SARAH ROBERTSON For Mid-Valley Sunday | Posted: Saturday, December 1, 2007 10:00 pm
It's easy, especially during the holiday season, to get so focused on hustling from one place to the next that we forget to take a moment to pause along the way.
As a veteran of many a road trip on various interstates, I can attest to the "get there, be there" mindset. But if you ask my kids, they'll say that their favorite highway adventures had little to do with necessity and were basically an excuse to do something frivolous and fun.
A decade ago I wrote about winter road trips and mentioned a few garden-related outings to take during a season when, well, most folks don't.
The other night at dinner our family got to talking about what we wanted to do this holiday season, and our two kids, now 13 and 16, are actually lobbying to revisit some of those same public garden destinations.
This time of year is a great time to take a short road trip. It gets everyone out of the holiday rush rut and offers an opportunity to spend quality one-on-one time with the favorite folks in your life. Especially when, as an added bonus, you get to stroll through interesting landscapes populated with spectacular plantings.
A helpful guide through your public garden travels is "Green Afternoons: Oregon Gardens to Visit," (1998, Oregon State University Press, $17.95 softcover), a terrific book - still in print, thank goodness! - by Portland author Amy Houchen. It's filled with public gardens large and small, some of them just a short hop off Interstate 5. Houchen's descriptions include fascinating details of previous garden owners, when these gardens are best viewed, what makes them special and, perhaps most important, clear and concise directions on how to get there.
Intrigued? Here are a few tempting choices to get you on - and then off - the freeway this holiday season, if only for an afternoon:
• Shore Acres: 89814 Cape Arago Highway, Coos Bay. (1-866-888-6100).
Why stop there now? Thousands of lights are decorating the garden's trees, shrubs and structures every night (4-10 p.m.) through Dec. 31. Vibrant LEDs are back after rave reviews from nearly 46,000 visitors in 2006; new colors include pink, purple and warm white.
Shore Acres is the former home of lumberman Louis Simpson, who built a mansion, formal garden and Japanese-style garden shortly after the turn of the century on a shelf above a small inlet of the Pacific Ocean. His fleet captains brought Simpson exotic plants from around the world. Although the original house burned down in 1921, it was replaced by a new mansion.
By 1942 Simpson could no longer afford the lifestyle and sold his estate to the Division of State Parks.
Sadly, the house was razed and the gardens mothballed after World War II: ponds filled, many individual plants destroyed, specimen beds turned into lawns.
Things began to turn around for the garden in the early 1970s. Restoration experts recreated the formal gardens using the original outlines and replanted following the spirit of Simpson's design. The Japanese garden was duplicated, with identical plantings and ornamentation. An All-American Rose Selections display garden was added.
In 1987, the Friends of Shore Acres decided to "string a few lights" - about 6,000 - to help celebrate the holidays. The display drew 9,000 visitors.
This year, more than 1,500 volunteers help to string a quarter million lights. These decorate trees, buildings, walkways and dozens of amazing, occasionally moving, sculptures. The displays draw between 40,000 to 50,000 visitors each season, depending on the weather.
Shore Acres is full of treasures to explore: a pergola with historical photographs, exciting plantings and garden rooms with enough structure to look lovely 365 days a year. If you have time, and you're visiting during the day, stop by Simpson Beach and enjoy a classic combination of sandy shore, dramatic rocky headlands and a freshwater stream.
From downtown Coos Bay, follow the signs. Shore Acres is about 12 miles southwest of Coos Bay and is typically open from 8 a.m. to sunset every day. For the holiday light show, admission is $3 per vehicle. This walk-through display is wheelchair accessible.
• Deepwood: 116 Mission Street S.E., Salem, (503) 363-1825.
Why stop there now? The garden is classically beautiful all year long and can be viewed, free of charge, from dawn until dusk.
The gorgeous gardens were created by the Northwest's first female landscape architecture firm, Lord & Schryver. Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver were commissioned in 1929 to design 2.5 acres in the English garden fashion. The Deepwood Estate, which originally totaled 5.5 acres, also includes gazebos, the original carriage house, outdoor wedding gardens and the Rita Steiner Fry Nature Trail.
The gardens were the brainchild of Alice Brown. She and her husband, Clifford, became the third owners of the estate in 1924. After Clifford died in 1927 during a fishing expedition, Alice turned all her attention to the development of a garden and hired landscape architects Lord and Schryver.
The two women designed several separate garden rooms, including the Tea Garden, Scroll Garden and the Great Room garden. Brown added her own touch, incorporating a reflecting pool (later planted to ivy) and the Shade Garden alongside the tennis court.
Brown remarried in 1945. Her groom, Keith Powell, was the widower of the daughter of the second owners of Deepwood; his first wife had grown up there.
The Powells moved out of Deepwood in 1968. The Friends of Deepwood came up with enough money to purchase 2.29 acres of the original 5-acre estate. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and the gardens were lovingly restored in 1980 and 1981.
This garden boasts a wide range of interesting areas, from the formal gardens to a billowing hedge border that bursts with waves of color from March through September. There is a nature trail, rock garden and even a home composting demonstration center.
The house, built in 1893-94 and designed by William Christmas Knighton (former state architect), is completely decorated for the holidays each year. A free open house is set for Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., but daily and even a few evening visits are also planned. Check with Deepwood for details, as the schedule is just now being set. Home tours cost $4 for adults, $3 for students and $2 for children; those under 6 are free.
• The Grove of the States: OK, laugh if you will, but this small garden at the southbound Baldock Rest Area on I-5, at Wilsonville, is actually great fun to explore.
Why stop there now? Because it's interesting. Back in 1967, Oregon hosted the annual meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General. Robert Y. Thornton, then Oregon's AG, wanted a permanent commemoration of the occasion.
His idea: Planting a grove with the official tree of every state and other jurisdiction (Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands) represented at the conference.
The result is a crowded but fascinating group of beautiful trees: poplars (Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana), palm (South Carolina), bur oak (Illinois), buckeye (Ohio), two kinds of pinon pine (New Mexico, Nevada) and, naturally, Oregon's own Douglas fir.
There is a handy sign located near the grove's entrance that identifies the location of the tree represented by each state, commonwealth or territory.
• The Berry Botanic Garden: 11505 S.W. Summerville Avenue, Portland, (503) 636-4112. This garden requires a bit of preplanning, as you're technically suppose to call ahead to tell them you're coming. (This is a public garden located in a private neighborhood, Dunthorpe, and required a variance in order to exist.). The garden is open seven days a week, daylight hours, with informational brochures available at a kiosk when staff and volunteers are not around to personally answer questions. This garden is worth the effort - and worth jumping off I-5 at Terwilliger (Exit 297) to meander your way there.
From the exit, proceed south on Terwilliger. Where it curves to the right past the Lewis and Clark law school, continue straight ahead on Palater, following the signs to Lewis and Clark College. After one-tenth of a mile, turn right on Palatine Hill Road. After nine-tenths of a mile, turn right on Military Road. After one-half mile, turn left on Summerville. The garden is at the end of the street on the left, marked by a mailbox.
Admission is $5 per adult nonmember (12 and under free). Membership costs $35 for an individual, $50 for a family.
Why stop there now? This outstanding garden began as a collector's vision. Rae Selling Berry was a dabbler; she corresponded with plants people from around the world and subscribed to plant-hunting expeditions in China, Nepal and Tibet in the 1930s.
After her collections outgrew her initial suburban lot (and that of a neighbor!) in southeast Portland, she moved to the garden's present location, choosing the site for its curved contours. Berry and her husband built the house in 1938.
She was also one of a rare breed, the focused collector. She founded the Oregon Primrose Society, was a charter member of the American Rhododendron Society and graciously volunteered her expertise and actual plants to various other public gardens. Berry collected and hybridized trees, shrubs and understory plants from eastern Asia, found herself fascinated by rock garden plants and lilies, and proved to be a reckoning force clear up until her death at the age of 90 in 1976.
Friends and gardening enthusiasts purchased the property and in 1979 founded the Berry Botanic Garden.
First and foremost, Berry designed her garden to be a year-round visual pleasure to herself and her many visitors. There's always something to see and, because of the garden's design, you can spend a delightful hour - or a delightful day - in this landscape, which has many elements that suburban gardeners can take home and use in their own sites.
There are five main collections: rhododendrons, alpine/rock garden plants, natives, primroses and lilacs. But there are also numerous smaller collections of peonies, bog plants, ferns and others.
Because rhododendrons enclose and are part of just about every part of the Berry garden, visitors can get a very clear idea of the design principles used when incorporating these lovely plants in a suburban setting. Berry interplanted with lots of deciduous trees, perennials and groundcovers, weaving large clumps to form a tapestry rather than a patchwork quilt.
There is also a greenhouse, water garden and nature trail.