Fall Garden Tour. “Garden Inspirations,” in Jacksonville
TouVelle House Garden
After you have finished buying and selling treasures at the Jacksonville Yard Sale on the weekend of Sept 9-11, come visit six beautiful gardens and attend and art show in Jacksonville. From 12 noon until 5 pm, Sunday, September 11, American Association for University Women (AAUW) Medford presents its 3rd Annual Fall Garden Tour, “Garden Inspirations.” Every attempt was made to select a variety of gardens: some small, some large, some drought tolerant, some water hungry, some purely decorative, others loaded with veggies and fruits. This wide selection is intended to provide you with solutions to your personal gardening problems.
Tickets at a cost of $10 per adult (children are free) can be purchased between 11:30 AM and 2 PM the day of the tour in the parking lot at Ray’s Food Place in Jacksonville. Each ticket purchased is accompanied by a booklet containing information about the gardens on the tour along with maps to help you locate them.
Tickets can also be purch
ased at any of the gardens the day of the tour. Descriptions, pictures, and addresses of the gardens are online at www.aauwmed
ford.org (by September 1). Maps to the gardens are also appear on the AAUW Medford website accompanied by photo albums showing distinctive features of each garden.
TouVelle House Garden
Begin your tour by visiting TouVelle House Gardens. The gardens at the 1916 Craftsman-style Judge Frank TouVelle House are designed to welcome visitors and embrace them with a sense of serenity. The highlights of these gardens include the deer resistant plantings, beautiful structures complementing the style of the house, secluded seating areas and beautiful vistas looking both toward and away from the house and five distinct garden areas: the lower lawn, the pond lawn with gazebo, the entry lawn graced with 100+ year-old Oregon white oaks, the wisteria garden with a distinct Asian feel, and the secluded swimming pool area.
AAUW Medford will provide cookies and lemonade at this garden and will sell raffle tickets on a watercolor donated by Dodie Hamilton-Brandon, a member of the Medford branch. Proceeds from the tour tickets and from the raffle tickets are largely used to provide scholarships for local women to attend colleges in the area.
The Art Show and Sale
New for this year’s tour is an art show and sale taking place at TouVelle House. Artists participating in the art show include watercolorist Kim Faucher whose works can be viewed at the Art Du Jour Gallery (www.artdujourgallery.com); silk artist Dixie Kinser whose work can also be viewed at the Art Du Jour Gallery; watercolorist Dodie Hamilton-Brandon whose work can be viewed at her website, www.dodieart.com.; metal work artist, Cheryl Garcia, whose poppies grace South Stage Road on the drive into Jacksonville–Cheryl’s website is www.greatmetalwork.com; local Stampin’ Up Supervisor Gail Etchie will display cards she has created, see her work at the Stampin’ Up website, www.stampinup.net; Camille Korsmo will also display handmade cards for sale the day of the tour. All art shown will have a garden theme.
Von Tress Garden
Von Tress Garden
The next garden featured on the tour is the Von Tress garden that was featured in the June Jacksonville Review. Dappled sunlight filters through the madrones, oaks and an October Glory maple to create a very peaceful feeling for this contemporary woodland garden created by the owners, Cheryl and Fred von Tress. As a professional interior designer, Cheryl used her creative flair to plan pathways, seating areas, a streambed, and to select the placement of beautiful perennials, flowering shrubs, and trees. Fred was integral to the making of this garden, hand placing many of the rocks in the streambed and rock borders in the front yard, installing a French drain in the sloped backyard, and adding his own artistic ideas as well as performing the more labor-intensive tasks. The extensive use of natural materials throughout the gardens enables the landscape to “marry” with Cheryl’s and Fred’s contemporary rustic home.
Bev Smith Garden
The Bev Smith garden complements the rustic cedar house in a natural woodland setting. The garden is the owner’s private park and is a work in progress that will remain unfinished and will never be pristine. The Smiths wanted a space for their dogs and also for the deer that have always lived on the property. Over 220 different hybrids and species of rhododendrons as well as dogwood, azaleas and many evergreen shrubs and trees are collected within this area. Garden art, stone walls and a shaded patio add to the natural landscape and contribute to the charm of the property. If you look carefully you can find a pie cherry tree left from a past orchard as well as some other secret spots. This garden was featured in the May Jacksonville Review.
Mira Wingfield Garden
You will be charmed from your first glimpse of the white picket fence as you tour Mira Wingfield’s unique garden featuring a myriad of containers. Many of her featured containers are made from hollowed out logs. If she isn’t planting in logs, she uses them as pedestals to display one of a kind “garden toys”, many of which are handmade and totally charming. You’ll find everything from guardians of the gate to a wizard or a castle fountain, many made by her daughter, an artist in both ceramic and glass. Mira has many trees and shrubs that are native to our area and has pruned them to create a canopy around her garden. She has more than 60 roses, all in containers. Some of the plants she features in addition to the roses are both pink and white dogwood, Chinese lantern plants, hydrangeas, ferns, hostas and many plants that we normally consider house plants that she pots and displays outdoors. A climbing rose canopy covers the side entrance to the back garden and her delightful brick patio where pots of every variety are displayed. You will immediately notice her passion for Talavera pottery interspersed throughout the garden. In all the borders you will spot pedestals from logs showing off bright spots of container color. Mira’s intent to use natures gifts (always in a very individual and unexpected way) is evident everywhere you look. As you tour this very personal expression of “nature in pots” be sure to look up into canopies where you will find many hidden treasures nestled there. You will also spot a hammock in the trees that looks irresistible and a front porch that is all done in blue-and-white pots and charming creatures. Everyone who visits will take away new ideas for container gardening at home.
Other Gardens on the Tour
The Robert Higgins Garden IS a pristine garden but occupies only a small lot. Special features include a pond, rock walls, and a large variety of plants. The Bob Carlton Garden is a low-maintenance, drought-tolerant garden. The garden has a number of water features including a water storage system. Special features include a Maui room.
The 2011 Medford AAUW Garden Tour was organized by the women active in the Medford Branch of the American Association for University Women. The mission of AAUW: AAUW advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education and research. Within the Medford Branch members (1) participate in public policy activities; (2) raise funds for local scholarships, nationwide AAUW grants, and awards to women for graduate studies (EF); and (3) assist people seeking judicial redress for sex discrimination in higher education (LAF). We are proud of the local scholarships we provide to Jackson County women as well as the contributions we make to the AAUW Educational Foundation and Legal Advocacy Foundation. Medford AAUW is a nonprofit organization. Funds raised as a result of the 2011 Garden Tour will largely be used to fund scholarships benefitting women in Southern Oregon.