other paths were set on sand and gravel and had severely degraded. A laser level indicated that they were 2 inches lower than the paths on mortar!

When we took on this project, we decided that we wanted to restore the paths to how Edith and Elizabeth knew them. Visitors will feel like they have stepped back in time to the years Edith and Elizabeth were living and working at Gaiety Hollow (1932-1969).

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There are changes that will be new to visitors, but they would not be new to Edith and Elizabeth. We have chosen to reconstruct the brick pedestal that stood at the intersection of the Parterre Garden until 1970. We removed the wide brick path leading to the Pergola and replaced the narrow path and grass strips that were there until around 1970. We also removed the degrading pavers in the north path and replaced them with grass that we can see in an early photograph and plan.

Undated historic photograph
Earlier this week

We did elect to make a few changes: We raised the grade of some of the paths slightly to improve drainage and all the bricks along the path edges were replaced. Visitors should not notice the grade change. The new bricks fit well with the old, but visitors will perceive that they are newer and it will create an opportunity for us to explain the garden’s story.

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When you visit the gardens next season, you might notice a few quirks in the paths and the patterns of the bricks. Someone repairing the paths years ago must have made a few changes. We replaced the bricks exactly as they were (to the consternation of mason Julian).

All in all, the Parterre Garden has been restored to its original beauty. Visitors will be able to clearly see Edith and Elizabeth’s vision for the garden and the geometry of the design.

A small group of dedicated volunteers planted our spring blooming bulbs last week (Thank you!) and I am making plans for the perennials that we will plant in the spring. I hope that you visit us in 2018 and enjoy the progress we are making.

 

Many thanks to our grant partners, the Oregon Cultural Trust and the State Historic Preservation Office, to our donors, and to our volunteers, for making this project possible.

HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS AND PLANS COURTESY OF THE LORD & SCHRYVER ARCHITECTURAL RECORDS, COLL 098, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON LIBRARIES, EUGENE, OREGON.

 

Update: Brick walks

30 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in brick paths, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, landscape architecture, Lord & Schryver, Restoration, Uncategorized

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The brick walk project is well underway! We are so thrilled to see the paths coming back together. The Autumn Leaf crew has been onsite for the past week and will continue work this week.

Day 1: Kevin and crew
Day 1
Day 1

Before work commenced, I took over ninety photographs of the paths. Julian, foreman for this project, has them all printed out so that he can re-create the paths exactly as they were. He has found a few quirks that I had not noticed, like a course of cut bricks near the middle of a path. We have no records other than photographs to help us understand how the paths evolved over time. There are many days I wish Elizabeth had written something in her journal about bricks! Perhaps the paths were Edith’s forte.

Wednesday morning
Wednesday afternoon
Wednesday afternoon

We are making a few subtle improvements to the paths as we go forward. Pooling water was frequently a problem, so we have elected to gently raise the grade of some of the paths to increase drainage. We are re-using the old bricks as the walking surface throughout the Parterre Garden (Flower Garden). The brick borders will be completely replaced with new bricks. This will provide visual consistency and be easy for docents to  interpret. New bricks will also make up the path that leads to the Pergola.

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Julian at work this morning

As soon as the bricks are finished, we will start planting spring blooming bulbs. We’re already looking forward to our first Open Garden in March 2018!

Progress on the brick paths

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in brick paths, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Restoration, Uncategorized

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If you haven’t been to Gaiety Hollow in the past week, you might not recognize the Flower Garden!

Last Wednesday evening, Dave Hiser brought his youth group from the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in South Salem to Gaiety Hollow. Racing against the setting sun, 25 energetic youth and 5 adult supervisors pulled up the brick paths, scraped off sand and mud, and stacked the bricks on pallets. The north path made of crumbling pavers and concrete was demolished with a sledgehammer and is heading to the landfill.

They finished the evening with zucchini bread, long drinks of cold water, and a group photo on the lawn.

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Thanks to these wonderful volunteers, the brick walks in the Flower Garden are almost ready for a make-over.

On Friday, our garden volunteers joined the efforts. Undeterred by rain, they cleaned up rubble, knocked out edging bricks, discovered more bricks hidden under an old path, and smoothed paths for walking. Pruning the boxwood away from the bricks elicited excitement from some, groans from others, and lots of jokes.

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There are still a few preparations to be done before our contractors come in–removing the short path going to the shed, taking out the edges of the paths–but we should be ready by early next week. The historic bricks are being saved so that masons can reuse them in the paths and retain the feeling of charm so integral to the gardens.

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When this construction is complete, the Flower Garden should look as Edith and Elizabeth intended it. Smooth paths. Clean edges in straight lines. No more pooling water. The pedestal and putto as the central focal point. Grass in the north path. Grass and a brick path to the Pergola. The geometry and bones that Edith and Elizabeth so purposefully laid out will be restored.

Words of caution: If you are visiting the garden as a volunteer or for a meeting during October, please approach Gaiety Hollow from Mission Street to avoid walking through the construction zone in the back gardens and to avoid interrupting our contractors when they are onsite. We want all of our visitors to be safe while at Gaiety Hollow. Thank you!

Changes are afoot at Gaiety Hollow

21 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in annual flowers, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Summer, Tours, Uncategorized, Vintage Photos

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This weekend are the last tours of the 2017 season. We have a garden tour at Deepwood Museum & Gardens at 9am. It is followed by a tour of the gardens at Gaiety Hollow at 10:30am. This is your last opportunity to see the Flower Garden at Gaiety Hollow before big changes take place!

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Come Monday morning, I will be in the garden digging (almost) everything up. The annuals will go to the great compost pile in the sky and the perennials and roses will find new homes with our volunteers. By Wednesday, the Flower Garden will look like a blank slate.

Wednesday evening, we are welcoming a crew of youth from the LDS church in south Salem. They will pull up the bricks from the paths in the Flower Garden, clean them, and stack them. I am so grateful to have their offer of help!

The following week, our contractor will come in with his crew and work will commence on the rehabilitation of the brick pathways. If you have been to Gaiety Hollow this season, you know that the paths are uneven, water pools in various sections, and the edging brick is spawling in places or leaning right and left.

September in the Flower Garden

When you come back to the gardens next spring, this will no longer be the case! We cannot wait to have the paths fixed so that they look as they did when Edith and Elizabeth gardened at Gaiety Hollow. The bricks will be clean, the path lines sharp and crisp, the pedestal at the center of the garden reconstructed, and grass will be reintroduced in two sections (including the path to the Pergola).

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Edith, 1968

It is a very exciting time for the Lord & Schryver Conservancy. Many thanks to our grant partners, the Oregon Cultural Trust and the State Historic Preservation Office, to our donors, and to our volunteers, for making this project possible.

One Last Open House

08 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by in annual flowers, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, House, Lord & Schryver, Open Garden, Summer

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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.

Historic roses at Gaiety Hollow

03 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Restoration, Roses, Vintage Photos

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Earlier this week, I had an epiphany as I looked at historic plans in our organization archives. Years ago, volunteers had Edith and Elizabeth’s hand-drawn plans for the gardens at Gaiety Hollow digitized. I have copies on my computer and refer to them often while doing research and planning. There is a sketch that I have often skipped over because I did not see it as particularly relevant.
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I had overlooked this drawing because it features a Vitex and Lonicera hedges that were never planted.

However, this week, I had a realization that the information written in the four inner flower beds might be very useful. We know from photographs that Edith and Elizabeth planted these beds with roses–roses that have long since disappeared.

Yellow roses and purple pansies. 1960

So why could this sketch not tell me which roses Edith and Elizabeth preferred?

With the power of the internet, it didn’t take me long to generate a complete list of the roses on this plan, their type, their colors, and their year of introduction. And they match with our historic photographs.

  • ‘Butterfly’ (aka ‘Golden Butterfly’). Apricot yellow. 1920
  • ‘Sunburst’. Yellow-orange. 1911
  • ‘Constance.’ Golden yellow. 1915
  • ‘Los Angeles.’ Salmon. 1916
  • ‘Augusta Victoria’ (aka ‘Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria’). White, yellow center. 1911
  • ‘Mrs. Aaron Ward.’ Yellow blend. 1907
  • ‘Imperial Potentate.’ Carmine pink. 1921
  • ‘Lady Ashtown.’ Pink. 1904
  • ‘Duchess of Wellington.’ Yellow. 1909
  • ‘Mme. Edouard Herriot.’ Coral-red. 1912
  • ‘Golden Ophelia.’ Medium yellow. 1918
  • Mabel Morse. Golden yellow. 1922

It seems like an easy step forward for us to replant exactly what Edith and Elizabeth specified on this drawing. But historic preservation is never easy! We have no records that indicate these exact roses were ever installed. At the same time, we know that Edith and Elizabeth were critical of their gardens and flowers, frequently tossing out plants that did not meet their high standards. Perhaps these roses were planted in 1932 and then went into the compost heap within the next few years. We may never know. In addition, sourcing old roses can be difficult, as roses frequently drop out of trade as new cultivars are introduced. We might not be able to find these roses for purchase in the USA.

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Roses in the Flower Garden. Date unknown.

Nevertheless, I am excited about my discovery! The colors match our collection of historic photographs. I will use this list of roses to inform the type and color palette of the roses that I choose to plant in the coming year.

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‘Gruss an Coburg’ purchased by L&S for Deepwood

Many, many thanks to our volunteers who spent countless hours in the University of Oregon archives finding these scraps of information and paving the way for the restoration of the gardens.

Photographs and plans courtesy of the Lord & Schryver architectural records, Coll 098, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.

 

August anticipation

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in annual flowers, Flower Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Open Garden, Summer, Uncategorized

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August is a month of activity at Gaiety Hollow. A month of welcoming visitors and a month of preparations and anticipation for major projects.

On the 5th, we welcomed our neighbors in Gaiety Hill to an evening in the garden. A highlight of the event was Chinese lanterns collected by by volunteer Valerie McIntosh hung throughout the garden. We hope to do more evening events in the future.

August 11th was the first Englewood Forest Festival. Englewood Park has strong ties to Lord & Schryver. Elizabeth Lord served on the first parks commission in 1936. She was instrumental in the design of the park and advocated for the preservation of the Oregon white oak stand which remains today. Ruth Roberts, a long-time volunteer with the Lord & Schryver Conservancy and perhaps our resident L&S historian, was interviewed on Willamette Wakeup on KMUZ. You can listen to the interview by following this link. Click on the “play” button for August 10th 8am show. Unfortunately, you have to listen to news before the interview comes up, but Ruth is well worth the wait! Many thanks to Ruth for giving such an articulate and insightful interview.

This past weekend was an Open Garden and this coming Saturday, to capitalize on eclipse viewers, we are open to the public again from 10:30-1:30pm.

We are also deep into the planning stages of major projects that will begin to take place next month. In late September, after the gardens have closed to the public for the season, work will begin on the repair of the brick walks through the parterre Flower Garden. The bricks will be taken up, sorted and cleaned, the path edges re-aligned and the grade raised, and then the bricks will be re-installed. Today, Joy Sears from the State Historic Preservation Office stopped by to help us choose replacement bricks. This is a very exciting project and will vastly enhance the look and feel of the Flower Garden.


Also later this season, we are improving the drainage in the West Allee. You might remember seeing the West Allee blocked off to visitors last winter and into this spring. If you stepped into the Allee, you were met by standing water and mud. We hope that putting in a drain and wells will solve this problem and improve the visitor experience.

If you haven’t been to Gaiety Hollow yet this season, don’t delay! We are open August 19, September 10 and 23rd. Check the website for more information.