When I left Portland, I was really just on my way down to visit my niece and her family in Medford. I decided Salem was a good place to stop for the night, and didn't really think about the next day and whether I should head directly down to their house after checking out or should look around for something in that area.
It was a beautiful morning, and I decided some time outside in nature (do you see a pattern here?) would be a great start. I looked around online, and discovered I was only about 15 miles from Oregon Gardens - a botanical garden in Silverton, OR that held it's grand opening ceremony just over 20 years ago.
The site itself is about 120 acres, with 80 of those developed into more than 20 individual gardens. These include a created wetlands area, a native oak grove, a conifer garden (housing over 600 different conifers), a rose garden (also associated with the International Rose Test Garden in Portland - see prior post), a Children's garden, a water garden, a northwest garden, a pet-friendly garden, a sensory garden, and more.
To start, I took a tram ride which wandered through the entire area - great to see and giving me the opportunity to decide where I definitely wanted to return for time to walk around. Which, unfortunately for my estimated timeline, was just about everywhere.
One of the things I found really interesting was the Wetlands Habitat, one of several themed gardens (with fortunately, paths all the way through). From the website:
"The Wetlands are an innovative, pioneering program in partnership with the City of Silverton in which the area’s treated waste water is used to create a thriving wetlands habitat for a variety of wildlife and plants.
The water travels at the rate of 300 gallons per minute in peak season through a series of terraced ponds with cascading water, pools and wetlands plants, into a holding tank where it then flows into an irrigation system — a unique and attractive method of using treated water to irrigate the Garden. "
This visit was a serendipitous and joyous treat! If you have been following along, you know that I take any chance I can to be outside. I ended up spending over 3 hours at Oregon Gardens, and could have spent double the time. This location will be on my 'visit if at all possible!' list for sure.
Lots of pictures (but not close to all that I took)! Note the live roof on the first picture.
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