"Extending Your Garden Season" - the upcoming HPSO/Garden Conservancy tour

It's late August: is your garden looking as tired as mine is?  If you're in need of a little August garden inspiration as much as I am, there's a tour I can heartily recommend this Saturday, August 29. 

It's the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon/Garden Conservancy tour themed "Extending Your Garden Season".  Five diverse but equally delightful gardens comprise the tour.

Garden themes range from Southern charm, to serious vegetable production, to conifer love, to Mediterranean, to DIY and all things in between.

I was invited to attend a preview tour of three of the five gardens with other Portland area garden bloggers, and I can tell you there is something here for everyone.

We visited Winchester Place Garden, the garden of Zachary Baker and Leon Livengood. This garden is a taste of the South, from its formal design principles to its metal urns dripping with color to its plant palette of hostas, hydrangeas and verbena.

These gardeners are not afraid of color - they combine flowers and foliage fearlessly.

Secluded sitting areas provide relaxing views of the garden.

Here's one of the urns and a hint of the tasteful wrought iron fence that separates two of the outdoor "rooms".

There's formality here but there's also fun, like these brightly colored shades.

And a couple of over-sized bunnies that might make you wonder what rabbit hole you fell down.

Winchester Place Garden is at 2280 SW Winchester Place Portland 97075. It's the lead garden on the tour and garden art will be for sale at this location.

 

The front garden of Chris and Jim Mitchell greets you with beautiful conifers and perennials in lush, textured beds.

Cleome is an unexpected but lovely late-summer note of pink with the more expected August yellows.

In the back garden, paths lead you among huge cedars and myriad plantings, each a little different from the next.

A new bed incorporates succulents and cacti.

Chris Mitchell talks with Loree of Danger Garden about the hardiness of her new in-ground agaves.

Hops and grapes create a shady space to enjoy a cool drink. 

Although Chris shared that most of the grapes are harvested by their bird friends, the hops are put to excellent use in Jim's beer.

Remember I said there was something for everyone on this tour? Case in point: a hidden fairy garden for the young - and the young at heart.

The Mitchell Garden is at 12250 SW Lynnridge Ave Portland 97225.

Nancy and Gordon Prewitt have been gardening their extensive Beaverton lot for 39 years, and the mature garden shows their devotion.

The succulents in this garden delighted me with their vigor.

Oh yes, they have lots of cool perennials and shrubs, too.

And there are tranquil sitting spaces I would love to spend a quiet half-hour in.

But their major annual focus on is vegetables and fruit. And these are sensuously beautiful!

I admired their clever labeling system. No bending down to peer under mature vegetable leaves - the name is right there at eye-level.

In the middle of all those veggies, of course they would have mason bees.

You know the greenhouse and potting areas get a workout each year.

And utility is balanced with beauty at every turn

You'll find the Prewitt Garden at 13625 SW Far Vista St Beaverton 97005.


Not previewed but also on the tour is the 24-year-old, 1/4-acre garden of Marcia and Dennis, "The Pecks" of the Oregonian's Home and Garden Saturday supplement, at 10790 SW 153rd Place, Beaverton, and the Mediterranean garden of Cathie and Al Schmitt, at 10695 SW 153rd Place, Beaverton.

The tour takes place this coming Saturday, Aug. 29, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 
So if you want to "Extend Your Garden Season" check this link for more information on the tour and tickets: hardyplantsociety.org. Tickets are available at each of the gardens and benefit HPSO's grants and scholarship programs and further the Garden Conservancy's mission of preserving exceptional American gardens.