While they still meet at least every other week, if not more often, Gayle Schilling’s garden club members gathered at her home near Mary’s Corner on Thursday, Aug. 6, to celebrate her 96th birthday.
A certified Washington State University Master Gardener, Schilling was also a longtime columnist for The Chronicle, writing both gardening features along with her opinion series, titled “Gayle’s Windy Ramblings.”
“She’s just such an inspiration, we love her,” Joyce Hansen said. “This is really important because I feel like this group is her spark plug.”
For years now, Schilling has hosted free “Let’s Grow a Garden” classes, on top of a plethora of other classes covering things like cooking, sewing and wreath-making, all from her home along Jackson Highway.
“In the summertime, we’ll get together and do pressed cider too,” Hansen added.
Gayle Schilling’s late husband — Robert “Bob” Schilling — helped her build their home, which she’s lived in for nearly three decades and still teaches out of.
“I designed it though,” Schilling said. “We moved up here in our Airstream trailer.”
Her home features a massive sectioned greenhouse with built-in compost pits at its west end, along with a manicured front-yard with small hedges and trees.
“These are my peace roses here, and those are raspberries over there,” Schilling said while taking The Chronicle on a tour of her home and garden.
The greenhouse, which she calls her “playroom,” also serves as a garden club meeting space, along with usual greenhouse gardening activities including sprouting and potting plants.
Originally born in Venice, California, Schilling has previously lived in Medford and Corvallis, Oregon, Redding, California, and Bellevue.
Locals living in the Mary’s Corner area interested in attending one of Gayle’s gardening classes to get some gardening tips can reach out to Hansen at hagen.hansen@gmail.com for information on meeting days and times.
