GRESHAM JAPANESE GARDEN

Tsuru Island
James Card:

EditorHeirloom Azaleas
About five years ago additional azaleas
were needed for Tsuru Island. We wanted
them to match the existing plants thatflank the bridge at the beginning of theisland.
In order to accomplish this we
searched
severalwholesalenursery
locations and requested samples. Six
samples were purchased.
They were alldifferent in some small way. Bothered bythis we decided to take cuttings fromexisting plants and have them rooted. Van
Veen
Nursery
tookthecuttings
toreproduce the azalea.
The owner, Kathy Van Veen, now deceased,processed the plants at no charge.
Sheneeded new tray blankets for her staging
of cuttings process, hers were 25 years
old. Boyd's Coffee donated burlap coffee
bean bags. A Cub Scout troop that needed
volunteer time cut the materials into theliner proportions, A couple of months
later we had plants that were ready tocontainerize. Today if you tour the Garden
you will notice these azaleas planted
throughout.

Original Azalea

no nutrition other than the spent blooms
and leaf drop.
In about a year, a marketing program forthe heirloom azaleas will be set up. The
sale will assist to fund the endowment
program.
In the meantime there arecontainers,soil,andvolunteers
inpreparation for the plant sale.
A labeland photo gallery will be designed, showing
the plants in use at the Garden. Planting
and care instructions will be included on
the label.

A new generation of several hundred plants
are growing and almost ready. They will
bemarketedwiththegarden'sownidentity. This plant is named Tsuru Island
Heirloom Azaleas. The name came to mind
when we realized that we had a unique plantthat was not produced by any nursery
operation today.
This fact makes themunique to the Garden.
The azaleas is aHino Crimson. This variety was originallyproduced by those who assisted with theoriginal garden 50 years ago. The Garden
azaleas are very strong and adaptable
plants which is what makes them so special.
Just imagine how many years these plants
lived and thrived with no regular water,

ISSUE 30JULY 2018 EDITION

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Ebetsu Plaza Construction
The plaza will be basically completed byAugust 9th and ready for a Chamber ofCommerce Ribbon Cutting event on August
10th. The Plaza will be used by the Gresham
Rotary Club to host the Friday morning
membership meeting. The event will startat 9am. This event is open to the public.
Over the past few weeks the volunteers have
moved boulders, added soils, installed
plants, installed 8 cubic yards of riverrock to the drainage/stream bed, installed
20 cubic yards of bark dust, stained 1500
square feet of pavers, prepared for thebench pads, installed drip irrigation to
all of the plants, cleaned the surrounding
work areas, and built a cart for theengraving machine. The first 60
touchstones have been engraved.
The finishing touches will take place inthe next few day which include installationof benches and the addition of theSpringwater Trail monuments. They have been
refurbished from the trail replacement
project, keeping with a bit of trail
history.

Volunteer Greeters
The Garden is fortunate to have several evening
greeter volunteer to stay at the garden until 8:30 pm. 5
evenings last week were filled by garden enthusiasts,
greeting visitors, preventing vandalism, making calls
to authorities when necessary. Volunteers havebrought books to read, children to play with and one
has a pit bull dog who enjoys the cool shade of thegarden and is a great deterrent to the guests that havedestruction in mind.

One of the additions to the Plaza area is a"Community Message Board". This will beinstalled at the end of the lawn on thewest side area of Ebetsu Plaza where thethree cherry trees are installed.
Hopefully this will be installed by the endof August. It will have access to bothsides with a hard surface walkway in front.
A roof line will keep people and themessage area dry. Message postings can beplaced from top to ground level with a full
8 foot width. Once completed the area will
become an extension of the Plaza, notimeline has been established.

If you are interested in spending a quiet evening in theJapanese garden please go to the website:
greshamjapanesegarden.com

ISSUE 30JULY 2018 EDITION

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Some People Are Just Lucky
If you have ever had a mole come up in
your yard you may not be too put out if
it takes place in the bed areas or bark
dust is present. The damage can be fixedeasily and sometime not even noticed.
But those who have experienced the same
event in the lawn have a different story
to tell. It is mixed with anxiety,frustration and a willingness to kill.
Moles are animals that live and nest
underground. They make vast systems oftunnels in search of worms, bugs, larva
and other food sources. The mound on
the surface is the result of the tunnel
construction pushed upward to be gotten
out of the way. The mole is blind anddoes not have any way of knowing where
he is except by smell and temperaturechange and warmth of the areas above thesoil line. The mole is an excavation
machine and requires huge energy to dowhat they do. A mole can consume 100%of his body weight in just one day.
There are two types of runways that themole produces, a deep runway that is
like a main highway to get from one area
to another and may be used by several
moles. The subsurface runway is where
the mounds created are the result of
looking for the food source. Moles aremeat eaters and will not eat the roots
or bulbs of your plants, that is being
done by another critter all together.
As a matter of fact the mole is actuallyassisting with insects and grub
destruction that are causing problems

is that grubs and worms will be killedby the chemical leading to birds andother critters them and also being
killed.
Over the years many have experienced thebest way to controlling the moles is bytrapping. This does not mean that
another mole will not use the sametunnel. Most of the mole issues can be
dealt with the help of an exterminator.
Landscapers do not have the licenses andsafety knowledge to use the products anddevices around the property, pets andchildren should be considered.
It so happens that Jim has moles in theyard and they periodically make a molehill or two in the lawn. He packs thesoil back into the hole. This year themole(s) are coming up in the COMPOST
bin. Every day the dirt mound appears.
The compost bin has lots of worms.
Between the worms and the mole mixing
the dirt, this is the best compost soil
around.

"Some people are just lucky".

How to get rid of the mole! By trap,gas, repelling with chemicals oreliminating the food source. By
eliminating food the mole will findanother area. Sometimes the mole will
move into another area because ofvibration possibly by heavy equipment
and/or traffic in the area, temperatureand lack of moisture. To eliminate thefood source sometimes using chemicals
can result in the mole ingesting it
though it's food source, which may or
may not kill the mole. What does happen

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Saving a Part of History
Many residence of Gresham will remember
the Ambleside area just off Hogan Rd. andthe Springwater trail.
This area wasoriginally designed and built around 1906.
At that time the Springwater corridor hada railroad running from Portland to theBoring, OR area.
There were 10 homes
built on Ambleside Street along Johnson
Creek that were used mainly as vacation
homes for some residence of west Portland.
It was a short rail car ride from theirhomes to the Gresham site. Over the years
people continued to live in those homes
until about 2017. The Metro council voted
to purchase the land. The intent was toturn the area back into a flood plain forJohnson creek area and remove all thehardscapes, dams, and utilities from thearea.
As this construction projectproceeded
theCityofGresham
wascontacted and asked if they could use theplant material. Much of it was overgrown,
uncared for and had aggressive vines
growing through them.
Jim Buck and Jim
Card, of the Japanese garden, wereinformed by Tina Osterink of the Urban
Forestry Division, to look at the plants.
They proceeded to tag 8 mature plants that
included Japanese lace leaf maples.
VariegatedAndromeda,
weeping
Norwayspruce,Japanesecedar,andrhododendrons.
It was a difficult challenge since thetemperatures were well over 80 degrees andthey had limited time to remove all thetrees before demolition.
Both sides of

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the plants’ foliage were coated with a wax
product to assist in retaining moisture.
400 gallons of water was placed on theroot systems the days prior to digging thetrees. Some plants were so close together
a 4 foot deep trench had to be dug between
them. On the day of transfer the task wasaccomplished with a track hoe that carved
a circular ditch around the root ball ofeach plant. The balls were wrapped withburlap and coated twine and were carefully
removed by putting them on a City owned
trailer and truck. They were moved to thestorage yard at Main City Park.
Theplants again had been coated with wax
based material and saw dust placed aroundthe root balls to retain water.
Shade
cloth was placed over and around eachplant. They will stay in this state untillate fall of winter, when they will beplaced in an appropriate place to beenjoyed by the public.
These plants are so big (4-8 feet tall)that only one could fit in the back of theflatbed truck. Only 3 could fit on the16ft. trailer.
As expected, the maples
are suffering some shock and leaf drop butappeartobecontentwith
theirenvironment now.
Assistance in keeping
these plants in good shape is being
accomplished by Yoshiko Ture and Jim Card.

.

JULY 2018 EDITION

Ambleside St. homes

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