A Guide to the Frederick Andrews Walpole Garden
The Frederick Andrews Walpole Garden is a public garden created in the strip of land between SW Terwilliger Boulevard and SW Hamilton Terrace with spectacular, unobstructed views of the Willamette Valley and Mount Hood. The garden is named after Frederick Andrews Walpole, a major US botanical illustrator hired by the US government who settled in Portland and built his home at Eagle Point in 1894.
The project has been developed by the Friends of Terwilliger and Portland Parks & Recreation over the past six years: reflecting our volunteer capacity, funds raised, and exploring what works in the area.
We are progressing with our vision of a Walpole Garden destination park with native plantings and year-round views (between Terwilliger and Hamilton Terrace). We are excited to partner with Northwest Natural Gas in creating the Walpole Garden sign on their natural gas regulator cover. The design includes images of Walpole’s watercolors of west coast plants and a QR code to link visitors to our Walpole Garden website guides (in development).
UPDATE: the new cover was installed Tuesday morning, April 9, and lots of folks wanted to have their photo taken with the new artwork.
(Annotated panorama of park facing east from Terwilliger Blvd)
The goal is to create a destination botanical garden with year-round great views to the east of Portland, Willamette Valley and the Cascades. Our first step of the multi-year effort was to clear the park area of invasive trees and plants, and then to begin introduce native plants and pollinators including many Walpole drew during the 1890’s on the west coast. Multiple community projects have helped create paths, terraces, seating areas and a labyrinth.
Currently, we have a diagonal path in the central right of way pollinator garden with old city sidewalks on the north and south edges. A path to the elevated south plateau leads to a log bench seating area and rectangular labyrinth with wonderful views of the Willamette Valley and Cascades. To the west of the seating area is a shade garden. Log steps connect the central open area to the upper plateau to the north (currently undeveloped) [see map]. We are in the planning stages for a path directly up to the pedestrian crosswalk on Terwilliger Boulevard and planting designs for the area north of the central right of way.
East of the labyrinth and seating area, along the steep slope down to Hamilton Terrace, are neglected grape vines, perhaps planted by Italian (?) immigrants who lived in this area in the early 20th century. We are working with Willamette Valley vintners to create a small trellised grape physical and visual feature using these old vines. We are developing additional pages to this website with detailed guides to the
park features and plantings for visitors as they are developed.
If you are interested in volunteering to help, contact Bob Bonner, downhillhiker@gmail.com
For more information about Frederick Andrews Walpole Garden, visit:
https://www.huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?13. Hunt Library Walpole bio and links
http://huntbot.org/findingaids/0095/095_WalpoleFrederick_fa.html Diaries
https://huntbot.org/artpd/node/9966 Drawings, enter “Walpole as artist”
https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_355708. Field notes