We are home again from a 3-week trip to Portland, Oregon. It was a fun but exhausting trip. We drove cross-country, so 10 of those days were spent on the road. Along the way, we stopped frequently for some sight-seeing opportunities and I tried to squeeze in as many gardens as I could. The weather was nice along the way and the way back and we really dodged a bullet by missing the polar cold front that came through this week. The rain had begun in Portland a few days before we arrived but it wasn't that bad. The highlight of the trip was our legal marriage (at least in Oregon and about 30 other states) and we had a very small ceremony with a few friends. I took over 1,000 photos and it will take me a while to work my way through them. The trip took us through 8 states - Tennessee, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Oregon. On the first day, we drove to St. Joseph, Missouri and stayed the night there. On the second day, we stopped in Lincoln, Nebraska. I read about a garden there that I wanted to see called the Sunken Gardens. 
This small garden covers just over 1 acre and is located right in the middle of town on the corner of a busy intersection. The garden was developed in the early 1930s on an abandoned dump site. A depression-era project, it provided work for unemployed men. The total cost of the garden at the time was $2,500. In 2003, the Lincoln Parks Foundation donated 1.7 million to renovate the gardens.
 |
| This is an annual garden, filled with thousands of plants. |
 |
| Just across the street was a very nice city perennial garden and rose garden. |
Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy
