Category Archives: Restoration

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!

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.

Date unknown.
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.

 

Summer in the garden

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

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

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It’s hard to believe that it is already July!

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Nicotiana alata

This coming weekend, we are excited to welcome Salem Sketchers to the Gaiety Hollow for a morning of sketching the gardens. Artists will leave some of their Gaiety Hollow inspired work for us to display during our Open Garden. Please join us from 1-4pm, Sunday, July 9th.

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We are excited to announce that the Lord & Schryver Conservancy received a large grant from Oregon Heritage that will partially fund the rehabilitation of the brick pathways in the Flower Garden at Gaiety Hollow. The Conservancy was one of just 16 projects to receive funding this year. The brick paths will be repaired this fall after the gardens have closed for the season. This project will allow us to re-use the old bricks and restore the original look and feel of the Flower Garden.

Many thanks to our board chair, Bobbie Dolp, for her hard work in procuring the grant and to the citizens of Oregon for making this program possible.

The gardens at Deepwood

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by in Deepwood, Garden, landscape architecture, Lord & Schryver, Restoration, Spring

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Even though this blog is named for Lord & Schryver’s home garden, I want to take this week to look at the gardens at Deepwood Museum & Gardens.

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The gardens at Deepwood were one of Lord & Schryver’s earliest commissions. Alice Brown hired the firm in 1929 to help her create gardens spaces around her Victorian Era house. The house was built in 1894 and was considered one of the most beautiful and impressive in Salem at the time. However, it was built on a rise and the basement exposed. The surrounding landscape was not designed in tandem with the building’s architect.

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Leaping forward to 1929, five years after Alice and Clifford Brown purchased the property, Alice decided that she needed help in designing the gardens around her home. Lord & Schryver, with their newly opened firm located within walking distance, made perfect sense. The gardens at Deepwood were designed and created over many years. In fact, the Scroll Garden was not created until 1936-37. The house and landscape were a challenge for L&S because they preferred to work with the architect to integrate the house and gardens. Although the sum of the gardens does not fit L&S’s standard design elements, the individual gardens are classic Lord & Schryver.

The Scroll Garden

In the early 1980s, after the Deepwood estate had been purchased by the City of Salem, a group of volunteers came together to rejuvenate the gardens. Deepwood was the only publicly owned Lord & Schryver designed garden and provided an opportunity to beautify a community asset. Over time, an intrepid group of enthusiasts–including a few of the original volunteer gardeners–met to study Lord & Schryver and formed what is now the Lord & Schryver Conservancy. The gardens today exhibit L&S’s design principles, educate the public about their pioneering landscape designs, and provide a place of beauty and respite.

Today, volunteer gardeners still care for the historic gardens at Deepwood every Thursday morning, 9-noon. The gardens are inside the iconic green fence and open to the public every day of the week, free of charge, 5am until midnight. We hope that you visit and enjoy the many years of hard work and love that has renewed the gardens.

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How things change…

03 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Open Garden, Restoration, Spring, Uncategorized

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in a single week!

I was out of town for ten days and my how the plants have grown. Tulip season has drawn to a close. The tree peonies that Edith and Elizabeth planted are almost done blooming (the heat today and tomorrow will finish them off). The herbaceous peonies are growing leaps and bounds and some will open any day now.

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The Viburnum burkwoodii and lilacs are filling the garden with intoxicating scent.

The Rhododendron are beginning to show off.

I am planting our summer annuals and perennials. I hope that the heat and the sun makes them grow big and strong! Lobularia maritima in the Drying Garden smells like honey.

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And I have a few seedlings growing in pots that will fill in the Flower Garden and Drying Garden later this month.

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Our next Open Garden is on May 14th–Mother’s Day. Come visit the garden with family and enjoy the beauty and peace that the garden brings.

The driveway moves forward

17 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Driveway, Restoration

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Written by Curator/Garden Manager Lindsey Kerr

 

(That title doesn’t sound quite right, does it?)

With a dusting of snow and the ground still frozen, work on the Gaiety Hollow driveway has come to a pause. Although it isn’t the most pleasant of sights at the moment, we are looking forward to the finished product as soon as the weather warms.

Most passersby will only notice the construction zone in the front yard, but there has been a lot of work behind the scenes leading to this moment. Dedicated volunteers have spent many hours researching the history of the driveway–yes, driveways have history!–and choosing the best plan for its rehabilitation.

When Gaiety Hollow was constructed in 1932, Edith and Elizabeth drove a Packard. The car was very small by today’s standards and the driveway narrow. A gate, designed by Edith, spanned the drive.

 

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An un-dated early photograph. You can see the gate posts tucked in the hedges at the edge of the driveway. Lord & Schryver Architectural Records, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.

 

Thirty years later, Edith and Elizabeth were driving a Lincoln Continental, a much larger vehicle. (I think my mother would describe this car as a “boat”). The driveway had been widened and the original gate removed.

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Taken the day of Edith’s memorial service in 1984.

 

Today, we are rehabilitating the driveway to reflect as best as possible the original intent. A few of the original slabs of concrete, laid in a Spanish bond pattern, are cracked and need to be re-poured. Those that are in good condition will be relaid in the same place. A strip of concrete to the sides, added at an unknown  date, will be removed and grass put down, per the original design. A new gate–styled after Edith’s original design–will be crafted and put in place.

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The driveway in fall 2016.

 

We would dearly love to take the driveway back to its design in 1932, but considering modern uses, it simply isn’t practical. Modern trucks and vans are much wider and the narrow width of the old driveway would have, undoubtedly, led to vehicles scraping the gate posts. Thus, the width of the driveway will remain the same as Edith and Elizabeth knew it in the 60s, but with a gate that reflects the look of an earlier time.

We are also taking this opportunity to repair the lawn nearest the driveway and, later this season, to begin work on restoring the shrub border along the driveway.

Thanks to our generous donors and volunteers for making these projects possible. Special thanks to Russell Schutte at AC + Co Architecture | Community for his assistance with the project.

January optimism

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Drying Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Restoration

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Written by Lindsey Kerr, Curator/Garden Manager

Welcome to 2017!

It’s a cold January morning–10 degrees below normal for Salem–but we are excited about all the changes to come to Gaiety Hollow in 2017.

To kick off the new year, I arrived at work this morning to find that the men from Autumn Leaf Landscaping had completed the Drying Garden lawn restoration. The lawn was removed and a patio installed in the 1980s or 1990s. As part of the effort to take the gardens back to Elizabeth and Edith’s original design, we needed to remove the patio.

Later this year, I will research and plan the rehabilitation of the beds on either side of the Drying Garden. This will be a challenge because documentation is almost non-existent on this small garden. Elizabeth and Edith were, perhaps, like you and me when it came to designing their home garden–they moved plants here-and-there on impulse and forgot to note it in their journals. Or, perhaps, they did plan and take note but, sadly, those plans and notes were not kept after their deaths.

The next big project to come is the rehabilitation of the driveway. Not the sexiest project, it still needs to be done. Portions of the driveway will be re-poured, a new gate installed (based on Edith’s plans from the 1930s), and the lawn adjacent to the driveway regraded and improved.

As spring comes to the Valley, we will fill the Flower Garden with flowers that Elizabeth and Edith loved. Our plant choices and design are based on historic images and purchase records kept in the archives at the Knight Library at the University of Oregon.

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The most exciting news is that the gardens will be open two times a month, April-September. Never before has the general public had such access to Elizabeth and Edith’s home gardens. Visitors can see the restoration in process and enjoy the beauty of Elizabeth and Edith’s designs. 

We hope to meet you in the garden!