Last May I was invited to speak at a meeting of the
Willamette Valley Hardy Plant Group in Eugene, OR. The day after the talk
Caleb Melchior,
Steven Garcia, and I visited William McKenzie's home garden in Springfield, OR. This was the view when we got out out of the car.
I thought I was going to visit William's acclaimed garden (quietly acclaimed, a small circle of folks in the know) back in 2023 (
during this Eugene visit) but that didn't work out. I was thrilled to finally be there. William is old school and doesn't own a cell phone, so we wandered the garden hoping to find him.
Thankfully we did and the tour began.
William now lives in the same home he grew up in, but has made many changes to better suit his planty ways. We're about to enter those blue doors and wander the solarium addition.
The feeling of age and layering of plants was magnificent. The space was full, add in 4 people and navigating through was a little challenging.
It was all sorts of fantastic though.
That's Caleb walking out the other end of the structure into a courtyard enclosed on all four sides, but open to the sky.
Looking up up up at the back of the house.
William is part gardener, part collector, part propagator, part creator. His experience and knowledge runs deep and it's obvious he loves to live surrounded by plants. I was in heaven.
We soon headed back through this set of blue doors (not the same blue doors we first came through).
Back out into the garden, but admiring the green of where we'd been.
We never did make it into the aviary, if I remember correctly there was an issue with the doors.
Honestly I'd forgotten all about that missed space until I started going through my photos, there were plenty of other things to see.
Like this semi-enclosed space also off the back of the house, and with the aviary acting as the far side wall (visible on the left).
Tree ferns!
And carnivorous plants.
And fancy plants that look like moss.
Looking up at the house again.
Passiflora some somebody.
And out into another carnivorous plant spot.
Looking back towards the house.
While William, Caleb, and Steven were deep in conversation I wandered into an area covered with shade cloth.
There the are, still talking.
Oh! Look at those tree ferns...
There are entire worlds growing on the trunks.
Hi beautiful...
Okay, I'll stop here for today's post. Friday we'll explore in there...
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