Hey, Dig this!

What's not to love about Vashon?  A 15 minute ferry ride from Point Defiance (very close to Jungle Fever) transports you to this island community of bucolic views, groovy art galleries, shops selling local creations from books to jewelry, farm stands operating on the honor system (great local, organically grown produce) and numerous antique places.  You may want to spend a weekend...or two.  For me, no visit to Vashon Island is complete without a visit to three nurseries, Colvos Creek & The Country Store (the two are on the same grounds), Kathy's Corner, and Dig.  Each one is well worth a visit and each deserves and will get in the future its own blog entry.

Today, we'll stop at Dig floral and Nursery.  It must have been about 14 years ago that Stephanie Feeney's book The Northwest Gardeners' Resource Directory  inspired me to make my first visit to Dig.  With delight, I have visited several times each year since. 

As you turn off Vashon Highway and enter the nursery, there is a border all along the drive to the parking area.  This shot was taken from inside the fence (the other side of the entry border.) Cardoon, echium, lobelia tupa , and hollyhocks are but a few of the treasures in this section.

As you leave your car and approach the nursery you are greeted by this.

Walking in, you may spy these.

It's hard to miss these. 

Or your eye may be caught by the huge gabion pillars that surround you.

Perhaps you'll want to say hello to Sophie, the friendly dog who rules the place

From this far - out castle.

Sylvia and Ross, who the dog allows to do the work of running the nursery, always amaze me with their boundless creative energy, horticultural acumen, appealing, unique displays, ideas to borrow, and wide selection of cool plants. ('cause it's all about the plants, right.)

Water plants anyone?

Did you say you were fond of succulents?



 Or Yuccas?

Running a nursery as wonderful as this takes big...

ingenuity.  (What were you thinking?) 

Speaking of spheres, look at this faboo Idea that Sylvia came up with.

Random shots

After all this shopping, perhaps you'd like to sit a spell.

Love this one!  Dig those crazy holey stone cube seats!

This is to die for which is probably why there's a murder of crows on it!

Like these guys, you could just sit on the ground.  Is that cute or what?

Sylvia is a master of container combinations!

But wait, did you know there is also a garden to explore?

One last bit of coolness before we...

Head inside to pay for our plants.

I love the vibe of Dig and always leave with my own creative energy renewed and with the balance of wallet to empty car space altered.  In reviewing these pictures, I feel I've only touched the tip of the iceberg of wonder that is Dig!  One word:  GO!

Here's what followed me home from Dig: back row left to right: Euphorbia stygiana, Impatiens 'Congo Cockatoo', Coronilla v. ssp. glauca 'Variegata, Acacia pravissima.  Front row: Circium occidentale, Agave bracteosa, and a 4 pack of Aeonium 'Kiwi'

Wordless Wednesday - Bodacious Begonias; A fireworks show for the Fourth of July!

An Italian garden under construction

My friend, Florence and her husband Howard are  creating an Italian garden just a few blocks away from my place.  It'll be great to follow their progress!  Last year, there was heavy equipment amongst piles of dirt and stones; now the garden is beginning to take shape. 

The scale here is really grand.  The statues beneath the arches are larger than life sized (about 10 feet or so tall.)

 

Florence wrote the following few paragraphs about her garden.  I especially love the third paragraph.   

I searched and researched for months and years to figure out what I wanted to do with that lot next to my house. I studied English Landscape gardens, cottage gardens, French Renaissance gardens (which were a spin off of the Italian) and and of course Italian Renaissance. Nothing really clicked until we visited Villa La Pietra north of Florence Italy.

Although the gardens were many in that villa... they were separated like rooms in a house. We wandered from one to another each with its own personality but interestingly  cohesive. I took tons of pictures and set out to try and capture the feeling that I had experienced when visiting that particular garden.

I analyzed what that garden had to teach me. Although it inspired me to pursue the Italian theme, but I did learn this: A garden lives by virtue of the gardener's presence. When that presence is felt, the visitor emerges in a state of awareness, the gardener's love somehow assumed. When it's not, he's sadly aware of its absence. More important than filling my garden with objects, statuary and urns, fountains or topiary, I'd fill it with the presence of my commitment.

As far as the logistics of the form that the garden is patterned after..it goes back to the medieval cloister garden..  A picture  that I found was taken at the turn of the century, when such convents still housed the hooded monks; one of them as shown at work here among the aromatic and medicinal herbs these disciplined, highly cultured men once grew. Usually bordered with loggia of stone columns and arches, this vestige of early Christian times and was laid out in the shape of a cross

When I saw Villa La Pietra, I recognized that it was laid out like the medieval garden, in fact, with its Islamic roots, that had inspired the more elaborate Italian gardens of the 15th and 16th C. An allegorical scheme derived from ancient myth, the cruciform plan speaks of the four sacred elements of earth, fire, air,  and water; of the four river heads whose source was Eden; of the four quadrants of the universe out of whose center a spring bubbles forth...fertility, eternity, life. The pure quadripartite layout that we see in the interior courtyards of so many early Renaissance palaces. 

Although it is fascinating to know the provenance of the design, my garden is not an original idea. Originality, for originality's sake is the last effect I'd care to seek. I'm after nostalgia, deja vu. I want visitor to have the sense, entering my garden , that he's come to a passage of forgotten experience, that he's seen it all somewhere before, I want the visitor to be reassured, calm,  and not challenged.  I truly want it to be a "pleasure garden".

A Walk in the Park

Well, a walk to the park.  Fortunately, Wright Park, home of the Seymour Conservatory, is a five minute walk from my house.  It's a great place to visit, especially in the winter.  The glass house was built in 1908.  You can read more about it here

The floral displays in the entrance area are changed seasonally and as everything here is in pots, there's always a big burst of color to greet you.



A few blooming epephyllum (I think)  are usually present.  Metro parks has a large collection in their working greenhouse (not on this site)  that they rotate in as they bloom.



Happy looking agave in the small dry area



One of the more photographed (because he's darned cute)  objects in the conservatory.

Tropical wing - balmy even when there's snow on the ground outside.

On the way out.  Notice the amorphophallus (label didn't say which one) foliage on the left and the gorgeous palm from Hawaii (HUGE FRONDS) in the background.

Walking back home, I noticed these which have a sort of rustic charm.

On the shady side

Grab a cup of coffee and join me on a stroll through part of my shade garden.

Leaves in the upper right are Devil's club (Olopanax horridus) wich reminds me of my growing up in Alaska and my beloved family still living there.  O.K. not the Devil's club or horridus parts.  You see, D.C. is native to Alaska and seeing it brings back fond memories.  What were YOU thinking?

Uhm... color in the garden... Green is a color, right?

 

Tetrapanax that decided to come up from way on the other side of the path.

 

Note to self - Either plant or remove new purchases in black plastic pots before taking pictures.

 

Walk toward the light.

 

Don't look back or you'll be turned to a pillar of...Oops, too late.

 

Now you just sit here and reflect on what you've done.

Hope you enjoyed our little saunter in the shade.  Well, except for that turning into a pillar thing.  Must be uncomfortable.