Discovery Park Trail designed by Olmsted, Photo CarlisleFlowers

“Greenscapes Olmsted’s Pacific Northwest” written by Joan Hockaday charts the history of Discovery Park located on the western shores of Seattle, Washington.  In 1900 the U.S. Army built Fort Lawton on its 600 acres.  The City of Seattle was in negotiations with the Army from the start to incorporate the landscape architect, Olmsted’s plan for the land to be used as a public park.  Olmsted realized the growing influence of the automobile and his paths were designed to limit the intrusion of cars to allow wide and small paths to traverse the lovely land all the while allowing views of the bluffs, meadows, the Puget Sound, the oldest lighthouse in Seattle and the now historic Army buildings.

Puget Sound View from Discovery Park, Photo CarlisleFlowers

`Kubota Garden, Seattle, Washington Picture: CarlisleFlowers

The Kubota Garden, a public five acre garden in a suburb of Seattle, Washington, was originally a family business begun in 1927 by a Japanese immigrant, Fujitaro Kubota.  Self-taught as a gardener, Kubota also designed the Japanese Garden in the Seattle Arboretum near the University of Washington and the Japanese Garden at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island.

Kubota Garden, Seattle, Washington, Photo: CarlisleFlowers

For four years during World War II, the Kubota family was interred in Camp Minidoka, Idaho. After the war Fujitaro with his sons, Tak and Tom rebuilt the Kubato Garden.  Due to the introduction and building of respect of Japanese Gardening in the Northwest, Fujitaro Kubota was awarded the Fifth Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese Government in 1972. Today his dream of public appreciation of his Japanese garden is realized.

Woodland Path, Dunn Gardens, Seattle, Courtesy CarlisleFlowers

Arthur Dunn commissioned the Olmsted Brothers, a landscape architectural firm from Brookline, Massachusetts, to design the gardens of his summer retreat in the Seattle suburbs in 1915.  The Olmsted firm was famous for their designs of Central Park in New York, the Biltmore in North Carolina, and Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

The hallmarks of their landscape design rooted in the English romantic style called for a balance between the turf, the wood and the water.  Curvilinear shapes allow the garden visitor to experience an element of surprise.  What is around the corner?  The Olmsteds’ took advantage of the lovely view of the Puget Sound from the wide expanse of lawn and a backdrop of trees.

The property was eventually split into three and the public can enjoy the Dunn Gardens through the generosity of the E.B. Dunn Historic Garden Trust. The curators of the gardens maintain the “tennis court”, the woodland paths, the perennial garden of Ed Dunn, and have designed a wonderful garden in their own style to frame the house.

www.dunngardens.org

Dunn Gardens' Curators' Garden, Photo CarlisleFlowers

We lunched at Bainbridge Nurseries founded by Junkoh Harui and his wife Christine.  Next stop was a bamboo garden.  What an experience.  You don’t see bamboo much on the East Coast, but the two months of sun and 10 months of rain in the Northwest are a perfect clime to grow the 25 varied types of bamboo in this garden.  These pictures show the subtly in color of the colms, the older growth smaller than the new.

Please tell me about how I should fee(l) about leaving this.

I met a woman on my trip to Seattle.  She gave me pause.  She was getting a divorce and would have to leave her garden behind.  A met another woman with years more experience.  She likewise said that eventually she would have to leave her garden.  These images evoked feelings of sadness in me.  What if I had worked and worked to make my garden my garden, and then age age or a person, said, “You must go.”

Perhaps there is a psycho-therapist that could sort out these emotions.  These are emotions that are “deep-rooted” hah, they can be shallow rooted too but still be deeply felt.  Like the time I came home  with a gingko tree.  “What are you going to do with that?  Where can you possibly put that?”  These are questions a gardener faces all the time, in fact, the gardener asks him/herself these questions too.

Well you know, I always did find room.  Perhaps not necessarily where the tree belonged the first time but plants are like furniture - you can always move them around.

Now they’re more plants books/magazines and blogs then there are plants in the garden.  Well if you take just the species alone, not how many you have of them.  I like to go to plant meetings where you can learn more about how much you don’t know.  My vocabulary for some reason can not compute the latin names for the plants.  So instead of the vernacular I say the common.  I marvel at those who can specify the Linnean name of a plant.  Usually these same people can recite cultivars too.

So the slide presentation starts to roll and the speaker specializes in lilies.  I only have tiger lilies in my garden.  So let me write down a few that would be good to buy.  Oops, can you play that one back again.  Sorry, I didn’t get the spelling of that lily.  By the end of the show my eyes have closed their lids.  No more for me today.

Actually, truth be known, I like to hear historical presentations.  What propelled the owner/gardner to create such a beautiful space?  What were his/her inspirations?  But wait, no one ever talks about how the owners felt when they had to leave their gardens.  This is a field of psychology that has yet to be explored.  But would you pay say, $175 for 45 minutes of therapy when you could buy at least 8 new plants for your garden? Oh, but is that for your new garden or your old one?  We are just going to have to sort that out.  Perhaps we should seek the help of another gardener or, our family.  Surely they have feelings about what is their garden too.

Painting "En Plein Air" at Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island

The Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island (35 minutes by ferry from Seattle) is a lovely garden to inspire water colorists.  Painters wait for the “sun breaks” when the sun dries out the swathe of grey. The water and light inspire.  Here the Poulsbo Parks and Recreation artists enjoy the afternoon, painting the Bloedel Japanese Garden, lead by Dana Marrs.

"Crossing to Bainbridge", Artist Dana Marrs

The Meadow Path upon Entering Bloedel Reserve, Photo CarlisleFlowers

The pathways of Bloedel Reserve lead the visitor first through a meadow, then a forest, from forest to a marsh.  As you approach the grand home, the gardens are manicured, moss, Japanese, reflection pool, rhododendron garden and a bluff walk overlooking Port Madison Bay near Agate Point on Bainbridge Island, a 35 minute ferry ride from Seattle across the Puget Sound.  Prentice Bloedel designed the Reserve “to inspire and refresh” all the while experimenting with planting and conservation techniques under the guidance of several landscape architects.  The Collins purchased the property prior to the Bloedels and divided it amongst three family members. In 1932 J. Lister Holmes, a prominent Seattle architect, was commissioned by the Collins to build a French three- story villa overlooking the bluff as a year round residence.  100 years earlier the island had been occupied by the Soquamis Indians, land valuable for its timber.

Bird Marsh, Bloedel Reserve, Photo CarlisleFlowers

Prentice and Virginia Bloedel, bought the property in 1951. The two  approached the land from different perspectives.  Virginia developed the Rhododendron Glen, the Ravine, the candelabra primulas, the ginger, cyclamen, oxalis and other wildflowers. (The Bloedel Reserve, Gardens in the Forest by Lawrence Kreisman, published by The Arbor Fund)  Prentice wanted ” to understand and explore and develop the land similar to an artist having a canvas.  He found this was a real opportunity that realized a lot of imagination and creativity in him.” (his daughter)

View from the Bluff, Bloedel Reserve, Photo CarlisleFlowers

Virginia and Prentice explored the plant diversity with its own color and form.  They “discovered that there is grandeur in decay.” (University of Washington Arboretum Bulletin, 1980)  Mr. Bloedel charts the course of insight - respect for trees and plants replaces indifference.  He believed that in the Divine Order of things, man is part of nature, a nature that he can not do without.  These emotions compelled Mr. and Mrs. Bloedel to choose a path, a path which leads each visitor to the Reserve “to enjoy plants both arranged by man and as they arrange themselves - to broaden their world.” (University of Washington Arboretum Bulletin, 1980.)

www.bloedelreserve.org

The Seattle Japanese Garden, located in the Arboretum adjacent to the University of Washington is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.  The landscape architectural firm, the Olmsted Brothers, designed the Arboretum.  Soon thereafter a foundation conceived the idea to create a Japanese garden within the Arboretum.  Twenty some years later a large gift from an anonymous Foundation donor set in motion the hiring of Juki lida who employed six other prominent designers including K. Inoshita to draw 34 pages of blueprints for the 3 1/2 acres site.

Boulders from the Cascade Mountains were hand-picked and rolled in bamboo matting, their size ranging from 1,000 pounds to 11 tons, for Mr. lida to specifically place amongst the azaleas, rhododendrons and camellias in the Japanese Tea Garden. Its tea house, named “Shoseian” (Arbor of the Murmuring Pines) offers Chado, the art of tea presentations with advanced reservations.  A maple pruning workshop will be presented on August 28th by Barb Engram, landscape designer and consultant.

more information:   www.seattle.gov/parks/parkspaces/gardens.htm

Seattle Japanese Garden, Photo CarlisleFlowers

Bouquet of Sweet Peas, Gardens in Seattle

Pike Place Market is the starting point for a trip to Seattle, Washington.  It’s the hub of fresh flowers, bouquets of them - from $5 for a big bunch of sweet peas, to a whopping $20 for a hand-held arrangement.  The first thing someone asks if you’ve been to Pike Place Market is, “Is that where they throw the fish?”  The caught fish and seafood gleam with their silvers, yellows, reds and whites, and yes they do smell good in a fishy kind of way.  But can you take fish home and glory in their shape, their composition, their fragrance, the garden memories that flowers evoke.

Lavender Fields in Seattle

Day One was adjusting to the time zone and going back again to the Pike Market and its flowers.  We met a lavender lady, from the fields of lavender, selling creams, soaps and sachets of long-lasting, dried lavender. She let us crush the French lavender leaves so we could smell how much stronger their smell than their English counterpart.  Our eyes opened to lavender, to the visions of fields of lavender, and with each visit we made to the Gardens in Seattle, we looked for the billows, the clouds of lavender tilting toward the sun.