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Although this could very well be a picture of me finding a new treasure at a favorite nursery, it's actually an illustration by David Catrow for a children's book called Plantzilla.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Seven Gardens and Two Nurseries in Six Hours; A Lassie and Outlaw Adventure in Seattle

What a whirlwind of garden fun Saturday was!  Alison, the Bonney Lassie, and I headed up to Seattle for the Northwest Perennial Alliance's first open garden Saturday.  We toured seven gardens and two nurseries in six hours but this post isn't about any of those.  Instead, here are some random shots of gardens  that we saw between the tour gardens.

Ah, rhododendron season is so colorful!

Did some mischievous neighborhood children switch the perimeter trees and foundation shrubs when someone wasn't looking?  

What would you plant here?  I'm thinking that big structural desert plants or maybe some dark purple phormiums  in big industrial pots would be cool.

Nice lawn free garden! Notice that  loquat in the background. 

The  columnar shape of the conifers punctuates this garden nicely!  


The color orange is growing on me. 

You can't see it in this picture but the fig is covered with little fruit!

Lavender can get woody if not pruned annually but  this one was left to become scraggly and  it works well in this setting.


Did someone play with the ejector seat button again?  This outdoor furniture doesn't work well.

 It's all about context I guess because this outdoor furniture works delightfully well!  Maybe the materials have something to do with it too.  These are concrete. (The furniture, not the children.)  I could happily find a place in my garden for them!

Another  lawn free front garden. 


After our final garden tour, I asked if we could stroll up the street to take pictures of this Iris.  This has long been my favorite bearded iris color combination - pure white with purple edges.  Yum!


It was lucky that we took the little side trip as it afforded us this view.  Could that be?  Yes, it's an embothrium coccineum in bloom!

Actually, there were two of them but without going into a stranger's garden, we couldn't get any closer than this.

Other plants here included this old callistemon

and these delicious manzanitas


Walking back to the car, we noticed this bed of iris.  Someone had begun to weed out the grass but both Alison and I thought that it would look really lovely with the iris blooms.

Further down the street was this.  Could someone not understand the Ikea assembly instructions?  Did lightening strike their T.V. antenna?  Part of a satellite fallen from space?  Did an insensitive husband say to his wife one day, "Haven't you hung the laundry out to dry yet?  You've had all day with nothing to do for heaven's sake!"

 Stay tuned for later posts containing the content that the title of this one promised.  

30 comments:

  1. I love how you made such a great post out of the interstitial moments of our whirlwind day of touring and nursery hopping! Your sense of humor is the best.

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    1. The truth is that it was about 9:30 last night when I had a free moment to come up with a post and something random is always easier and faster for me. Since I wanted to sleep at some point, this was the answer!

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  2. Wonderful post! And you're just pulling at my heart strings with that loquat shot. Mine was removed this weekend, so sad. Thankfully I have a friend who's bringing me a baby to start over with.

    Orange...yay! It really is a fun color with so much emotion.

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    1. I thought of you on Saturday as there were quite a few loquats in Seattle!

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  3. As usual your running commentary makes this a fun read. Look forward to seeing more of your marathon garden adventure.

    I need a loquat, fortunately most gardeners around here are more than happy to share one or ten seedlings.

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    1. Sounds like they grow well in your area. Such nice dark evergreen foliage!

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  4. The gardens you visited must be wonderful if the outtakes are this good, confirming for me yet again that the PNW is a gardeners paradise. I rather like that cement living room set too.

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    1. It's a great place to garden and live if you don't mind gray skies and liquid sunshine for days at a time. We'd love to have you move north!

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  5. All these terrific gardens and we haven't even started the tour. I agree with the other comments: your sense of humor has a lot to do with why I come back to your blog every day. In the last few years Seattle's new home construction is super modern and industrial-looking. It take some getting used to. I expect creating a garden for an industrial looking home may need a different mind set and maybe new rules.

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    1. Glad you enjoy my attempts at humor. Sylvia and Ross at Dig Nursery on Vashon Island created an amazing garden around their former home which was quite contemporary. While I admire contemporary construction and style, my heart lives in an older home with lots of woodwork and quirkiness.

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  6. What's with you PNW people and Loquats, for chrissakes? They are weeds that drop stinking fruits everywhere for the sole purpose of attracting rats that carry horrible diseases.

    Seriously, great post!

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    1. You made me laugh out loud Hoov! Don't know why Loquats are so popular here except perhaps for the gorgeous foliage. They seldom set fruit here and if they do, it doesn't have time to mature in our climate. Thanks for the chortle!

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  7. Great post Peter! Fab post and as usual your amusing commentary is a delight to read!

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    1. Thanks guys! Looking forward to meeting you in July!

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  8. embothrium coccineum in the flesh! Lucky, guy! I have been lusting after those for years.

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    1. I have one that I got a couple of years ago as a seedling in a four inch pot. It's now taller than I but hasn't bloomed yet.

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  9. One of the great things about the NPA tours is getting out into different neighborhoods and seeing gardens NOT on the tour. Looks like you had fun!

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    1. There were so many gorgeous gardens in the areas we visited. One could do posts about walking various Seattle neighborhoods forever! Next winter walk off, I'm heading north!

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  10. The teens make the concrete furniture look downright comfy...bet it isn't. Ah, youth.

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    1. Youth is such a wonderful thing. Too bad it's wasted on unappreciative kids.

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  11. How do you find the time to visit so many gardens and nurseries and then write about them? It looks as though you had a wonderful time peeking into people's gardens, I will look forward to reading about the tour, that's after I've spent a busy day working in the garden!

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    1. It's difficult sometimes to fit everything in but I enjoy it and we find time for what makes us happy. We did have a great time meeting gardeners and seeing their gardens!

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  12. It's unexpected sights like these that can sometimes be more memorable than an official garden tour. Nice drive-by work!

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    1. Right you are Pam! It's always fun to be a tourist and gawk at everything going by!

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  13. I love this post, so much humor and so many great garden glimpses. Oh to have a lawn-free garden. That Embothrium is spectacular. I just saw a couple at a nursery, but the smallest was in a 3 gallon pot. I want to start with smaller ones. I'm so in love with manzanitas. They are one of the best parts of gardening on the west coast.

    "I could happily find a place in my garden for them." I hope you're still talking about the furniture and not the children. Hehe

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    1. You'll find a small Embothrium one of these days. Someone usually brings some to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show or one of the many sales. Most certainly there will be some at the Fronderosa Frolic in August if you don't find them before that.

      Yes silly, just the furniture although if the children would get off the couch and work in my garden I might reconsider.

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  14. I seriously wish the landscapes here were as interesting as those in the PNW. Lawn for miles and crappy foundation shrubs reign here. We don't even have decent garden tours. They're always of some old house that cost a zillion dollars and has a bunch of annuals held hostage by boxwoods.

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    1. Sorry. Estate gardens have their charms but a steady diet of them would be a bit dull. I bet there are some like minded gardeners in your area but they're in hiding.
      We'll have so much fun seeing the cool gardens at the fling! You could always move west...

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  15. Another funny post. You're so right about the second photo, the trees obscuring the second floor windows, and the tidy shrubs out at the curb! What a scream. You should have been a landscape architect. Well, I moved here from San Diego and I have the requisite Loquat, I don't think I will ever even see it bloom, but I do make the leaves into a beneficial tea when someone has bronchitis. No fruit drop but lots of messy leaves and random overgrowth. I enjoy walking around neighborhoods looking at landscaping but live in the country where such do not exist, so it was fun to go on your tour.

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  16. Love this post. So many interesting things to see. That last one is a perplexity, for sure. Now I'm thinking I should let a few of my Lavender plants go scraggly, like this one. You're right. It really does work in that setting. Great shots.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to comment! I love to hear your thoughts.