Stopping By / Yard of the Month: Happiness and hydrangeas
“We all need a little more Snoopy in this world,” Lori Wallick said.
Members of the McMinnville Garden Club agreed, and chose Snoopy and the Wallick’s as the Yard of the Month for August. The club honors one lovely yard each month, from early spring through fall.
Wallick said she was surprised when garden club members approached her about being Yard of the Month. “You’re kidding,” she said, thinking of other beautiful yards in her neighborhood.
They weren’t.
It wasn’t just Snoopy they noticed in the front yard at 2548 S.W. Redmond Hill Road, McMinnville.
The yard was bare lawn when the Wallicks moved there 19 years ago to be closer to their daughter, Suzanda Branson, and granddaughter, Marissa. She also has a son and two grandsons in Vancouver, Washington.
At the time, the subdivision was new, and the yard was lumpy with moss and weeds mixed into the grass.
Lori said she tried a variety of remedies — fertilizer and other cures — and struggled to keep the yard mowed for a while, then gave up. She had a dry creek bed installed, moved the existing bushes and added more flowers.
Then their friend Randy Ranson built the Little Free Library and decorated it with not just Snoopy, but the whole Peanuts gang — Charlie Brown, Linus and his piano, Lucy, Woodstock.
“I love it!” said Wallick, who has visited the Charles Shultz Museum in Santa Rosa, California.
Filled with gray rocks of various sizes, the dry creek bed bisects the yard from driveway to the property line. Plants grow on either side — a deep red rhododendron provided by a neighbor, azaleas, a Japanese maple and a smaller maple, among others.
Wallick also has a collection of plants in pots, most of which were given to her by her daughter-in-law for Mother’s Day. They include geraniums that have wintered over, several types of succulents, potato vine and fuchsias
All are beautiful, she said. “These are God’s creations. God doesn’t make a dud flower.”
Her pride and joy are the hydrangeas, several varieties with wildly different characteristics.
In addition to the most common kind with big, puffy blooms adorned in many pink or blue flowerlets, she has a “Ruby Slippers” type that starts out white and develops a pinkish hue. Another takes the form of a tree, with cream-colored blossoms. Still another has a different type of blossoms, with several flat flowerlets surrounding a prominent center.
“I love hydrangeas!” she said. “They’re just exquisite.”
She enjoys any of the colors or types. “I go with the flow,” she said.
The tree hydrangea was the perfect prize when Lori Wallick won a game of pickleball, currently her favorite sport.
She plays with a partner several times a week, mostly at the courts at McMinnville City Park. “I love the strategy and the socializing,” said Wallick, who was on the board of the McMinnville Pickleball Club for several years.
In addition to playing pickleball, Wallick coaches JV2 girls sports at McMinnville High School.
With coaching and pickleball in the morning or afternoon, Wallick usually has time in the late afternoon for her garden. She deadheads and adds water as necessary.
“We get some breeze in the evening, so it’s not bad,” she said.
Oregon is more pleasant than where the Wallicks lived southeast of Los Angeles for 40 years. She doesn’t mind the rain here, since she knows it’s necessary for all the green.
“My heart is here,” she said.
Wallick was born in New York state and raised in La Mirada, California. She met her husband, a Navy sailor, when she was studying at San Diego State University.
She is the daughter of an avid gardener. She said her mother could grow anything; “me, not so much.”
Instead, she spent her time working with youth, substitute teaching and running a cooperative preschool. Gardening had to wait until she retired.
“I enjoy it much better than mowing,” she joked.
Most of the time, Wallick isn’t the only one working in her garden. The birds are busy there, as well — except for Woodstock.
Jays, finches, robins and other species are frequent visitors. Many take advantage of a deep birdbath at the center of the yard.
“We like to sit and watch them,” she said. Sometimes her husband watches from the living room; other times, they occupy a pair of Adirondack chairs next to the porch.
She enjoys seeing the birds and pollinators such as bees and butterflies. “We try to attract pollinators. That’s important,” she said.
Lavender and bright yellow poppies — a gift from a pickleball friend — both are popular with the bees.
Wallick also has a few creatures that aren’t as animated in her yard — a ceramic frog, a “funky” birdbath purchase at the Recycled Arts Festival at Linfield University, a rock that resembles a skull and a bunny with a carrot on its nose.
One piece is especially special: a circle of friends, featuring several figurines linking arms. It was a gift from a dear friend who recently died.
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