The Jewel of Lincoln City

The Connie Hansen Garden Conservancy is tucked away in the residential parts of Lincoln City, down 33rd street, west of US 101. The gardens are out of sight of the main drag, with its shops selling trinkets, tie-dyed windsocks, and pirate themed snack bars. You have to be looking for it, but if you are, it's easy to locate. Just cross 101 right before you reach Lil Sambos, the many-times-rebuilt diner with the tiger sign. Parking at the garden is free, as is admission. Though of course as with many nonprofit gardens, donations are appreciated.

My mother in the garden.
note the makeshift trail
 blazed through the middle
of the lawn.

I took some time to research the gardens before I wrote this, and I found the process to be an adventure. The website is bizarre, and navigating it takes some getting used to. The links are hidden among pictures of flowers, and none of them give a formal history of the garden. However, in two places on the website, there are open invitations to explore the garden, while laying out a few basic rules. The messages remind me of a handwritten note left on a garden gate: unsigned, mysterious, but inviting all the same. It's a teaser: it doesn't tell everything there is to know about the garden, but instead provides pictures and the basic policies, and leaves the viewer curious, and eager to see the empire the photos hinted at for themselves.  Someone viewing the site may be left with more questions than answers, but none that  a physical visit won't answer.

A reflection pool...but
only from this angle!

The garden is named for its late owner and creator. When she purchased the property, Connie's garden was a lot composed of a meadow and swamp: a far cry from the paradise she created in its place. When she died in 1993, the current organization took over and now run it. Walking through it, you can tell the garden was a labor of love. It still is a labor of love, but the garden itself is complete now. It's formal in layout but also very casual. It originated as someone’s private backyard garden and this feel is retained: her house still stands on the property. It’s not difficult to imagine yourself walking through these gardens with their late creator, glass of wine in hand, nodding along as she explains her garden to you. It feels like Connie is still around somewhere, just out for a stroll, or off to buy groceries. That note from their website could be tacked to the garden gate:


"Feel free to stroll through the garden any day from dawn to dusk. Bring your camera and a picnic lunch!"

In the garden, you are your own guide, though they will arrange tours for a fee. If something stands out to you you take as much time as you like. Garden paths are marked by gravel or cobblestones, forming neat curving paths through the garden The creek running through the garden is straddled by wooden bridges. In other places, there are no trails, but short stretches of lawn with invisible trails marked overtime by hundreds of footprints. 

A bridge crosses the creek
 on the garden's wheelchair
-accessible brick trail.

The garden's design is brilliant. It's layout plays with shade and light from native spruces and shrubs, and also from a few ornamentals. The meadow and swamp portions can still be seen to a certain extent: the upper parts of the garden where the meadow was are more open with flower beds and a few smaller shrubs. The lower portions remain more densely wooded and the garden plants are peppered with native skunk cabbage, a marsh plant. The green from grass and foliage is pierced by a rainbow of hundreds of varietiesof flowers. Some, like irises and snapdragons, are familiar, but there were others that I had never seen before, or some that looked familiar but their names escaped me. Pathways continue on to the edge of the property where they stop at a curb, or loop back into the garden's heart. Benches scatter the park in strategic places: at junctions, near the lily pond, or in a corner of the garden covered in a variety of heathers.

I admit that I tend to have a positive experience when I visit a natural place, but it seems that most people share my sentiment. Most reviews online were positive, though one person wrote that they weren't sure where to walk at times. Personally, I have trouble understanding this. Provided you aren't walking on their plants, and are being respectful of others you can walk where you like. Their website even says as much. Walk on the grass, walk on the gravel, walk on the stone, sit down and don't move all afternoon: they couldn't care less. The Connie Hansen gardens are less of a destination, and more of a sanctuary. It's a retreat, a place where you can take in God's creation for yourself, at your own pace.-KP