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!
I always love your posts & photos, Bonnie. However, this one somehow tops them all. The colors seem brighter, the whites are whiter, & the calm of the garden speaks to me like never before! Maybe it was the twilight or your words. Thank you for allowing me to “be there” when I can’t.
Wendy I so appreciate your response…this garden needs to be visited again and again…and I know that for sure! I’m thinking about a moonlight tour, wouldn;t that be fun?
Yes, Bonnie, a moonlight tour of the garden would be wonderful! Also, perhaps, a twilight tour like your recent post. Gardens not only change over the seasons, but also each day as the light moves. Thank you, again, for the glimpses you provide into this wonderous legacy garden the ground breaking (pun intended) ladies left us!
Wendy, neighbor Susan Miller has been urging me to do a moonlight tour but I was out of town for the last full moon. She said she looked out that night and the light was VERY bright and she knew it would be perfect!…stay tuned for that one!