Garden, Sea, and Art:
Ocean Shores is a small but ecologically varied place. Just six miles long, the city, encompasses at least eight different ecosystems, each with its own mini-climate, soil conditions, and plant life. To complete this thought, these ecosystems are open saltwater, ocean beaches, tidal salt marshes, freshwater ponds and canals with their shorelines, deciduous and conifer woods, rock jetties, open fields, and extensive mudflats. Just for fun, see if you can find all eight in your wanderings around the peninsula.
A good way to experience this is to drive down Ocean Shores Boulevard. Watch as the vegetation changes. Stop occasionally and note temperature and wind differences. Drive down Pacific Blvd., Taurus Blvd., Skylark St., or any other public access to the beach. Note differences between each of the beaches. Different kinds of erosion and/or accretion are occurring. Be sure to walk out onto the North Jetty. Continue, staying as close as you can to the bay. It is a bit warmer here and protected from some of the wind. The beaches have a different character as well. I find beach combing to produce more interesting surprises on the bayside. One tourist shared that she had been told to look for agates here.
This variety makes gardening interesting. Local gardeners eventually find out that the seaside is cooler and windier with sandier soil than the bay side. The jetty-side is colder and considerably windier with saltier and sandier soil than the city-side.
Each year during the summer, the WSU Master Gardeners of Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties sponsor a tour of eight or so spectacular gardens. One year the garden tour was in Ocean Shores and went from the sea to the bay; from the city to the jetty. It included inland deep in the forest to the shorelines of Duck Lake. You could find gardens of totally different ecosystems. Each garden the expression of its owners who knew well the mantra “right place, right plant.”
Some gardens featured flowers, even roses (really? roses in Ocean Shores? YES, really!) Some featured edibles like fruit and vegetables. Some featured gardening year-round. Some highlighted their environs, taking in as a part of their landscape the view or the surrounding trees and vegetation. Some of the gardens had been in the making for more than 20 years. We saw the beauty of mature plants and tested gardening techniques. But we also saw newer gardens that display how beauty can be created even in difficult conditions in amazingly little time.
As different as they were, all the gardens shared one Ocean Shores thing in common. Yep, the deer! Some gardeners had chosen different ways to protect and keep their plants away from danger. Others have, through experimentation, chosen flowers and plants and ways to plant them that the deer seem to avoid – at least most of the time. We found all kinds of techniques to deal not just with deer, but with other wildlife like raccoons who might share the habitat you create in your own garden. Should you choose to attract more friendly creatures such as birds, bees, and butterflies, we found lots of supreme examples here too.
It was difficult to walk away from these inspiring gardens and not want to get out into your own garden!
This article was originally printed in The Ocean Observer, July 2019.
