FRAGRANT AIR: GROWING A SCENTED GARDEN
Neil Bell, horticulturist
FRIDAY, MAY 1st 5-6:30PM
$10
HOFFMAN CENTER FOR THE ARTS
594 Laneda Ave, Manzanita
Given the number of plants we manage to cram into our gardens, it’s astonishing what a small role fragrance plays in our designs.
Yet consider how little scent it takes to ignite our senses: a hand trailed across lavender, the effect of a single open jasmine, a walk past the neighbor’s gardenia and we’re suddenly alert and alive to what’s around us.
How many months of the year can you walk through your garden and marvel at the invisible hints of sweetness, spice, lemon? For our speaker, Neil Bell, the goal is year-round.
Neil Bell has always asked something very specific of his five-acre home garden outside Monmouth, OR. It has to get him through our dark NW winters with scattered clouds of fragrant air.
In a career that has given him enormous access to thousands of different plant species, Neil inevitably began to fold more and more aromatic species into his garden’s design.
For his talk, Fragrant Air: Growing A Scented Garden, he’ll draw from decades of research into climate-adapted plants that add an overlooked dimension to our outdoor lives.
Neil Bell was Community Horticulturist for the Oregon State University Extension Service in Marion County and Polk County from 2000 to 2021, coordinating both county Master Gardener programs during that time. Now part-time with the OSU Extension, he’s part of a team evaluating some 116 olive cultivars at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora.
Neil lives on 5 acres of Polk County bush west of Monmouth, where he continues to learn how to garden with wildlife, plentiful weeds, limited water and fragrant air.
FRAGRANT AIR: GROWING A SCENTED GARDEN begins at 5pm, Friday 5/1, at the Hoffman Center for the Arts, 594 Laneda Avenue, Manzanita. Admission $10.