Visiting Fairie Gardens Nursery

Fairie Gardens Nursery and the lovely garden on the site in Tumwater, WA  are the creation of David Baird and Steve Taylor.  I've visited a few times but always in the summer when the gardens are full of grasses and herbacious perennials.  Since I was in the neighborhood, I decided it might be interesting to visit in the winter.  To be honest, I wasn't expecting to see much happening in the garden because the fabulous herbacious beds  left a wonderful impression.

 

I know nothing about heathers and heaths except that they some of them are beautiful in the winter.  This one was in the flower bed of a church across the street from the nursery.

Was I in for a surprise!  With all of the herbacious stuff slumbering, the large number of evergreens throughout the garden beautifully took center stage.

I wasn't particularly looking "to conjur a faire or helper"  as I was delighted to poke around the garden and take pictures.  However, as I eventually neared the back of the house, there was barking from within  which somehow summoned David Baird himself.

David said that he got his Chief Joseph Lodgepole Pine in 1997 when they first were barely available to the public.  It has grown quite a bit since then and according to David it's the largest one south of Vancouver. 

 Abies Koreana

 Blue and gold, what a lovely combination!

 Chinese pine.  Sorry, I don't know the real name.  Do you?

I mentioned a couple of the plants I'd admired in the garden like a cypress, hemlock or something and David said, "Oh, so you know conifers then?"  To which I replied that I admire them but know very little. 

David, having heard that I liked conifers, gave me a guided tour of the garden, chatting like gardeners do about their favorite plants.  I wish that I'd brought a writing utensil and paper because I couldn't cheat at this place and take pictures of plant tags to remember names.  I believe that botanical Latin is David's first language as he spoke it fluently.  Having sung Latin for years, I'm not so bad at writing names in that language as they're spoken but my memory is coated in Teflon - nothing sticks so there are some unidentified plants here.  Sorry. 

 The large Carex elata 'Aurea' which has moved to various areas in my garden originally grew in this very pond at Fairie Gardens.

The berries of this Nandina are catching my eye this year in gardens all over the area.  Is it a good year for the berries?  Have I been more interested in the foliage in past years?  Do you sometimes  suddenly appreciate a certain aspect of a plant that's obviously been around for a long time?

Loving this trellis!

On one side of the garden there is a large berm separating the garden from the street.  Here is part of the path between the berm and the back of the pond.  It's a really cozy area.

 Cryptomeria japonica elegans 'Aurea'  stays green all winter instead of turning bronze.  Bronze is  a euphemism for  turns brown and looks dead for part of the year.

The sun began to shine and I started to believe that there just might be magic afoot.  Rain weary, sun starved Pacific Northwesteners will believe just about anything by February.

While Fairy Gardening isn't one of my favorite things in the world, it's kind of fun to see things like this little ladder that leave a lot to one's imagination.

On the other hand the giraffe visiting this creature is pretty darned funny!

 In reviewing my pictures, I realized that there are some areas of the garden that I didn't photograph.  Sorry about that, David's passion for plants was pretty wonderful and I stopped taking pictures at some point.  You'll just have to go exploring here yourself  and maybe you'll find the magic.

The large stump(15 feet tall) is that of a Sugar Maple, over 120 years old, that was badly diseased and had to be removed.

Larix Kaempferi 'Paper Lanterns' (Don't be impressed, this one still had a tag on it.)  looks wonderful with all of these cute little cones!

 Abies Koreana 'Aurea'

 Taxus something or other

 It has been said that a garden that isn't lovely in the winter isn't a lovely garden.  I was thrilled to find that this garden is truly a lovely garden and I look forward to seeing it again in the summer . 

I promise to be more appreciative of the wonderful evergreen presence even when all of the flashy summer plants are doing their frivilous seasonal dance!