A couple of the gardens I’ve visited through the HPSO Open Gardens program this summer involved the owners’ experimenting with a naturalistic planting style as they gained more space to garden. Sometimes called the New Naturalism or the New Perennial Movement, sometimes simply “Oudolfian” after the Dutch designer most often associated with this movement in garden design. Generally, and very superficially, it’s a reliance on building hardy herbaceous plant communities. Developed in complex, successive layers, the garden surges through the growing seasons, beginning with bulbs and ending with the skeletal remains of grasses and blooms standing over winter. The style originated in cool, northern latitudes and has influenced gardens and been adapted, with varying success, all over the world. To fully engage the landscape, paths provide the tracks for an immersive and some say pastorally emotional experience.
Dairy Creek Meadows is the dramatic result of the new owners exploring naturalistic-style planting on 30 acres of former dairy land. Craig Quirk and Larry Neill’s previous Portland town garden Floramagoria was an extravagant construct, with both horticulture and hardscape at full throttle. Working with designer Laura Crockett, the garden vibrated with a condensed intensity made up of assertively architectural planting, seating pavilions, intricate container displays, hot-colored furnishings, painted walls, inlaid mosaic rugs. It was a sensual surround of strong color and form that left me reeling — I took very few photos during my visit in 2014. House and garden changed hands in 2023, and Quirk and Neill retired to 30 acres to create Dairy Creek Meadows. (I was told the friends who took over Floramagoria have kept it relatively intact.) Laura Crockett has been involved with Dairy Creek Meadows as well.
And a lot of the design flourishes that made Floramagoria such a unique experience have also been incorporated into Dairy Creek Meadows. The intensity and intimacy of the small jewel-box garden that was Floramagoria has been traded for big gestures, panoramic views and sweeps of planting, all anchored by that fabulous greenhouse and farm buildings, old and new.
If I understood correctly, the first order of business was installing the Hartley Botanic greenhouse. Along with the farm buildings and silos, it is the main structural point of reference for the new garden and takes command of the surrounding meadows beautifully.
Along with the crevice garden, there’s a vegetable and cutting garden, pond, and large containers for bog plants — a carryover feature from Floramagoria. Gardens surround the owners’ private home as well. Guessing from my lack of photos, the private home may have been off limits this tour.
The same strikingly bold taste and confident touch that made Floramagoria special is here at Dairy Creek Meadows, with the experimental planting scaled to suit the vast spaces. Visit if you get the chance. More soon, AGO
I was at Dairy Creek Meadows in early April when it was still in winter mode. Thanks to your photos I now get to see it in all its summer glory. Spectacular! I wouldn’t know where to look first, there’s so much to see.
I have watched this garden go through it’s construction phase and so it’s fun to see it now fully planted. At first I was a bit skeptical about the big greenhouse and rock garden in what was a very flat space but now that it’s grown up both sit very nicely in their surroundings. A beautiful garden with a talented and imaginative crew at the helm.
It’s nice to see it filled in, looking more comfortable and soft than the first photos I saw. The amount of space is unbelievable. I can only imagine making multiple “one of a kind” gardens in my lifetime, what a dream!
Great photos Denise! Such a great garden with kind and generous owners. I missed that open, but was there in early August. I think perhaps the area around the house was off limits during your visit because of the rock garden being under construction behind the house?
@Gerhard, I enjoyed the coverage of the April visit and seeing how it evolves over the season. I’m sure fall looks completely different.
@Elaine, it’s a garden worthy of study and multiple visits!
@Tracy, the owners really hit the ground running, and it’s been great to get coverage of it from so many visitors like Loree and Gerhard.
@Loree, there is so much to explore I didn’t even clock why I didn’t approach the house for photos. Another rock garden? Yes, please!
It looks absolutely fabulous! I was gobsmacked with everything, from the potting shed and the greenhouse to the bog plants and the crevice gardens – and I’m not usually enamored by crevice gardens. Thanks for sharing your visit.
It’s one of my favorite local gardens. A lot has changed since I saw it in June 2025 for the HPSO Study Weekend. Now, I am not sure whether I should ever post anything from that visit being more than a year out. Ah, time. That speckled hoodia flower is everything.