Category Archives: Spring

Spring is here and the blog is back!

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Bulbs, Spring

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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.

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The Parterre Garden at Gaiety Hollow in Early April

 

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Flower Bulbs are my Jam and this Narcissus ‘Marieke’ by the reflecting pool is stunning!

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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

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.

C. glomerata at Deepwood

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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Annual flower displays

16 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Deepwood, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Spring, spring annuals, Uncategorized

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One of my favorite parts of caring for the gardens at Gaiety Hollow and at Deepwood Museum & Gardens is designing the annual flowers displays. What could be more fun than choosing flowers for two different gardens?

I start by considering which plants we know Lord and Schyver purchased for the gardens (documented in purchase records, photos, or journals). I think about how much room we have in the gardens,  what are the current growing conditions (sun, shade, water needs, etc), and how textures and colors will work together. I make lists and plans and then hit the local nurseries. That’s the fun part.

When the local nurseries don’t have the plants I am looking for or they don’t have the right color, it’s time to get creative. Or maybe I should wait a couple days to see if what I want comes in on the next truck? It’s always a risk.

Heliotrope
Argyranthemum
Pink Canterbury Bell
Vanilla marigold
Petunia
Joe the Cat at Godfrey Nursery

 

I’ve started from seed a few plants that I cannot find locally. They don’t look like much right now, but my imagination tells me that they will be beautiful this summer.

Verbena
Nicotiana

Last week, our Thursday and Friday volunteers planted all the annuals I had purchased for Deepwood and Gaiety Hollow. Dare I tell them that I bought more plants today? It’s so exciting to see the little plants in the ground. I’m a terribly impatient gardener, however, and find myself staring at them and willing them to grow faster.

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All plant information goes in an Excel spreadsheet for record-keeping

I hope that you visit and re-visit the Gaiety Hollow and Deepwood gardens throughout the season to enjoy the flowers and to see the changes taking place.

Mother’s Day, rain or shine!

11 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Mother's Day, Open Garden, Spring, Uncategorized

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We are welcoming visitors to Gaiety Hollow on Mother’s Day, May 14, 1-4pm. We hope that we have many new and return guests! Bring your family and enjoy the gorgeous shrubs and spring flowers blooming now.

Rhododendrons are the highlight of the West Allée.

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A stunning Deutzia is covered in white flowers near the Pergola.

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Forget-me-nots were some of Elizabeth Lord’s favorite flowers and they still re-seed themselves every year in the flower garden. They look like blue clouds right now.

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Pansies and alyssum are smiling in the sun in the newly restored Drying Garden.

 

And Peonia rubra plena, planted in 1955, is still showing off her gorgeous flowers in the Flower Garden over 60 years after she was planted by Elizabeth and Edith.

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We look forward to seeing you on Sunday…and don’t forget to bring your camera!

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.

Volunteer Appreciation!

24 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, House, landscape architecture, Lord & Schryver, Spring, Uncategorized

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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.

 

Spring tours

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

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Today was the perfect day for a tour of the gardens. After all the rain last night, the gardens looked clean and new.

We had a lively group of folks come from the Willamalane Park and Recreation District for tours of both Deepwood and Gaiety Hollow and a catered lunch in the gardens at Gaiety Hollow. Everyone had a wonderful time. We hope to share the gardens with more groups throughout the season. Know someone interested in a private tour? Have them contact Bobbie.

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We have two tours open to the public this coming Saturday. Join us at 9am at Deepwood Museum and Gardens. Tours will leave from the kiosk near the parking lot. At 10:30am, there will be a tour at Gaiety Hollow. Meet at the front door.

 

 

“April, come she will

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

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

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When streams are ripe and swelled with rain…”

This spring has been unusually wet here in Salem. It has made for a sometimes difficult situation for gardeners trying to get work done and trying to time flower combinations. Last Friday’s wind and rain finished off the cherry blossoms and blew away many of the Magnolia flowers. Our dauntless board chair, Bobbie Dolp, was outside in the horizontal rain, string-trimming and pulling dandelions from the lawns in preparation for our first Open Garden this past Sunday.

Many thanks to the volunteers to helped greet visitors on Sunday and thank you to all who came to see and enjoy the gardens. We hope that you come again to see the seasons  change as we dig deeper into rehabilitating the gardens.
As the early spring flowers fade, new blossoms open to take their place. Tulips are in full glory in the Flower Garden and more are showing color every day.

 

Elizabeth and Edith’s forget-me-nots form a backdrop to tulips and a blanket under the roses.
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Rhododendrons are beginning to open on the west side of the gardens.

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Our next Garden Tours are April 22nd. We hope that you join us.

Open Garden this weekend April 9

04 Tuesday Apr 2017

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

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Please join us at Gaiety Hollow for our first Open Garden of the season! Visitors may wander through the gardens at their leisure and speak with our volunteers stationed throughout the property. The garden will be open 1-4pm. Admission is $5 for anyone over the age of 16. Gaiety Hollow is located at 545 Mission St. in Salem, OR.

Below is a partial list of plants in bloom this week. Scientific names are italicized.

In the front yard and along the Allée:

Crab apple (scientific name Malus) just beginning to open by front door

Camellias

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Viburnum davidii 

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Skimmia japonica (female plants have red fruit, male plants have only flowers)

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Pieris 

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Rhododendron just beginning to open by the statue in the Allée

Hellebores

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Epimedium 

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In the Evergreen Garden:

Anemone hybrid

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Hellebores

Pieris 

Camellias

 

In the Flower Garden:

Crab apple (Malus) just beginning to open by back gate

Osmanthus delavayi under the crab apple

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Anemone nemorosa by the bench

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Tulips

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Daffodils (Narcissus)

Bellis daisies (Bellis perennis)

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Bleeding Hearts (Lamprocapnos spactabalis–try saying it out loud!)

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Forget-me-nots (Myosotis)

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Grape hyacinths (Muscari)

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Viburnum burkwoodii

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Prunus (aka flowering plum or cherries)

 

First tour of the season

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Spring, Tours

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This past week was a whirlwind of activity at Gaiety Hollow. We had our first tour scheduled for Saturday and we wanted the gardens to look their best. Many, many thanks to the volunteers who put in over 60 hours of work to make the gardens shine.  Carpenters worked on the Pergola and cut plywood for guests and volunteers to walk on to avoid damaging the lawn. Garden volunteers filled up four large City compost bins with debris and needed to stash extra in the Service Yard.

Every day, we clean up more Camellia blossoms. You finish raking and turn around and there’s another one!
The morning of the tour, the gardens looked fresh and clean.

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Bobbie placed photos around the gardens so that guests could view the gardens in different seasons or years past.

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A sampling of camellias float in the pool.

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And daffodils and grape hyacinths were at their finest.

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We have more Garden Tours and Open Gardens coming up! The first Open Garden is April 9th, 1-4pm. More information on the website. We hope to see you in the gardens.