Gardens in the Seattle Area

Images with borders will click expand.

In mid-July, 1997, Jennifer and I flew out to the northwest to visit with family and friends and to tour some gardens in the Seattle and Portland areas. Diane Laird graciously organized our garden tours, suggesting places to visit and driving us around Bainbridge Island to visit some of the wonderful showplaces there. Along the way we met several friends, previously known only by their ethereal presence on Compuserve.

Bellevue Botanical Garden

I'm going to start this tour with the Bellevue Botanical Garden because I'm partial to perennial borders, and the one shown here is a beauty. It's maintained by volunteers organized and drawn from The Northwest Perennial Alliance.

This lush border edges a large expanse of lawn and provides a strong incentive for people to wander over from the garden's visitor center for a closer look. This photo was taken near the south end of the border. Note the lovely blue sky. Jennifer's weather luck held throughout this entire trip. In fact a lot of these photos would have been better with a little overcast. (I realize wishing for overcast in Seattle is tantamount to blasphemy, but I'm safely back in sunny NC.)

The city of Bellevue is just across Lake Washington to the east of Seattle where it's sandwiched between Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish. The garden is located in Wilburton Hill Park, and the garden entrance is off Main Street; but if you're new to the area be sure and have a good city map. The people who named the streets out here apparently couldn't agree on names so they just threw up their hands and used numbers for everything. This 'Main' Street is a minor player in a local landscape that includes SE 1st St., 118th Ave. SE, 124th Ave SE, and NE 2nd St. I suspect there's a logic to it, but we never discovered what it was.

There were several color highlights along the border, but my eye was immediately drawn to the tall clump of lavender blue near the far end. I didn't recognize it but after looking at some books, I believe it was a Campanula lactiflora. It was a new plant to me and a most impressive display at any distance. The light yellow daylilies at the north end of the border were attracting a lot of attention, but nice as they were I couldn't develop much enthusiasm since we have parks and roadsides full of daylilies back home in NC.

Jennifer got this photo of the shade structure, path, and plantings at the rear of the visitor center. The main border is just to the left of this picture across the expanse of grass, and the visitor center is to the right..

Up close, you discover that there are paths into the border. Some of these wander in and about under the taller plantings and some ultimately led to a gravel path at the back of the border. This view is from near the north end of the back side of the main border. From here you can see that the thinner dimension of the border starts at the top of a slope and extends down to this path. This view shows mostly green, but there were lots of flowers scattered about, including some healthy clematis clambering about the trees and bushes.

I'm a sucker for Phlox Paniculata, and this large healthy clump of Bright Eyes stood about four feet tall with six or seven flower heads as large as the one in the foreground. The picture is too contrasty in the bright afternoon sun, but in real life the clump was dazzling and attracting lots of comments. It stood just to the right of the path near where I was standing to take the previous picture.

Wells Medina Nursery

Our first stop of the day had been the Wells Medina Nursery in Medina just across the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge from the University of Washington and adjacent to the city of Bellevue. We started out about ten in the morning, thinking that the outbound traffic wouldn't be too bad. And it wasn't all that bad, except for the half hour wait on the entrance ramp near campus waiting for one of those metered access lights. Oh the traffic joys that will soon be coming to our too rapidly growing Research Triangle area in NC.

However, I did like the two or more person car pool left lane on most highways around Seattle. I thought they went a long way toward eliminating "the left lane is for going as fast as I can get away with" mentality that seems way too common in most places. A very different statement than the "Keep right except to pass" signs on the automobile clogged eight lane interstate around Tacoma.

I'll get down off my soapbox now.

This is not your typical city or suburban nursery. Not only is it stocked with an amazing variety of perennials, shrubs, and trees, with some interesting display areas, but it even has its own reading room, complete with an impressive library. Wow!

One of their display areas contained this impressive Crocosmia Lucifer that was standing about five feet tall. I wish mine looked like this. To be honest I'd be happy with a small fraction of this.

They had a large assortment of dahlias for sale and most of them were in full bloom. I don't think I've ever seen dahlias blooming in one and two gallon pots before. From left to right, the varieties shown here are Sourie de Cruzon, Brandon James, and Orchid Dawn. All were around four feet tall.

Little and Lewis Water Garden

On the last day of our visit, Diane took us and a small group of other gardening addicts on a tour of some gardens on Bainbridge Island. Our first stop was the Little and Lewis Water Garden. This is a 'front yard' display garden used mainly to showcase their interesting garden sculpture. Jennifer took this photo of a toad stool like structure designed to be planted as a small water garden. More of their art work is shown in the following section.

I was taken by these clear blue flowers growing on tall plants along their side fence, but my notes are confused about what they are. Just another of the many new flowers we encountered on this trip.

Linda Cochran's Garden

Our second stop of the day was the fantastic private garden of Linda Cochran. I'm at a loss for words to adequately describe this garden, and even the pictures don't really do it justice. It sort of makes you want to go home, rip everything out, and start over.

I was immediately impressed by a short, lush border and some walkway plantings in the front of the house and stopped to take several pictures while the others headed for a gate leading to the side of the house. I was still trying to get the perfect shot of a large bed of shasta daisies in full bloom when Jennifer came back to tell me to stop wasting my time. She pushed the iron gate open to reveal the main garden and I had to admit that she was right: I had been wasting my time. Deep beds, borders, paths, and lawn were arranged in flowing sweeps of color and texture that extended over more than an acre at the side and back the house.

I was concentrating mainly on individual flower photos for my collection, but Jennifer got several nice pictures that show overall views of the main garden. She took this shot looking toward the patio area in the rear of the house. It gives an indication of the style of the garden layout, but is just one of many impressive vistas and shows only a small fraction of the garden.

This is another of Jennifer's photos showing a statue of a lion peering intently at the patio area over the top of a stand of grass. The life size statue is just visible in the previous picture at the left rear of the clump of grass in the distance. The red flowers behind the lion are a semi double dahlia called 'Fascination'. The dark foliage of this variety added to the visual impact of this planting.

She also got this shot of a water feature which was designed and finished by Little and Lewis. The concrete leaf sculpture is also their work, though most of those we saw in their studio were larger. There were also many large pots around the garden and patio area: some contained plants in earth, but most were filled with water and planted with water loving plants.

Here's a colorful view showing a variety of flowers and foliage interests. Scenes such as this lurked around each corner of the path and curving border of this garden.

I took this photo from the patio area. (If you've noticed that a lot of these shots are from the patio area, it's because the day was pretty hot by this this time and there was a shade umbrella there.) This view shows the fluffy pink heads of Sanguisorba obtusa nodding over a gravel walkway. The clump of grass with the lion statue is just off the top left this view.

Lunch

After leaving Linda's garden, we stopped for lunch at the Kingston Hotel Cafe. Note the sky in this photo: another perfect day in the Seattle area. Unfortunately, the patio in the rear of the restaurant was full, and to avoid a long wait we had to eat inside. Still it was a lively bunch and a pleasant meal.

Heronswood Nursery

It was a long drive to the first stop after our late lunch, but we made it to Heronswood Nursery about forty-five minutes before closing time on one of their few open nursery days. The place was awash with customers, and our group scattered in all directions with everyone trying to make the most of limited time: Jennifer and I with cameras in hand, and the local members of the group waving credit cards. This wall near the entrance supported a long raised bed. Here a healthy specimen of Daiscia 'Emma' cascades over the stones.

Around back, in a display area behind their house, we found several varieties of what I think are Gelega growing about five feet tall with the help of several tall stakes. We couldn't find anyone to tell us which variety is in this photograph, but I thought it was one of the more impressive things in bloom. The catalog lists varieties 'His Majesty', 'Lady Wilson', and 'orientalis', with descriptions "blue and white","lavender-blue", and "rich blue". There was also a white version nearby as I recall, but the catalog doesn't list a white. The catalog says Gelega are hardy to zone 4 so I think I'll order one for next season to see how it handles our heat and humidity.

I have a love/hate relationship with Achillea: The ones that I can grow easily seem to spread too much, and I quickly come to dislike their color; the ones I can't grow seem highly desirable. I liked the look of this one labeled 'Terracota' even tough I know that in my garden it would probably either die or grow like a weed and look mainly brown.

Blodel Reserve

At the end of the day it was a tired crew that arrived at the Blodel Reserve. This 'garden' is designed to provide mainly a walk in a natural and tranquil setting. It features pastures, meadows, woods, ponds, and bogs, as well as a Japanese garden surrounding a conference room, and the Blodel mansion overlooking the ocean. This image shows part of our group crossing a bridge near the end of the trail.

This image shows the mansion beyond a formal pond and fountain. The ocean is beyond the house and down a steep slope.

Homeward Bound

We had dinner with a tired and diminished crew in Winslow on the island, then caught the ferry back to Seattle. The sun set when we were well out of the Winslow harbor and provided us with this fitting ending to a lovely day and a busy but satisfying visit to Seattle.

For more information on gardens and gardening in the Seattle area, you might start with the The Northwest Gardeners' Resource Directory. This book contains a wealth of information on gardens and nurseries, and the web site has a 'Hot Tips" section that contains a variety of useful information.

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