Friday, August 6, 2021
CapitalPress.com
Garden Thyme Nursery: Growing
and learning at the same time
By BRENNA WIEGAND
For the Capital Press
SILVERTON, Ore. —
Patti Harris got into the
greenhouse business while
looking for a way to get out
of the house.
She had to quit her bank-
ing job after an illness
affected her eyesight. To
combat cabin fever, her hus-
band, George, began shut-
tling Patti to nursery-related
classes at Chemeketa Com-
munity College in Salem.
“I loved it and I got so
excited; prior to that I hadn’t
been able to grow anything,”
Patti said. “Any sane person
would have gone to work for
a nursery to figure out what
the reality was, but I jumped
in with both feet.”
In 2000, the Harrises
opened Garden Thyme Nurs-
ery on 6½ acres in Silverton
just up the road from the Ore-
gon Garden, which had just
broken ground.
“Pretty soon it hit home
that the reason everything
grew so well was because
(Chemeketa) had a green-
house, a watering system
that could deliver fertilizer
and a staff taking care of
things when I wasn’t there,”
she said. “It is a different
story when suddenly it’s 90
degrees out here and if the
4-inch pots don’t get watered
they die.
“It was a huge shift in
Willamette Gardens: Native plant
nursery a business and sanctuary
on her own in a wheelbarrow until a friend
urged her to avoid “wrecking her shoul-
ders” by getting the tractor. Now, it’s used
CORVALLIS, Ore. — Esther Gruber by her son to mix the soils and do the till-
McIvoy’s Willamette Gardens is a nursery ing for her garden.
specializing in native
“I don’t buy pre-made
plants.
potting soils because I
Her efforts to prop-
don’t use any pesticides
or herbicides,” she said.
agate
native
trees
She purchases PRC —
and shrubs, perenni-
als, grasses, vines,
“publicly recycled com-
sedges and ferns on
post” — from the city’s
her small plot near cen-
residential
recycling
tral Corvallis, Ore.,
pickup service. It con-
has resulted in a niche
tains garden and woody
nursery business that
debris that she mixes
recently celebrated its
with bark and pumice to
20th anniversary.
make the compost she
She terms the nurs-
uses for her plants.
ery “more of a labor
“Each plant has its
of love” with the only
own specifications and
major investment being
qualifications for start-
a small tractor.
ing them,” she said.
She has also spent
Geoff Parks/For the Capital Press “Some are really easy
her life working on Esther Gruber McIvoy tends part — from cuttings — and
rare plants, soil inverte- of her Willamette Gardens na- some take more work.
Some I get bare-root if
brates and other topics. tive plants nursery.
I don’t have them. And
“I’ve always been
natives need to be put in
more of a conservationist
than an environmentalist,” McIvoy said, the right part of a habitat.”
who helped work toward getting Califor-
Willamette Gardens also produces
nia’s Point Reyes designated a national plants for the Benton County Soil and
seashore, which now “offers visitors over Water Conservation Service on a year-
1,500 species of plants and animals to ahead basis, she said.
discover.”
Those who purchase plants from her are
Her plants are grown in raised beds and specific about what they want, she said,
planters, or she does cuttings, McIvoy said. including color preferences, evergreen or
She currently sells the plants “on a retail deciduous trees, watering needs and sun
basis at a wholesale price,” saying it’s the exposure.
only way to keep a steady business with-
But the gardens are a sanctuary for McI-
out having to match the prices of larger voy, who does the work to make it possible.
wholesalers.
“I love coming out here; it’s my escape,”
She used to mix all of her potting soils she said.
By GEOFF PARKS
For the Capital Press
Brenna Wiegand/For the Capital Press
Patti Harris sizes up the display gardens at Garden
Thyme Nursery in Silverton, Ore. The retail operation
grows over 300 varieties of vegetables, herbs and
low-maintenance, vigorous and long-blooming pe-
rennials with an emphasis on drought-tolerant and
deer-resistant plants.
how much responsibility
there was and what sells and
what doesn’t and what’s easy
to propagate and what isn’t,
so it was still a pretty steep
learning curve.”
The nursery now grows
over 300 varieties of vege-
tables, herbs and low-main-
tenance,
vigorous
and
long-blooming
perenni-
als with an emphasis on
drought-tolerant and deer-re-
sistant plants.
COVID-19, September’s
wildfires, the ice storm in
February and a record-break-
ing heat wave the end of June
have each ushered in new
challenges.
Despite the upheaval con-
nected with COVID, 2020
was a great vegetable season,
Harris said.
“I had produced almost
enough vegetable plants for
a normal season — some-
where between 16,000 and
20,000 starts — before we
found out the pandemic was
going to close things down,”
she said. “Sales were up so
much that the stores couldn’t
keep up and we were able to
sell through our veg stock.”
Then there was the
heatwave.
The day it hit 116 degrees
a large shipment was on the
last leg of its trip from Min-
nesota when the truck got
stuck in Salem less than half
an hour away. The plants suf-
fered substantially, but Har-
ris remains hopeful as she
watches over the young
plants. She said the incident
provided her the opportunity
to observe which plants held
up best.
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