Aug. 5, 2007

The Dirt Divas/Brooke Heppinstall, Sally Koppenberg & Hally Truelove

We had summer, finally, last Sunday. Yeah, hot and sunny! A perfect day for a picnic and an jaunt through the garden. By Monday, it looked a lot like September with all the fog and rain. So, I did what any good daughter should and drove to the city to take my mom out to check out the annual Garden Club Tour everyone else did last Sunday.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to waste the one sunny day we had driving around the city in a sweltering car to look at someone else's garden. Besides, if it's raining in the Valley it's generally not raining in the city.

With map in hand, we started out in Turnagain with gardens Nos. 1 and 2.

Linda Lockhart, a Big Lake resident and gardener mused, “Gardeners [are] interested in the gardens on the tour, not the gee-gaws ... to frou-frou them up.”

Mom and I agreed.

Too much garden “art” and not enough gardens seemed to be this year's theme.

The art is knowing when to stop.

We dumped the garden tour map and decided to trek around the old downtown neighborhoods and Turnagain Parkway area to view the local front yards.

Those are real gardens with old growth spruce and ornamental trees lining the streets. Some yards were totally weed-free, but most had the look of gardens designed and maintained by the folks who lived there.

Several homes had plantings of tall thalictrum rochebrunianums, the lavender mist meadow rue, as backgrounds for the gold spikes of ligularia przewalskii.

That purple campanula rapunculoides that everyone loves to hate was in many a garden, to full effect.

Apparently, it is well-liked in the city.

One of our favorite gardens was full of fireweed in full bloom. In a graveled front yard inter-planted with other perennials, this garden had a natural, yet colorful and relaxed feel to it. Probably not what the homeowner intended, but we both thought it lovely.

Meandering around to Brooke Drive we found a classic white garden almost never seen in Alaska gardens. A sweet confection with tall, white delphiniums and white campanulas taking center stage among fresh green foliage and a sugaring of other white-flowering perennials.

A perfect foil for the dove gray Cape Cod style house with white trim.

We gave that two thumbs way up.

You don't have to go all the way to the city to enjoy a leisurely tour of gardens. Grab a latte and cruise the downtown Palmer area where you'll find a few gems.

My favorite is right across from the old hospital's emergency room on Gulkana St.

A lovely combination of tough and hardy tomato red Maltese crosses, sapphire blue delphiniums, and tall orange gold trollius make a lovely wall around a raised vegetable bed.

Drive on up to the corner of the Glenn Highway and West Eagle Avenue to see Verna Euwer's trellised Alexander McKenzie rose that's the centerpiece to a well-tended perennial garden.

Take your tour on the next couple of Fridays and you'll catch the last two Friday Flings in Palmer for the season.

There's fresh produce and still a couple of plant stands toughing it out to the end of the season.

While you're there, check out the agricultural showcase gardens at the tourist center. Take your shoes off and tour the grass paths through what has to be the toughest bunch of perennials this side of the Cook Inlet.

If it will grow in this garden it will grow anywhere.

You can also enjoy the Alaska State Fair gardens before the fair starts Aug. 23 if you stop by the business office and check in during business hours (Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), or by calling at 745-4822.

Head gardening goddess Becky Myrvold promises lots of hot colors in the this year's beds and containers.

If you start at the red gate, you'll see Millie's Garden with raised vegetable beds and annuals.

Stroll down the lane and you'll soon see a garden on your right with shrubs, perennials, and some annuals mixed in.

Give your knees a break. 

Get out of your garden and see that others are doing in their gardens.

Remember though, those city gardens think they're in Portland and the Valley is a much tougher gardening environment. 

 

Writer, artist and gardener, Brooke Heppinstall is the owner of WoolWood Studio & Gardens, a perennials nursery and art studio. www.woolwood.blogspot.com, www.dirtdivasgardening.com