The Oregon Garden

Our travels in Oregon were two weeks ago now. Here is the last installment of that trip. 

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The Oregon Garden was conceived by the Oregon Association of Nurseries as a place for a public showcase. The City of Silverton was looking for a way to use reclaimed wastewater. They connected in what became a 80 acre public garden and event center that opened in 1999.

The wastewater peculates through a series of terraced wetlands  and then into a holding tank to supply all of the water needs of the botanical garden. 

We first visited this garden in its formative stages, when we were visiting my mother, who lived nearby in the town of Molalla.  We have been there a couple of times since, but not for along time. It was interesting to see how much it had matured. 

This botanical garden contains more than 20 specialty gardens, including one of the largest collections of conifers in the country. 

Entering through the gift shop, a perennial path leads to the water garden.

The conifer garden, a collection of large to miniature trees and shrubs, looks a lot different than when it was first planted.  

At the back end of the conifer garden you come to the fountain and vista up to the resort. 

We enter back into the conifers to take a different path. 

This formal area is called a Bosque. 

A central axis runs through the garden from the resort at the top.

There are many paths to choose from to take you to the various rooms in this garden. We used our map frequently.

Silverton site in the foothills just above the Willamette Valley, which you can glimpse through the grove of Oregon oaks. 

I was very intrigued by this plant. It's called Showy Milkweed. 

Being a "big tree" collector, I was happy to add this mighty oak to my collection. I's over 400 years old, a survivor for sure. 

I want this bench!

The Children's Garden was fun. 

A cool water feature, a rain wall. 

This lovely bloom belongs to a Pineapple guava.

The bush looks like this. 

We spent four hours here, seeing all there was to see and having lunch on the terrace of the gift shop. It was a great way to spend a morning before we headed back home to Seattle from our trip to Oregon and my valley.