Tag Archives: gardens

Is it spring yet?

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Gaiety Hollow, Garden

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While the East Coast is bragging about cherry trees and magnolias in bloom, here in Salem we had flurries this morning. Winter has hung on tight this year. Nonetheless, spring is coming, slowly but surely.

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At Gaiety Hollow, the crocus have been blooming cheerfully for the past week or two. From my office window, I can also see snowdrops, camellias, viburnum, and hellebore in full glory. Early spring annuals are waiting eagerly in the Service Yard to be planted in the Flower Garden. Anna’s hummingbirds can be heard chattering in the shrubs.

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Next month, the Lord & Schryver Conservancy will begin our season of events. We will kick off with the “Mind the Gaps” Oregon Humanities conversation at Gaiety Hollow on March 3rd at 4:30pm.

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The second full week of March, we are delighted to host garden designer and preservationist Bill Noble. Bill will be here to talk with the board and help guide the Conservancy as we move forward. On March 19th, at 2pm, he will present a talk on the Cornish Colonies in the Dye House at the Willamette Heritage Center. Bill is an engaging speaker and will help us understand the link between the Cornish Colony aesthetic and Edith Schryver’s designs. Please, spread the word! There is plenty of room and we would love a packed house. Register through the website.

Our first garden tours will be later in the month, on March 25.

Please note–Our website address has changed! It is now lordandschryverconservancy.org. Update your bookmarks and tell all your friends.

 

 

Summer Arbor Project

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver

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Stepping into the garden this morning was the usual pleasure…in this case the pleasure of high summer in a gorgeous garden…a cool summer morning, a riot of blooms…

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but pretty much immediately I knew something was afoot…

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the skilled volunteers have the slow and tricky problem of replacing all the wooden members of the gorgeous grape arbor (without disturbing the vines)…board by board.

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during the Strands’ years in the garden their son Dale had carefully tried to preserve the arbor and it’s original fabric…

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but these “fixes” have now rotted as well…another solution involving concrete bases so wooden members are not in contact with the soil…as well as pressure treated wood for the bases…

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It’s slow and painstaking work but they are making headway…and then there’s the matter of paint…

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Stay tuned for a progress report.  One more glance…

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Garden Tour Time!

01 Wednesday Jun 2016

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

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Where did May go?  The gardeners were busy getting Gaiety Hollow looking it’s best for the annual Gilbert House Garden Tour this coming Friday and Saturday, June 3 and 4.  There will be 12 gardens in South Salem open to the public and this is always a great and very fun event.  Entrance to the Gaiety Hollow garden will be from the alley just half a block north of the Mission Street address.  The tour hours are 10-4 and Saturday is predicted to be 100 so hats, sunscreen, water bottles are in order!  I took a walk through the garden yesterday and it is AMAZING at the moment…ROSES are in bloom.  Here’s your preview but believe me, you have to come see and smell the roses.

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The First Open Garden (and the new fence)!

10 Monday Aug 2015

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

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In case you missed the first open garden event today, you still have two more chances.  Thinking of doing the “High Street Hustle” on August 15?  The garden will be open that day from 7:30 to 10:00 a.m.   Sunday, September 13th the garden will be open again from 2-5 p.m….so if you went today you might want to come back as the season begins to change.  (As one who has been in the garden in every season, I  know for sure it is always fascinating and always beautiful.)

Here’s what it looked like today:  Board member Susan Miller greeted people at the gate with information on the garden…

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The day was perfect, warm and sunny, cool in the shade…perfect for strolling and straw hats…

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and chatting…

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Board members were scattered around the garden to give helpful information, and they had set up fantastic vintage photos of the garden so you could juxtapose what had been, what is, and what will be again…

white wall 8-8-015These two plants by the front door are gone, but plans are to replant…

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The west side fountain garden…and the allee north and south

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the grape arbor…

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and the parterres…

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this year filled with zinnias…

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and the new fence…

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replacement fence 2015

The very beautiful “hardscape” in this garden is, of course, wooden.  Things decay over time…

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but luckily for Gaiety Hollow there is a crew of talented and dedicated volunteers who are willing and able to replicate these benches and fences…Woody Dukes rebuilt the bench last year, and Christopher Hackett and his crew of Tom McMullen and Jack Fisher rebuilt the fence this summer…with Don Roberts standing by to paint the items as cut and before being assembled…touch up still required.  HOURS of work and planning…for love of the garden.  Thank you so much.

So…mark your calendar and make a point of taking a walk through this peaceful place right in the heart of Salem.  We are so lucky here in Salem to have this “garden trifecta” within a half mile…Bush Gardens, Deepwood Gardens and Gaiety Hollow…maybe a visit to all three is in your near future??

A Beautiful Day to “Hard Prune”

17 Friday Apr 2015

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

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Friday is volunteer day at Gaiety Hollow so I headed over there this morning…

view from the gate

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The volunteers were taking their coffee break and “talking gardens”…

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Along with the blueberry banana bread, Gretchen had Judith Tankard’s excellent book on the early and influential garden designer Ellen Biddle Shipman (for whom Edith Schryver worked in New York for City 5 years in the 1920’s)…

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Judith Tankard's book

Gretchen had been searching for evidence that Shipman had ever used a white Lutyen’s-type bench in any of her gardens…and…

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This is good news because we have such a bench, thanks to Nan and George Happ (kindly donated when they moved to an urban loft last year), look for it later this season!

Nan's bench

But the talk turned to soil and compost and less glamorous topics…because every garden has less glamorous topics…

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which make the more glamorous things possible…

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The Dirty Work…

15 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver

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I wasn’t in the garden this week, but the core group of loyal volunteers were, and here are Woody Dukes’ photos of the hard work that they were able to do.   Woody was in the garden doing some fence repair…

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Leaves had been raked against the fence from the other side causing a big build-up of leaves as well as some needed repair work to the fence panel…

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But MEANWHILE…a crew of the most hard working and dedicated volunteers got really AGGRESSIVE about cleaning out the beds, digging out every leaf and stick they could find…in preparation for another crew to come in with mulch to cover the new irrigation lines as well as burying emerging weeds…and eventually providing moisture retention in what looks like will be the hot summer months ahead.  Leaves, twigs, fallen camellias…all had to go…hats off to this crew (and if this inspires you, they are working again next Friday…Come on down!)

Joyce Zook…

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Bobbie Dolp…

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Molly O’Dea

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Jay Raney…

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Better than going to the gym!  (Thanks for the photos Woody…)

The House

01 Sunday Dec 2013

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

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Here’s a vintage view of the front of the Lord and Schryver house…

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designed for Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver by the architect Clarence Smith, with whom they worked extensively in Salem.  Built in 1930 with the garden designed and installed by L&S by 1932 to embody all of their principles of house and garden, inside/outside/ flowers/greenery, “informal formality”…the garden survives today because of the long stewardship of the Strand family who purchased the house in the mid 1980’s, selling the property to the Kingery family this summer.  The Kingery “kids” grew up in an L&S garden in Portland

Kingery plan

and generously have purchased the house and garden, giving the L&S Conservancy five years to raise the money to purchase the garden for future generations to enjoy and study (this MIGHT be where you got out your check book to make a donation?… to raise the funds and repay the Kingerys’ investment in garden history…?)

When the Strands moved out this year, some of us were allowed to do a walk-through of the rooms and take a few photos.  The house is small in scale by today’s standards, but is totally oriented to the garden and garden views…take a look…(clicking on any individual photo will enlarge it for you)

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view out terrace doorsliving roomview from diing room

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and check these beautiful tiles from the master bedroom fireplace surround…

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Once the garden and house were habitable, L&S lived and gardened here all of their days…for Elizabeth Lord (left below) until 1976, for Edith Schryver until 1984.

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Congratulations to US!!!

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver

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The Historic American Landscape Survey (HALS) is a federal program created to document historic landscapes in the U.S. (administered through the National Park Service).  In 2013 HALS ran a challenge: “Documenting the Cultural Landscape of Women”…and it was announced November 16, 2013, that Gaiety Hollow won first place!!!!  There’s a cash prize which hopefully can be put toward the purchase of the garden…don’t forget, we’re still raising money!  Help preserve this treasure right in our own town!

If you want to volunteer to help in the garden on Fridays (roughly from 9-12) contact Bobbie Dolp at bobbie.dolp@gmail.com.  Weeding is underway…(weeding is almost ALWAYS underway, I’ve noticed!) but the schedule may vary during the holidays.

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