The 2014 ANLD Garden Tour...

Last week I took part in the pre-tour for the 2014 ANLD Garden Tour. This tour focuses on gardens designed by members of the Association of Northwest Landscape Designers, we visited 6 gardens mostly in North and Northeast Portland, with one in Southeast. This tour is an excellent opportunity for homeowners in need of professional landscape assistance to see what the member designers can do. This tour isn't a plant-centric event (although a couple of the gardens were obviously tended by plant lovers) but rather a chance to think about the bones of our gardens. Here's a quick look at what you'll see on the tour...

We started the day at the garden of David P. Best, designed by Barbara Hilty and Adriana Berry. Since the pre-tour was just getting underway we stood listening to announcements and thanks for quite awhile. I don't do well in an environment where I am forced to stand still for long periods and I feel trapped by the large number of people all around me. I coped by taking photos of the hardscape elements at my feet.

The varied intersections of metal, pavers, and soil was an interesting design element throughout this garden.

The second garden belonged to the Malones, recent transplants to Oregon, and was designed by Marina Wynton.

Remember, there is always an agave. This one has been left plenty of room to grow.

This take on the traditional bottle tree was created by Mike Suri, who was on hand to tell us a little about the design process. He also created a pair of gates, one visible in the first photo of this garden above.

Sometimes you've just got to work around things...

As we stood listening to the presentation in this garden I dreamed about growing Joe Pye Weed...

And having a fabulous garden shed with a green roof and doors like this...

The third garden of the day was one I've visited before, and for those of you joining us in Portland for the Garden Bloggers Fling one you'll be visiting too. The designer behind the Ernst/Dermer Garden, is Laura Crockett (who also had a hand in the Floramagoria garden).

This remains one of my favorite seating areas ever...

During the Fling those doors will be open and we'll be visiting the neighboring garden as well.

I got some great tips from plant-nut (and gardener/owner) Linda Ernst about overwintering astelia.

After a tasty lunch stop at Garden Fever Nursery we were back on the road. Garden number four belongs to Pat Moore who got design help from Bruce Hegna. Pat had a bit of a problem...

Propagation skills gone mad! He needed a way to corral his collection and make the garden livable, Mr. Hegna created raised beds to coral the plant collection and plenty of hardscape to make the garden workable. You can read more about the process here.

One of my favorite features of this garden was something I spotted as we were leaving. The planted, yet walk-able, hell-strip...

Here we are at the Meihoff Garden, designed by Donna Giguere. This home sits on a narrow street with bumper to bumper parking on both sides. One of the homeowners design requests was a parking space, which they got...

The wide hell-strip had the densest carpet of Leptinella squalida 'Platt's Black' that I've ever seen.

Amazing!

The glass spheres throughout the garden are the work of Zoe Bacon.

Leaving en-route to the final garden I spotted this license plate...

Here we are at the Williams Garden designed by Darcy Daniels (I visited Darcy's personal garden back in 2011). Darcy shared that one of the first questions she asks is whether or not the garage is actually used to park a car. If the answer is no then the driveway is claimed as garden space! These planters are on castors so they can be moved aside if need be...

When in place they create a private seating area just outside the home's side-door.

There were several fabulous plant combos in this garden.

That's Darcy under the shade pavilion addressing the group. I didn't think to ask if the designers would be on-hand the day of the actual tour, I bet they will be.

So did I whet your appetite? The tour is this Saturday, June 28 from 10 am to 4 pm. Tickets are $20 and available online as well as at Garden Fever, Xera Plants, both Portland Nursery locations, Cornell Farm and Dennis 7-Dees. Proceeds from the tour go to fund scholarships for design students. Click here to see my friend and fellow blogger Jane's take on the tour and here to see what Heather thought. Oh and Heather's giving away a set of tickets! (*late breaking news, Ricki at Sprig to Twig has a pair of tickets to giveaway too!*)

All material © 2009-2014 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.