‘Once Upon a Thyme’
Longtime gardener knows each
plant’s tale

Chamomile surrounds these stepping stones in Marian Rohde’s garden. Chamomile, a tiny member of the daisy family, is one of several herbs that can tolerate foot traffic. Rohde stands in her backyard garden amid blue spires of Anise hyssop and yellow umbels of dill.

By DAN SPATZ
of The Chronicle
July 15, 2006

A well-tended garden is more than a display of plants: It’s a gathering of memories. Every spring engenders a reunion of recollections, each blossom and leaf bearing testimony to the people who nurtured them like living heirlooms.

“That’s the nice thing about plants — I remember the plants by the people,” says Marian Rohde of The Dalles, who applies her half-century of experience with aspiring gardeners through the OSU Extension Master Gardeners program.

Rohde’s garden surrounds her home, from the low-growing Veronica near the front sidewalk to the lofty Cephalaria in the back yard.

The walkways and lawns are an intricate tapestry of herbs and flowers, statuary and stepping-stones.

A Portland native, Rohde has been gardening since 1955, when she and her late husband, Don, gained their landlord’s permission for their first garden in Corvallis. Don Rohde was a civil engineering student at Oregon State University, later serving for many years with Tenneson Engineering in The Dalles. He applied his professional skills to the couple’s garden designs after the Rohdes moved here in 1959.

Today, as she surveys the garden she and Don constructed, Marian Rohde names not only the plants but the people whose stories they represent.

“Mary Jean Sargeant gave me that lovage,” she said, pointing to one specimen. An echinops came from another gardener, Irene Spickerman.

Blue flowers of a potato vine, Solanum.

“I just like it,” Rohde says of gardening. “I like to share plants with people, and people give plants to me. I have plants from my grandmother ... an iris from my great-grandfather, an old-fashioned purple iris.”

Inspiration comes in many forms, Rohde explains, eyeing a large Centaurea (a bachelor-button relative) she first observed in France, in one of the most famous of all gardens ... that belonging to the Impressionist master Claude Monet.

She vowed to plant the same flower in her own garden, half a world away.

Gardeners are forever trading plants, giving plants away, offering cuttings and rootings — and good advice. Every garden is a living library of personal stories and experience. Rohde draws upon those experiences as a Master Gardener.

Take fennel and dill, for instance.

These are cousins, both tall, robust members of the carrot family. But don’t grow them together: They’ll cross-pollinate, and neither will benefit.

Basil plants thrive in pots in Marian Rohde’s garden.

Boiling water had its place on the battlements of medieval fortresses, and gardeners keep it handy, too, to deal with sidewalk weeds, observes Rohde.

Likewise, soap and baking soda, or milk, are useful allies in the war on rose mildew. Garlic and horticultural oils are becoming more popular both as fungicides and herbicides, according to Home & Garden Television’s Web site, www.hgtv.com.

Minute pirate bugs are beneficial critters (almost too small to see) that prey on leaf miners. They’re attracted to yarrow and flowering parsley — a good reason to allow this culinary herb to mature and bloom.

“Don’t ever let a morning glory leaf see a sunset,” said veteran gardener Phil Pashek, as quoted by Marian Rohde. Morning glories are a notorious garden weed. A careful gardener strips their leaves away, depriving the roots of sustenance and thus eliminating this pale menace.

“But that’s pretty hard to do when your whole garden is morning glories,” Rohde admits.

Nonetheless, she’s always looking for alternatives to pesticides, which often kill more than the intended target (hapless victims include not only other plants, but beneficial insects and soil microbes).

Pest control is also affected by gardening practices, like judicious watering.

Rohde’s garden is irrigated through a complex array of drip irrigation lines controlled from a central box. Timing is a matter of experience — not technology.

“I water when I think it needs it,” says Rohde. “In hot weather it needs it more. I try not to water until it looks like it’s thirsty. Then I give it a good soaking.”

Weekly gardening is a useful rule of thumb. Over-watering risks mildew and fungus.

*****
Over-wintering
Experience guides the selection of plants for winter hardiness and culinary value, too.
Rohde seldom bothers with winter mulch, instead relying on a relatively sheltered location, extensive knowledge of the winter tolerances of various herbs — and continuing research.

There are myriad varieties of thyme, rosemary, sage and other perennial herbs; many can tolerate the Mid-Columbia’s cold winters, at least at lower elevations. Others cannot.

Rohde favors the survivors. A culinary rosemary called “Arp,” now climbing a trellis, has survived several winters now in fine condition — without mulch. A tarragon nearby is some 15 years old, growing into a small bush each summer.

Some herbs are tough to find — sometimes, hard even to identify with certainty.

For instance, all marjorams are oreganos (Origanum sp.), but not all oreganos are marjorams — a source of confusion, since marjoram used to have its own genus.

Her quest for sweet marjoram (Origanum marjorana) once led Rohde on a search of four different nurseries in the Seattle area before she found this particular herb — not to be confused with certain other mints that may also be referred to as sweet marjoram. (As with wildflowers, common names are often applied, inaccurately, to more than one culinary or medicinal herb. Final authority rests with the scientific name.)

Some marjorams will survive a Columbia Gorge winter; others won’t.

True Greek oregano is another elusive yet important herb.

Various oreganos may be referred to as “Greek” oregano, but there’s only one real McCoy, and the test comes with spaghetti sauces.

True Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare hirtum or O. heracleoticum) has a strong flavor that holds up to cooking; lesser varieties lose their flavor on the stove.

Also, true Greek oregano is winter-hardy: Rohde’s plant is 12 years old now. (Oreganos come in ornamental varieties, too, “Herrenhausen” being one example.)

Basil is a fundamental culinary herb, and there are multiple varieties. Rohde has five of these in a single pot - genovese (the “basic basil” of pestos), purple ruffle, cinnamon, African blue and lemon.

“One time I planted 11 different basils, just for fun,” Rohde said, noting she’s experimented with basil vinegars and herb jellies through the years.

And there’s sorrel for salads or fish sauces (“A little bit goes a long way,” Rohde notes) ... and winter and summer savory, too. (Winter is a perennial; the summer variety is an annual.)

Salvias are another of Rohde’s favorites.

These are the sages, often robust mints that usually overwinter in the Columbia River Gorge, tolerate dry conditions, and constitute nearly a thousand different species.

Of the myriad varieties, Berggarten “is a really good sage,” and overwinters nicely, Rohde added. “Woodcote” sage is another hardy culinary sage.

Bog salvia (Salvia uliginosa) is an ornamental that likes moist, sunny habitats and attracts hummingbirds.
As in so many endeavors, experience is a good if unforgiving teacher.

“I used to drag all my thymes in every winter,” Rohde recalls, describing her efforts to over-winter these culinary favorites. “I finally gave up.”

Half her thymes didn’t survive winter’s test; the rest prospered, and those are the thymes upon which Rohde still relies.

“The best thing is just to look it up,” she says of judging winter hardiness. “I look things up a lot.”

Complementary colors are another principle of garden organization, particularly when the focus turns to flowers. Rohde’s backyard garden is brimming with examples, such as an ornamental oregano — Hopley’s purple — adjacent to an Ageratum (“leilani blue”), an ornamental yarrow.

And lavender, of course. Again, there are many varieties. (Lavandula angustifolia) “Hidcote” is the most winter-hardy of all lavenders.

So, why does Marian Rohde like to garden?
Family tradition —- maybe genetics — has something to do with it, perhaps.

“My grandmother had two green thumbs,” notes Rohde.
But it’s more than that.

“I have to garden — it makes me feel good,” she said. “It gives me a sense of accomplishment. I just have to do it — I’m driven to it!”

*****
Rohde is one of a cadre of volunteer gardeners who assist others each year through OSU Extension in The Dalles and Hood River.

Plant clinics are offered in each community, and soil testing is available at Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles.

For information, call (541) 296-5494 or 386-3343.

This is the final contribution by Dan Spatz to the Home and Garden section, which is done cooperatively by The Dalles Chronicle and Hood River News. We wish Dan fertile ground and a firm foundation in his next position, with Columbia Gorge Community College.