Oregon Garden

     Today we took a day trip inland to the valley and visited the Oregon Garden (link to their homepage). The complex is near the town of Silverton which is near Salem. This is an 80 acre botanical garden that boasts several unique themed gardens that visitors can stroll through. Just a few of the gardens are the Pet Friendly garden where you can see plants showcased that are friendly to pets and shows which ones can be toxic. The Children's Garden has a pit where you can dig for dinosaur bones, a Hobbit house and a miniature train garden along with displays of several weird plants. The Conifer Garden sports the largest collection of miniature conifers in the country. There is a Medicinal Garden where all of the featured plants are used in some form in medicine.

     Everywhere we travel, we see things that the States do really unique and some things they do really weird. This place falls into the really unique and smart category. In 1995, the site formed an agreement with the City of Silverton and developed a Wetlands garden designed to recycle the city's treated wastewater! They found that re-introducing the cleaned wastewater directly into the Silverton river system raised the water temperature such that it impacted the environment. Now the water is fed to the gardens and collected into a series of wetland pools. It is also used for irrigation of the plants and vegetation. As the water flows naturally through the gardens, it is cooled and joins the local river system such that the environment is not impacted. Neat idea and we humans get to enjoy the beauty and serenity of the gardens.

     Above are just a few of the sights that met you around every corner.

     There were many sculpted evergreens in the Children's Garden. Here you are met at the entrance by a teddy bear.

     Something interesting about a tree in the shape of a flower!

     Here is the Hobbit hole for all of you Lord of the Rings fans.

      Colors were everywhere. The last picture shows a patch of ornamental peppers. They were orange and purple but they had several others too. They used it as colorful ground cover. Neat idea!

     The Signature Oak tree is a throwback to a time of Oregon as it used to be. It is estimated to be over 400 years old and stands almost 100 feet tall. One of the gardens consists of acres of Oak trees and is quite relaxing to stroll through.