Behind the scenes

View local, professionally designed gardens this weekend on the Behind the Scenes Garden Tour

By Nicole Decosta

The Times, Jun 27, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Open the front door. Breathe in views of rolling hills. Wrap hands around a warm cup of tea and disappear into puffy patio furniture on the porch.

Notice a Bluebird vying for attention, hopping from tree to tree.

Feel alive.

Decorative foliage arrangements and splashes of whimsical garden art elicit joy and serenity for homeowners Russ and Dot Carson.

Their 5-acre property in the Stafford area – formally part of the Wilhelm Farms location – holds testament that different areas of the yard can have different personalities.

“We wanted some southern influences like the Tupelo tree and the sassafras trees,” Dot Carson said. “We’re from Louisiana.”

When planning the garden, landscape designers Phil Thornburg and Miriam Bock with Winter-bloom, Inc. – in collaboration with Judith Hutchinson Design – chose to incorporate a few Tupelo trees, which typically grow in swamps and floodplains in the south. Fragrant sassafras trees also blend with northwest foliage, creating an eclectic mix reminiscent of places they hold near and dear.

The public is invited to view the garden on Saturday, June 28, on the Behind the Scenes Garden Tour. Organized by the Association of Northwest Landscape Designers, the tour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. showcases selected landscapes of seven designers in the Dunthorpe/Lake Oswego and Tualatin/Stafford areas.

“All of these gardens are designed by professional designers,” said Jan Main with the ANLD, also a landscape designer with her company Lee and Main Garden Design, Inc. “It really is a showcase for professional gardeners and allows the public to see the quality of work the designers are doing.”

Thornburg explained that the different sections of this yard – such as the higher elevation area near the back porch and the patio planters – were created purposely.

“You have to think of hardscapes first and then the plants last,” Thornburg said. “The plants actually embellish and make (the yard) pretty but if you don’t have the structural elements it doesn’t create the same drama and excitement.”

Everything has its place

Thornburg said more intensive plants were placed in close proximity to the house so they could be easily tended to, while plants that require little or no work are near the perimeter.

He separated different sections of the garden into “rooms,” starting with the area’s function first and then its form.

“This is one room,” he said, pointing to an area at the entrance of the driveway. “This is what you experience when driving in a car – the entry room. We framed it by putting trees on this side and over there on that side. Those are three Crape Myrtles which bloom massively in the summertime.”

Visitors can view two Nyssa sylvatica, large shade trees, and a grouping of Western red cedars within a grouping in the lawn.

“We wanted to accentuate the grasses that are out in the meadows with ornamental grasses,” he said. “It’s quite amazing when all these things are tawny and have their blooms.”

Even though neighbors are far away, Thornburg created some vignettes that act as a screen and buffer between properties.

“That’s why you see collections of trees and a large meadow in between (the homes),” he said.

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