Changes are afoot at Gaiety Hollow

21 Thursday Sep 2017

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

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annuals, brick pathways, brick restoration, flowers, Gaiety Hollow, historic preservation, Oregon, Summer, Volunteering

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!

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.

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).

Cat and pedestal

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

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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.

August anticipation

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

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

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annuals, brick pathways, brick restoration, Dahlias, Eclipse, Englewood Park, flowers, Gaiety Hollow, historic preservation, Open Garden, Summer, West Allee

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.

Evening in the Garden

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by bonniehull in Deepwood, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, House, landscape architecture, Lord & Schryver, Open Garden, Summer, Tours

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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!

The Garden is READY!

20 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by bonniehull in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Open Garden, Summer, Tours

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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!

Volunteer Appreciation!

24 Monday Apr 2017

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

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"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.

A Wet Spring…

18 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by bonniehull in Bill Noble, Drying Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, House, Lord & Schryver, Spring, spring annuals

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Bill Noble, boxwood, brick pathways, Gaiety Hollow, Historic Gardens, Lord & Schryver, Lord & Schryver Conservancy, pruning boxwood hedges, spring garden

I was in the garden today…dodging raindrops on the way into a meeting…and I reflected on how beautiful this garden is…even on the very dreariest of wet spring days…

I noted some boxwood trimming had begun…

the pergola construction was well underway…

making us glad that this structure will be there providing shade next summer…like it did last summer…and for many summers to come…

the rain has helped the new lawn in the drying garden flourish…

and once inside…the fire was going and Bobbie was welcoming Bill Noble to the meeting.

Bill is here in Oregon lecturing on the Cornish Colony in New Hampshire. His lecture in Salem is this coming Sunday (March 19th) at 2:00 in the Dye House at the Willamette Heritage Center. I KNOW you won’t want to miss this one. Bill formerly was with the Garden Conservancy and now works as a consultant to many famous gardens, including our own. He is a knowledgeable and lively person, pictured like this for publicity purposes…

and here are my meeting notes…

but today we had a little fun…

See you Sunday!

Spring ??

23 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by bonniehull in Driveway, Drying Garden, Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver

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Gaiety Hollow, garden, Garden in winter, Historic Gardens, Lord & Schryver, Lord & Schryver Conservancy, Restoration

Probably not, but today, in this part of the world, it was sunny and 46 degrees and it felt so spring-like I thought that Gaiety Hollow might be the place to go. I wanted to see how the sod had survived in the new garden “room” and what progress had been made on the driveway…I’ll let the pictures tell the tale…

and there were a few little signs, even though we know very well there’s more winter ahead!

Bonnie Hull, Garden Correspondent

Happy New Year!

28 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by bonniehull in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Vintage Photos

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"Documenting the Cultural Landscapes of Women", Gaiety Hollow, garden, Garden in winter, Historic Gardens, Lord & Schryver, Lord & Schryver Conservancy, vintage garden photos

I was back in the garden today, finally.

Winter in the garden means work of the chilliest sort. Curator/garden manager Lindsey Kerr is working on the beds, and the workers from Autumn Leaf Landscaping are digging out the “Drying Garden”…

As I was having a chat with Lindsey Kerr and she mentioned to me a couple of photos from the 1980’s of how that section of the garden used to look… and sent them along…

We cordially invite you to join in the efforts of the Lord and Schryver Conservancy to not only retrieve this beautiful 20th century garden, but to help it survive on into the 21st century with new audiences and new activities…none of which can go forward without the help of our generous donors. Thanking you in advance!

Stormy Weekend

15 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by bonniehull in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver

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brick pathways, Gaiety Hollow, garden, Historic Gardens, Historic House and Garden, Lord & Schryver, Lord & Schryver Conservancy

We’re in the middle of stormy weekend here…we left the fireside for a coffee and I did a quick tour of the garden.

Interestingly, aside from the grape leaves on the arbor, the fall color visible is mostly from trees in the neighboring yards…Gaiety Hollow is still green, but fading.