Image provided by: Upper Left Edge; Cannon Beach, OR
About The upper left edge. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1992-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1998)
Some people are bor n with natural talent and the desire to create beauty. Dorothy Lind s e y was one of those people. Combining those traits w ith an eye for the use of the u n u s u a l , a no-nonsense attitude and practicality, and a g e n e r ous spirit, she encou r a g e d and led man y of us gardeners to try to follow her example of the ga r d e n she created that su r rounded her home on Laurel Street in Cannon Beach. Harvey and Dorothy Lindsey and their two sons, Peter and Tim, moved from C alifornia to Cannon Beach in the late 1 950's. Harvey had retired after selling his business, Lind s e y Can Company. He devoted his r etirement years to build their new two-story home on Laurel Street. At the age of 72, Harvey, a talented w o o d worker, built their entire house, work shop and garage by himself, only hiring Paul Bartel to build the fireplace and a friend to help w i t h the shingling. Dorothy and Harvey were a talen t e d team. She d e s i g n e d and plan t e d the garden. Harvey built all the structures that surr o u n d e d her garden. On his d aily w alks on the beach, he found and collected cedar logs to build fences; for posts, stickers and cribbing w a s h e d up from passing freighters; pieces of h a r dwood were made into tables. He c o llected sticks of dri f t w o o d or cut lumber to make t r e llises or stakes for Dorothy to use for holding up her tall plants. Others who he l p e d him collect these sticks labeled the m "Harvey S t i c k s ." G a t hered beach rocks were used to line ga r d e n paths. Washed and chopped-up kelp, Doro t h y use d for fertilize r to enrich the clay soil. Some of the windows used for some structures came from torn- down buildings. Pieces of d r iftwood and 9" dee p tria n g l e - s h a p e d wo o d e n containers left for scrap by the telephone company were made into planters. N o t h ing wasted, nothing wanted, b oth Dorothy and Har v e y made use of all they found. Harvey e n c losed the front garden w ith a split rail fence. In front of their house Dorothy plan t e d pine trees, escallonia, hydrangeas, skimmia and a pink b l o oming camellia. Entering the front garden through a gated han d s p l i t shaked roof pergola c o v e r e d with honeysuckle, the p ath leading to the front door was bordered by tiger lilies. "Watch out, the pollen will stain your clothing," Dorothy would say whe n g r e eting visitors. The o r a n g e - flowered tiger lilies, "Lillium lanci- folium splendens," produce numerous bulblets which form in the crevice between leaf and stem. The bulblets, whe n fully mature, are released by the plant and, if left to grow, in a few years create a large bed of lilies. These lilies can g r o w to 4' or m o r e , as man y as six or more blooms to a plant. Her lily bed had grown quite large. On the south side of the front garden the small garage topped with a cupola and w e a t h e r vane was later use d for Dorothy to store her prize g e raniums and fuchsias through the winter. Later a bay was added and during the summer the bay was filled w ith bright red b l o oming geraniums. Late spring, south of the garage, a bed of y ellow/white b u t t e r c u p like flowers she called Meadowfoam (Limnanthes doug- lasii) bloomed. She would leave them to re-seed each year. Eventually these plants formed a large carpet of flowers. Dorothy was also known as a c r e ative chef and on the sunnier south side of the garage she planted a small v e getable and her b garden. Her backyard garden, not seen from the street, was made m ore private by grape stake fences, Harvey's workshop, trees of M o u n t a i n ash, spruce and alder and shrubs of hardy fuchsias, heather, rhododen drons, azaleas, hydr a n g e a s and a stand of bamboo. She planted drifts of color and textures of man y perennials, shasta d a i s ies, o r a n g e - f l o w e r e d alstroe- meria, lupins, calla lilies and rudbeckia. Seeds of calendula, pansies and columbine were either sown or left to reseed. Every year a surpr i s e plant w ould g row in paths or d i f f e r ent areas of the garden and left to grow. The path leading to Harvey's w o r k s h e d was lined wit h beach rock, and g r o w i n g in the crevices were perennial sw e e t - s m e l l i n g old fashioned violets. Two clema t i s vines "Henry I" (white) and purple- flowered "Jackmanii," and a special red c u t - l e a f e d maple, "Acer palmatum," all three g iven places of honor. In the spring blue scilla, daffodils and primroses bloomed, tucked u nder shrubs of rhododendrons and azaleas followed by Lily of the Valley. All colors of geraniums and hang i n g baskets of fuchsias were placed throughout the garden. T hese plants were held over each year and mult i p l i e d by Doro t h y pott i n g cuttings from the mo t h e r plant. Some of these plants she had brought w ith her from her California garden. Dorothy's ga r d e n was not large. O t h e r than a few plants, neither did she p lant rare or unusual flowers. The most signif i c a n t expre s s i o n of Dorothy's ga r d e n was her a t t e n tion to detail. A small cement statue of a peas a n t girl set off among flo w e r i n g shrubs. D r i ftwood or unusual shaped wo o d e n planters filled with varieties of sedum spilling over the sides or colorful arrangements of flowers. On the front gate she hung a basket that she k ept filled w i t h fresh cut flowers or plants in the summer. For w i n t e r color, cut boughs of red berr i e d skimmia. She d e s i g n e d the garden to have con t i n u e d interest t h roughou t all seasons. Being g e n erous in giving plants, seeds or cuttings and helpful hints of g a r d e n i n g to anyone interested, she did fail to say good soil also makes h e a l t h y weeds. Since she was known to get u p at the crack of dawn to search and attack the army of slugs pre v a l e n t in our area, she p r o b a b l y attac k e d the few weeds that found t heir way into her garden. T here never seemed to be laced leaves from slugs nor evidence of any weeds. Some ga r d e n quotes of Dorothy's g a t h e r e d from family and friends: also circular. The two b u i l d ings s u ggested the flower shop's name, "Mulberry Bush." The new building was divi d e d into three shops. One sold baskets, another antiques, and Lindsey and Mason's flower shop. They sold bedding plants, but mostly d i v iding and potting plants from their own garden. Lindsey became known for her arrangements c o m bining plants in unusual containers such as hollo w e d driftwood, small wooden boxes or decorated p o t s . W hen asked, she gave instruc tions of care for the containers, or how to take cuttings from geraniums and fuchsias, and what grows best here on the coast. Lindsey was always w i l l i n g to share her expertise. Many years later when Beth Holland opened her garden shop in back of Pat's Coffee, H o l l and c o m mented that some of her customers still remembered Dorothy L i ndsey's shop. Dorothy was raised in Portland. Her niece, Barbara (Bobbie) Bosse, told the story that one d a y when Dorothy and Bosse's mother, Mabel, played tennis in W ashington Park, Dorothy snapped a branch off one of the park's special trees and jammed it into the ground in front of their home. The next spring it sprouted. The tree gre w so large, in time it had to be cut down. This may have started Dorothy's interest in gardening. Dorothy finished her s c hooling at Portland's Art M u s e u m School of Fine Arts and later taught wit h the director Rachel Griffian. She continued u sing her talent painting, sculpting and, later in life, crea t e d in man y different mediums. After their beach home was completed, she made ho o k e d rugs for the stair treads. Each step had original designs of pictorial scenes of events that had happened in her family's life. Her table s e t tings, always a bowl of fresh flowers. You never saw a paper ca r t o n of m i l k on her table, always a special pitcher. Her flower arrangements were works of a r t . Each corner of the house was created like a still life composition. Dorothy die d in February, 1981, but her garden and generous spirit of both garden wisdom and sharing inspired man y of us. G e n e r a t i o n s of her original Tiger Lilies, alstro- emeria, c u t tings from her hydrangeas, seeds of meadow- foam, calendulas and columbines g r o w in many gardens throughout Ca n n o n Beach, and a friend has p r o mised me a plant of sweet smelling violets that have m u l t i p l i e d from violets Dorothy gave her years ago. II From beach Io boulevard, a natural choice for wom en's clothing. Portland (503)239-4605 Cannon Beach (503)436-1572 B IS T R reservations : 436-2661 263 N IIEMLOCK • CANNON BEACH ° VSTER f * / Io n ic o f th e W ild O y s te r “ on W illa p a Bay N a lic o tta , W ashington 98637 Foi Rpsfivalions or Information (360) 665 4543 - F a i (360) 665-6687 TABARD I N N 1739 N SI., N .W . W ashington, D .C . 20036 (202) 785-1277 lax: (202)785 6173 Next month, the story about Jubi l a t i o n Park, the small park Judy and Will Osburn crea t e d after they bought the grocery store now called Osburn's Grocery. §teve's aaf E Don't bother with petunias, they need too much deadheading and the rain spoils their petals. S p e c i a l i z i n g in : Environmentally .friendly Window Cleaning -Sirw J C g M o n ta g m Huge lawns are a waste of time. r.o. n»x afín Arcadia Cannon Deacli, ()$ , R7f ¡0 A machete is the best garden tool to cut down all the heavy growth. (30 3 ) 4 3 0 - 0 9 4 2 1 A n d her favorite: H.MWJE FESTiCOEUSE If something doesn't grow well, pull it out. In the 1 9 7 0 's Dorothy and friend Betty M ason opened a flower sho p in the b u i l d i n g now k nown as Pat's Coffee and Basket Shop. Mason owned the property. A groc e r y store that had been there for years burned dow n and Mason hired Joe H o l l i n g s w o r t h to c o n struct a c i r c u l a r build i n g like ones he had built in other parts of the town. Peter, Dorothy's son, b uilt them a green h o u s e from a kit. The green h o u s e style was TOREDUCEOfi ATTENTION BUSKSSES I WE CREATE 1MAINWN ROWER BOXES RANTERS » MMOCBASffTS F 43M73flfcS i UCEhSEC-SOWa WSÄEO M2 Come join us for dinner near the pounding surf at Laneda A Carmel In Manzanita G ourmet pizz A A selection of OREGON WINES A fine BEERS always on hand. 503/368-5593_ UPPER LEfT Eb&E. MARCH 1WZ I 3