The Oregon Garden
Anne Jaeger
“You can plant a nail in Oregon’s soil and it’ll grow.” Can’t you just hear the pioneers saying that 150 years ago and glad-handing each other at their good fortune? Funny or not, it’s still true today. So it never did seem quite right that Oregon didn’t have a fabulous garden to show it all off. Oregon exports 75% of its nursery stock ($500 million a year) across the United States. Why not put it to work here at home?
Enter the town of Silverton with a big sewage problem and no quick fix. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but the Oregon Garden is the best looking water treatment plant you’ve ever seen. The city of Silverton built an Industrial Park on a wetland in town and needed to replace what was lost. All that water and wetlands you see at the Oregon Garden is how it’s done. The fountains circulate the same water over and over, but other than that, the garden uses no city water for its plants, trees and grass. Ben Gentile of the Oregon Garden explains the old water eventually trickles through ponds and “goes into underground storage tanks. We’ll use that water in the warmer months for our irrigation in the dry summer months.” There’s no other water purification system like it in the world, according to the folks at the Oregon garden. Novel. Ground breaking. And it keeps the garden green, to boot. Kinda makes you wonder what they’re using in their wash cycle, I mean, the Oregon Garden gets vibrant color from such gray water.
By the time the garden gates opened in 2000, much of the $25 million in start up costs went into the ground. They created the bones of the garden, the filtration system, the paths and structures. Now they’re on a long term plant to put in the window dressing. What you see today is the first phase of a 20 year plan. You can meander through 70 acres of garden, but there are plans for 170 more.
The garden averages almost 200,000 visitors a year. It will need twice that and some to become self sufficient. To help out in the meantime, the current “Cultivate the Vision” campaign is soliciting half a million dollars a year for the next five years from Oregon nursery growers. “Not because the garden is struggling financially” says campaign chairman Norbert Kinen, but because the garden “must stand on its own two feet over the next five years and we’ve got to make sure the support, growth, care and plantings will not be interrupted” until they do.
It’s a huge amount of land with a huge learning curve for the people in charge. Jessica Sall, Oregon Garden Education coordinator says despite all the water they pour onto some plants “it’s still a harsh site for some plants because of the full hot sun.” It’s no secret the soil is “hard scrabble” in some places and being improved at every turn. The sloped site gets sun dawn to dusk and will until the trees grow large enough to supply a canopy for what maybe struggling for a breather underneath. Even the experts have learned some plants such as rhododendrons and azaleas don’t seem to perform up to expectations but there are some thrilling surprises too. Cistus (rockrose) loves it, as does penstemon (beard tongue) and ceanothus (California lilac) and so much more.
So three years into the life of this new garden, is the garden half full or half empty? Debbie Montoya spent the day there for her birthday this month and she says “it’s exciting to know there’s even more to come.” It makes her want to visit again. Montoya is delighted by the passion flower blooming profusely on the iron railings of the Amazing Water Garden. Then just as quickly this Southeast Portland native, now living in Lake Oswego, is distracted by “the picture perfect water lilies; pink, yellow and white.” So if there’s something missing at the Oregon Garden few people can find it. There’s so much to see as it is.
