Parks & Gardens, History & Beauty

This year is a celebration for the 100th anniversary of the signing of the law founding our National Parks Service.  In February a 3D IMAX film, National Parks Adventure, narrated by Robert Redford was released. The film flies viewers over canyons, red rock arches, and walks them into ice caves near Lake Superior. Highlighting 30 of the 58 national parks, there are moments where you feel the urge to reach out and touch the ice crystals and rock walls. Seeing the film will inspire you to “Find Your Park” which is the theme for the yearlong celebration....   Continue Reading

Chihuly’s Garden

If you are visiting downtown Seattle board the monorail and ride directly to the Space Needle, the most iconic image of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.   The 74 acre Seattle Park is a prime destination with many attractions to choose from.  The Pacific Science Center is designed to inspire budding scientists of all ages, the 3D IMAX theatre is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Parks, the Music Center plays the history of rock and roll and the International musical fountain invites you in for a splash. ...   Continue Reading

Garden Conservatory – A Crystal Palace

It is citrus season.  Outside my door the oranges are ripening on an overloaded tree providing a surplus of the sweet fruit. If you don’t have a tree right outside your door, you can still find an abundance of the succulent fruit right down the street at your supermarket....   Continue Reading

Destination: The Oregon Garden

Some ideas take a long time to grow and The Oregon Garden is just such an idea. The Oregon Association of Nurseries had long wanted (since 1940) a demonstration garden to highlight the incredible variety of plants grown in the area.  Since 1968, the citizens of Oregon have been leaders in protecting the climate, air, water, and landscape.  In the early 1980’s when the city of Silverton, Oregon (an hour south of Portland) needed to manage treatment of its waste water and maintain wetlands for wildlife, naturally, all kinds of ideas began to sprout....   Continue Reading

Stumpery Garden

As a southwest gardener, wandering into a northwest woodland garden is an exciting experience. Here are the shade plants of azaleas, jack-in-the pulpit, mayflower, hostas and rhododendrons. There are great varieties of tree bark textures, conifer needles and dazzling shades of green.  Discovering  the Stumpery Garden in the Rhododendron Species Garden in Federal Way, WA was a surprise, full of wonderous wood and glorious green. Here I had my first encounter with what is described as a “Victorian period garden romanticizing nature.”  The intention is to show the wild side of nature using tree roots and stumps placed upside down or on their sides.  The wild nature of hefty, twisted tree roots presents a vastly different, and somewhat dramatic view of trees.  The ends jut up and out, their trunks ripped at the ends,  lying in varying stages of decay, arranged in fences, circles or as a single focal point.  The root pockets become natural planting spaces for a variety of ferns....   Continue Reading

Farm fields of flowers

Driving through the Willamette Valley, near Silverton, Oregon I saw a field of poppies being raised for seed.  This wonderful agricultural area is known for fruit, wine, and more but I didn’t know there would be fields of flowers.What a crop! For me it was simply beautiful but for the farmer it was a business, a crop subject to the risks of weather and insects.  I’m grateful for the farmers and I am delighted someone grows the flowers....   Continue Reading

Leach Garden, Portland, OR

Every garden holds a surprise though sometimes you have to really look for it because it is out of sight, down a path and across the water. This is exactly where I found this stone cottage. John & Lilla Leach lived the summers here in the early 1930’s while their larger home was being built.  Lilla was a Botanist, graduating in 1908 from the University of Oregon.  She taught science classes in the local high school.  John was a Pharmacist and both were highly active in local civic affairs.  But their passion was to go out in the woods to explore the plants around them  They were assisted in this adventure by their two burros, Pansy and Violet. “It was during these excursions that Lilla Leach discovered two previously unclassified genera of plants and more than a dozen species in her decades of work”(Leach garden website)   Lilla was particularly interested in the native plants of Oregon.  As a trained scientist she was attentive to the smallest details of the plant variations....   Continue Reading

Carl S English Jr Botanical Garden,

Carl S English Jr Botanical Garden, on the ground of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.  Shipping channel locks designed by Hiram M Chittenden in 1906.  I came to see the garden which has an especially unique origin.   English came to the Army Corp of Engineer base in 1931 to work as a groundskeeper for the Army parade lawn.  Carl & his wife were both botanists and loved plants.  He wanted to plant things to create a garden around the parade ground, but there was no expectation to have a garden on the base and no money for plants.  Still he and his wife would travel out to the local forest and around the area and collect seeds.  Then he would grow the plant in a small container from seed.  He began to transplant the small starts into the landscape.  He then had more local seeds than he could grow so he began writing letters offering seed exchanges with other gardeners.  He sent letters all around the world and exchanged seeds.  He even obtained the seed for a dawn redwood, a native of the northwest but extinct there. He received a seed for the tree from China and he reintroduced the tree in Oregon. After 20 years the plants had grown into quite a lovely garden.  It was the late 50’s and local garden clubs were admiring and helpful in the garden.  College horticultural students came to study the over 500 plant species and 1500 varietals of plants Carl and his wife had added to the garden.  The top brass of the Army Corp engineers came too but not to admire but to demand that the large lawn parade field be returned to its original state.  Carl had clearly followed the “act first, ask permission later philosophy” in growing his garden.  The grounds were cared for, but enriched and loved way beyond a plain lawn.  Fortunately the beauty of the place and the community attachment to the garden allowed tempers to mellow and the garden continued to grow.  When English retired in 1974 after 43 years in the job the garden stood as a masterpiece and is the only garden in all 195 army corp engineer locations.   Guess the top brass stopped that nonsense!...   Continue Reading