Yesterday we went on a road trip with the intention of visiting one nursery, Heirloom Roses. We ended up going to three nurseries. It turns out that a lot of the great nurseries that I use to mail-order from, are all located in the Salem, Oregon area. Heirloom Roses is located in St. Paul and Schreiner's Iris Gardens as well as Adelman's Peonies are about twenty minutes away, near Salem. All three had nice display gardens but Schreiner's had to be the most beautiful. We hit it at the right time and quite by accident. We decided to go at the last minute. Photos from Heirloom Roses and Adelman's Peonies are upcoming in a day or so.
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Iris are the focal point of the garden of course but I was quite enchanted by the
lupines, delphiniums, columbine, clematis and various other perennials as well. |
I was also fascinated by the Horse Chestunut trees. You can see a glimpse of the entire tree in the photo above. Below is a close-up of the blooms.
The Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus) (below) was also quite nice. This is a tree that I grew in our Alabama garden.
Believe it or not, the only thing I bought was a corn dog. I do want iris in our garden but there were simply too many to make a decision, plus the ones we really liked were over $50!
Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy
