Editor’s note: As we were preparing this issue for press, we received news that Kathy Allen passed away peacefully. She will be greatly missed by all lucky enough to have known her.
Kathy Allen is a rock star to those of us in Southern Oregon who know her and love her. She owns a small, unimposing nursery with no sign at her gate, no advertising, no fancy sales building, and no staff, just a treasure trove of the most wonderful rock garden plants on earth. Her world-class rock garden featured over the years in two Sunset Magazine issues, many local newspaper articles and Joseph Tychonievich’s 2016 book, Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style. To get there you have to have directions from someone who knows her. And once you’ve been there you’ll return time and time again. It’s hard to find: off on a country road and down a long gravel driveway lined with trees she planted thirty years ago. Once in awhile, a few neighborhood cows will get loose and come to visit.
