Washington Hospitality

If you like Conifers that suffer from a lack of size and overabundance of character, make an appointment to visit Bob and Dianne of Coenosium Gardens.

http://www.coenosium.com/

You will be impressed by their collections (for sale and private), then you will round a bend and find yet another enormous heard of tiny trees dotted across a forest hillside. And again.

Then there are the full-sized cultivar collections... A person can get lost in the big ones, but at least it will be in a place full of varied colours, shapes, sizes, and textures of tree...

Yes.

Cedrus deodara 'Feeling Blue,' above, both comments on the boringness of cone-shaped conifers and solves the problem itself.

I personally find myself attracted to this puddle of a plant- Weeping Hemlock

Tsuga heterophylla 'Thorson's Weeping'

Case in point, the steward of any postage-stamp or rockery or large pot-on-patio-you-refer-to-as-your-garden-and-rightly-so should award it with solid evergreen interest.

Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca' at Wells Medina:

Better known to locals and far nearer to the heart of Seattle, is, for discerning and serious gardeners, the classy Wells Medina. It's a nursery, I write, since that's not in the name.

Every gardener and his dog (you think I'm joking, but it was a five-to-one ratio when I was there, in favour of the humans, but that is still more dogs than your average nursery.) come to peruse their gallery of colourful plants under the diffused Seattle sun:

And after an exhausting day of looking at plants (quiet please) I make my daily cafe pilgrimage to write this blog. Better yet, I fall into lectural discourse with the cafe's window washer, a brilliant lovely warm oven of a man who has a lot to share about history, morality, spirituality, the nature of wisdom, and what constitutes a burrito by definition.

Thanks David.

Meanwhile back at the ranch.

Or my hostess' garden.

I have, up to know, deprived myself of the token shot of the Space Needle. Here it is; happy now? Seattle really is a beautiful and clean city. (Upon utter this, a local reminds me in a weary voice this is because it rains all the time...)

Tiger Mountain Hike

Don't forget how beautiful death is.

My hike hosts, Ben and Ben.

Parasailors leap from this face of the mountain to soar over Issaquah (a fine suburb of Seattle)

New Home-base: Denver and the Front Range

Arctostaphylos patula. Your February and March every year will just not be as nicely clad with heathery flowers nor this fine bark all year. It is also one of few broadleaf evergreens for the xeric landscape. (That really has broad enough leaves to surprise us all)

The great Allan Taylor gardens and deposits his far-reaching botanising finds in Boulder, Colorado, an hour North of Denver.

He specialises in Quercus (Oak) and Artctostaphylos (Manzanita) if not everything. I may as well mention Rhododendrons and the Ericaceae (Heather Family) at large, Acer (Maple), Juniperus (You know what that is), Pinus, Picea (Pines), Sorbus (Mountain Ash), Yucca, Agave, and a fine representation of Southwestern native Cactus. Even with that list of specialties, I know I've missed something.

Shortly after this shot, he fastidiously cleaned up all the twigs, (and he may hate me for posting this) but here is is a small segment of this lovely, naturalesque, and well-composed garden:

I like a few twigs, thank you...

Even in late winter, I find his xeriscape (not low-water, but no-water) to be compelling.

Two fine fine forms of Arctostaphylos viscida ssp. mariposa, perhaps coming to a discerning garden near you (via Dr. Taylor). Let's hope!

Rockstar: Rick Lupp of Mt. Tehoma Nursery

That is, he is Mt. Tahoma Nursery. A one-man show, this fine little ship of a nursery produces the top end of rock garden and rare micro-plants for botanic gardens and serious plant collectors everywhere.

Mt. Tahoma Nursery Website

Here, Cypripediums appear to lean toward the space heater in his staging/shipping/work/green -house

His inspiring sand-beds overwinter the fussiest of perfect-drainage-loving fussies.

You may have been in a fine botanic garden snooping for a plant-tag and found his nursery's name before you flip the tag over to learn that it is a great form of Saxifraga oppositifolia, above. Well, I have!

To excite the lover's of St. John's Worts: Hypericum aegypticum

Stop making noises at that plant- it is Rhododendron pachysanthum. (Whose name means "Thick flowered.")

A breakthrough for the topographically challenged garden, a freestanding mini Czech rock garden. Note colour contrast in the cushioned plants at the base.

An Evening in the Bellevue Botanic

I think it is a pity when gardens close for the night. At once, they are preserved from the night terror of vandalism (it is amazing how many plant labels people take- this is one of the most surprising things I learned when I worked for a public garden) and also deprive the appreciative night-going onlooker. So many flowers have different night-colours, and the whole set of available aesthetic elements turns sideways when there is much less light by which to see a garden.

Lucky, Bellevue Botanic is open "Dawn till Dusk," the exact times of which I find open for debate.

And after all that, I must say that nighttime photography is beyond my skills, so here are photos in the evening hours, at least. In which I note, that low-angle lighting ( aka "God lighting." -John Greenlee, Author of 'The American Meadow Garden') is ideal lighting in which to enjoy plants.

My overall feeling about Bellevue is a nice exhibition and space of things that grow well in the Seattle area. The Rockery leaves something to be desired as a plant collection, but the rocks are arranged to make for a great space one day. The Asian end of the garden is particularly well composed, perhaps my favourite.

The Alpine Rock Garden at least looks good from a distance (I should like to think the same is true of myself.):

I don't know what this tree is, but I want it: (This one's for you, Debra, you lover of peely-skins)

Alright, here is at least one picture that captures the majesty of even a soccer field at night. (Despite being a monoculture of turfgrass- enjoy the lighting!)

Pilgrimage to the Northwest Begins

Here I'm taking a little drive to Canada and back before going to the Caucasus.

Driving out of Colorado and into the Pacific Northwest is a geological-scenery-treat. This is about Dinosaur National monument, just as one enters Utah.

Passing through Vail, I had to check on the Betty Ford Alpine Garden, so great that I found folks in Washington know about. It was under snow. But despite this, where there had been some thawing in the czech-style rockery, the first flowers of spring in Vail on the verge of opening:

Skipping all the fine scenery of Utah, interior Oregon, and Washington (go see it yourself, and if you can, do it in mixed snow and rainstorms with intermittant clear sky- it's very dramatic.)here is the view from the house of my friend/hostess here outside of Seattle. Let me just say this: some people like to garden, and some people are Gardeners. (Yes, capitalised)

The garden of K. H.:

Bravo! Encore! Let us see more, more, I say:

This garden looks like it has had a tryst with Adrian Bloom (backed up by a full-time staff of gardeners). But, in fact, it is the work of one dirt-rocking woman who works full-time, (and full-time at a "real" job, too.)

One more with the token this-is-my-vehicle-that-gets-me-everywhere nod: