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A Return to Heronswood

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My first visit to Heronswood was nineteen years before my recent one, on July 21, 2024 on a tour with the Garden Fling. My earlier visit was in September 2005, when I flew from Toronto to Vancouver to take my 83-year-old mother on a self-guided garden tour through the Seattle Region and Puget Sound. I was writing a weekly newspaper column then and always looking for story inspiration. We toured Bellevue Botanical Garden in Renton enroute to our bed-and-breakfast on Bainbridge Island. There we visited Bloedel Conservatory and I interviewed David Little and George Lewis at their renowned garden and sculpture studio. We also dropped in on a generously welcoming Linda Cochran at her old garden. But the highlight was our last stop at Heronswood Nursery in Kingston, on the Kitsap Peninsula.  Anyone who knew anything about gardening knew that this was THE mecca for plant-lovers, with rare plants arrayed not just in the retail nursery but planted in gardens throughout its 15 forested acres.  Started in 1987 when plant explorer Dan Hinkley and his partner, architect Robert Jones, laid out the paths and built their home there, the nursery business had become too all-consuming for them by the late 1990s. They found a buyer in 2000 in the big Eastern firm W. Atlee Burpee Company and its chairman George Ball, who wanted the nursery for its vast plant collection, including many rare species. (This was in those manic dot.com bubble days when every mail order catalogue looked like a great opportunity to take online – I know, I was in a similar short-lived situation.) Dan and Robert continued to work for Burpee under contract as managers and it was nearing closing time when I saw him that September day. Though he was rushing away because the staff had a cake waiting to wish him a happy birthday, he posed long enough for me to snap the photo below. 

What happened nine months after my visit is well-known.  In June 2006 Burpee boss George Ball, having discovered that plants that thrive in the Pacific rainforest do not necessarily grow in gardens in the Midwest, closed the nursery.  The garden was kept minimally maintained and opened three days annually to visitors via the Garden Conservancy. In 2012 Burpee sold the garden and nursery for an undisclosed amount via a sealed bid to the local Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe, which continues to manage it today as the non-profit Heronswood Botanical Garden with Dan Hinkley as Director Emeritus.  The Woodland Garden is as lush and beautiful in mid-summer as it ever was, so let’s take a walk through it to be begin our tour.

I like the big lacecap inflorescences of Hydrangea serrata ‘Macrophylla’, below, which taxonomically is an intriguing mashup of two species names.

It feels humbling to walk through an old Pacific Northwest forest, with its towering Douglas firs and hemlocks. I note the giant Himalayan lily (Cardiocrinum giganteum) already forming seeds near the Japanese hydrangea vine (Schizophragma molle), right.

Schizophragma molle can reach up to 40 feet (12 metres) in height, climbing via aerial rootlets.

There is an impressive collection of hydrangeas and their kin in the Woodland Garden. This gold-variegated lacecap is H. serrata ‘O Amacha Nishiki).

It takes me a while to figure out what plant is in fruit under the leaning Aruncus dioicus ‘Kneiffii’ here: Paris quadrifolia. 

I stop to admire this trio of Little & Lewis pillars topped with pots of trailing ivy.

Another beautiful hydrangea, H. macrophylla f. normalis ‘Veitchii’, bred by the English nursery of the same name in the early 1900s.

Lovely Anemenopsis macrophylla ‘White Swan’ is a new one for me (and if my knees were better I might have knelt to photograph it from below…..)

The juxtaposition of the big trees and the shade-loving hydrangeas and other woodlanders is inspiring for gardeners who complain about shade limiting their choices.

A thalictrum bends gracefully over other leaning plants.

Then it’s into the Formal Gardens via the iconic Arched Hornbeam Hedge, sculpted from Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’.

This is one of the original Heronswood gardens and it looks as beautiful today as when I saw it in 2005.

It surrounds a lily pool edged with carnivorous pitcher plants (Sarracenia spp). Stone benches offer a place to sit and reflect.

The far side of the Hornbeam Hedge garden is adjacent to the Formal Potager.

When I was here 19 years ago, the Potager Garden was filled with vegetables.

Today, a combination of annuals and perennials fill the box-lined spaces.

This is my favourite view because the axis leads to the fountain focal point.

It is filled with Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’, a popular catmint.

I recall this whimsical Little & Lewis chanterelle sink fountain from my first visit here. It’s surrounded by a brilliant chartreuse planting of Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Golden Arrow.

Flower beds line the outer paths in the Potager and feature lovely combinations, like this Ligularia przewalskii with Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Firetail’.

I realize in looking closer that every stem of the wine-leaved plant has been cut. Is this a Chelsea chop to keep it smaller and bushier? Or does Heronswood have plant-pruning deer like I do?

A beautiful mix in one of the perimeter borders includes a cloud of bronze fennel.

The luscious Orienpet hybrid lily ‘Silk Road’ consorts nicely with yellow Hypericum x inodorum ‘Ysella’ and a malva of some sort.

It’s easy to look at the ‘forest’ of a garden and forget all the ‘trees’, like this humble annual love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) with its complex structure.

Thalictrum adds an airy lilac cloud to the yellow heliopsis.

So many lilies! (Possibly L. regale?) If you can keep them free of red lily beetle (I cannot in Toronto, despite my efforts), they are the perfumed stars of the July garden.

On the way towards the formal garden surrounding the building that was once Dan and Robert’s house, I find a stand of hardy ginger (Roscoea purpurea) from the Himalayas.  The last time I saw these was at RBG Edinburgh!

A path leads through shrubs and various beds….

…. past a raised gravel garden filled with drought-tolerant plants….

…. like what I think is Sedum album ‘Coral Carpet’.

Near the house is an eye-catching combination of a golden redbud (Cercis spp.) and blue agapanthus.

There are more Orienpet (Oriental x Trumpet hybrid) lilies near the tent where we pick up our catered lunches. The tent had been in use for a wedding, one of the ways photogenic Heronswood now generates revenue, along with admission fees, lectures and plant sales.

A long pergola hosts numerous types of vines.

Near our lunch table is a bouquet that looks like the work of Riz Reyes, Assistant Director.

No sooner do I snap a photo than I see Riz himself – and he offers to pose next to Heronswood’s “it” plant, Lilium ‘Zeba’. In fact, Riz wrote an essay for Fine Gardening magazine on this very lily, the product of a cross between L. nepalense and L. ‘Kushi Maya’, itself an L. nepalense-Oriental cross.  

Here it is in combination with Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Firetail’ – don’t they make fine music together?

The lush beds in the formal gardens near the house feature ornamental grasses, perennials, towering trumpet lilies and agapanthus.

An empty urn acts as focal point here.

Time is fleeting on our stay here so I finish lunch and head towards the new, ecologically-focused gardens near the entrance. I do love a meadow and this one near the S’Klallum Connections Garden features a pair of native Washington state annuals, blue-headed gilia, Gilia capitata with pink farewell-to-spring, Clarkia amoena (aka godetia).  Interestingly, this is the second time I’ve seen Gilia capitata used in a meadow this season – the first time in Nigel Dunnett’s seed-mix for the wildflower moat at the Tower of London, which I blogged about recently.

The S’Klallum Connections Garden is still being developed but it promises to tell a powerful story about the relationship between the tribe and the land.

It will use the garden to tell stories, actual stories.

There are wetlands…

…. and native forest plants like salal (Gaultheria shallon). Florists know this shrub as a glossy, green filler for bouquets, but for Native Americans it is a food and medicinal plant. Other traditional plants in the garden include camas, soapberry and sweet-grass.

Sword fern (Polystichum munitum) is no less beautiful for being common in the woods.

The S’Klallum Connections Garden has a very quiet, naturalistic feeling.

An old totem pole has come to the end of its journey and is “resting” now in the garden, being allowed to return to the earth.

The Traveller’s Garden is another new space intended to highlight plants that reach the garden through the exploits of plant explorers. As the website says:    “Heronswood is well known for its rare plants, obtained around the world and the Traveler’s Garden, still under construction, tells the tale of plant hunters, what they do and how they do it. Follow in their footsteps and lose yourself in a Chilean forest, on a Vietnamese peak, or in the American West.”

Speaking of Vietnam, one of the interpretive signs in this area features founder Dan Hinkley rejoicing at the summit of the tallest mountain in that country.  If you want to read Dan’s essay on his ascent to this peak, it’s here on his website.

Himalayan hydrangea (H. heteromalla) is one of the uncommon plants in the Traveler’s Garden.

With the buses arriving to take us back to Tacoma, I run to the Renaissance Garden adjacent to the parking lot but just have time to snap a quick shot through the alders.  As the website says: “Sheltered amongst mossy logs, this garden tells of the interaction between nature and the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe through a recreation of an abandoned logging camp. Initially developed in 2018, it contains over 250 different types of ferns together with other shade-loving plants under a canopy of western red cedar, a tree of significant cultural importance to the tribe”.

As I leave this garden, I spot a sign that reminds me of my youngest grandson, the “salamander-whisperer”.

Between the parking lot and the Woodland Garden is a lovely container that needs its moment in the spotlight.

I take a few minutes to walk around Heronswood’s Gift Shop/Ticket Office….

…. where the raised garden contains some treasures, including lovely Lilium ‘Zeba….

…. the mangave (Agave) ‘Mission to Mars’…

…. and Peruvian lily, Alstroemeria isabellana.

 Heronswood’s director Dr. Ross Bayton, below, is particularly fond of another new space near the entrance that’s still being developed….

…. the Rock Garden. It includes “five rocky islands, each studded with miniature treasures that grow at high elevation. The garden currently showcases alpine plants from North America’s western mountains and southwestern deserts but will expand to include other regions plus Mediterranean landscapes.”  The yellow plant is sundrops, Calylophus berlandieri.

Included is a small bog devoted to carnivorous native plants like California pitcher plant, aka cobra lily, Darlingtonia californica….

…. and western false asphodel, Triantha occidentalis, recently found to uptake nitrogen through insects that get trapped by its sticky stem hairs. 

The Rock Garden has a poignant dedication sign.

The time we’ve had at Heronswood has been generous – if not nearly enough to see all its treasures. But I’m so happy I got back after 19 years to see for myself that the garden is once again in excellent hands.

Otari-Wilton’s Bush

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It’s been a while since I blogged about New Zealand and our 2018 trip, but I’ll correct that today, since there was one garden omitted – and it was my favourite. If you recall, in my last blog we were sailing back to the North Island from the South Island and settling ourselves into New Zealand’s beautiful capital city of Wellington for the final chapter of our trip. Today, I want to take you to what was my favourite public garden of our entire 3-week tour, Otari-Wilton’s Bush (whose proper name is Otari Native Botanic Garden and Wilton’s Bush Reserve, but I’ll call it OWB for short). Let’s walk from the car park through the main entrance gate or warahoa…..

….. past the Kauri Lawn and the familiar trunks of the kauri trees (Agathis australis) we’d fallen in love with a few weeks earlier on the Manginangina Kauri Walk in the Puketi Forest near Bay of Islands, on our Maori culture day.

The path leads past interesting New Zealand natives towards the information centre where we can……

….. find a map. This place is massive! There are ten kilometres of walking trails over 100 hectares (247 acres) of native podocarp-northern rata forest featuring 5 hectares of gardens containing half of New Zealand’s native plants. In total, there are.1200 species, hybrids and cultivars of indigenous plants, and we have such a short time to visit!  On that note, I should add that there was a reason why it took me so long to get this blog together: the complexity of the garden and our speed rushing through it meant that I didn’t feel I could do it justice without researching it a little more than the other public gardens we’d visited, which were more straightforward…. rose garden, perennial border, etc. There is not that kind of typical botanical garden approach here at OWB. It’s all about native plants and their conservation!  I could have spent two days there, easily

Because it’s difficult to read the map (click on it or download it for a better look), here is the legend:

1 –      Plants for the home garden
2 –      Brockie rock garden
3 –      Wellington coastal plants
4 –      Grass and sedge species
5 –      Threatened species
6 –      Hebe species
7 –      Rainshadow garden
8 –      Flax cultivars
9 –      Pittosporum species
10 –     Coprosma species
11 –     Olearia species
12 –     Northern collection
13 –     Divaricate collection
14 –     Gymnosperm (conifer) collection
15 –     Fernery
16 –     Alpine garden
17 –     Dracophyllum garden
18 –     38
19 –     Broom garden

The garden and surrounding bush has a complicated history, from the Maori first inhabitants – Taranaki tapū or sub-tribes – who migrated to the general area in 1821 from the Wellington region; to the arrival of European settlers in the 1840s; to the allocation of 500 acres to Maori tribes; to the 1860 purchase by Job Wilton of 108 acres for farming; to the leasing by one tribe of 200 acres to three settlers; and subsequent sales by other tribes to other settlers. By 1900, prominent citizens of Wellington began to realize that the natural land around the city was in demise. As another 134 acres of tribal land was being sold to settlers, Wellington City Council stepped in and purchased it. By 1918, Otari’s status was changed to a reserve “for Recreation purposes and for the preservation of Native Flora.” In 1926, the well-known botanist, plant explorer and ecologist Dr. Leonard Cocayne presented a proposal to create a collection of indigenous plants on the site: the Otario Native Plant Open Air Museum. He was named Honorary Botanist to the Wellington City Council and effectively Director of the Plant Museum. Over the next few years, he collected 300 native plants and published the guidelines for the development and arrangement of the museum. Upon his death in 1934, he was buried on the site.

Let’s head out over the canopy bridge spanning the ‘bush’ below.

Visitors gazing out over this scene can appreciate how this part of New Zealand looked before cities and highways were built and invasive plants outcompeted native flora.

The garden has done a good job of labelling native trees to inspire visitors to choose these for their own gardens. This is karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus).

This is the tawa tree (Beilschmiedia tawa).

This is rewarewa (Knightia excelsa).

Looking down, you can see the exquisite structure of the silver ferns or pongas (Alsophila dealbata, formerly Cyathea).

It’s easy to see why this fern enjoys such an elevated position in New Zealand.

Interpretive signage is well done in the garden.

Though it is far away, I attempt a photo of New Zealand’s wood pigeon.

After the canopy walkway, I find myself in a section devoted to plants for the home gardener. Seven fingers or patē  (Schefflera digitata) is a small, spreading tree fond of shade and damp places. It’s the only New Zealand species in the genus Schefflera.

The Three Kings kaikomako (Pennantia baylisiana) was down to a single extant plant in New Zealand when it was discovered on a scree slope on Three Kings Island in 1945 by Professor Geoff Baylis of Otago University. Seeds were harvested, allowing it to return from the brink of extinction.

Gold-variegated karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus ‘Picturata’) is a colorful Otari-Wilton’s Bush introduction of the evergreen New Zealand laurel tree. Its Maori name “karaka” means orange, and is the colour of the tree’s fruit.

The Leonard Cockayne centre can be booked for small meetings, workshops and education sessions.

Our American Horticultural Society tour group listens to Otari Curator-Manager Rewi Elliot giving an overview on the garden.  You can see the memorial plaque at the base of the large rock, the burial site for Leonard and Maude Cockayne.

In the adjacent Brockie Rock Garden, I find Chatham Island brass buttons (Leptinella potentillina) is a rhizomatous groundcover adapted to foot traffic.

Slender button daisy (Leptinella filiformis) is bearing its little white pompom flowers.

Purple bidibid or New Zealand burr (Acaena inermis) has become a popular groundcover plant in Northern hemisphere gardens.

Chatham Island geranium (G. traversii) has pretty pink flowers. Its easy-going nature recommends it as a good native for New Zealand gardeners.

Like a lot of shrubby veronicas, Veronica topiaria used to belong to the Hebe genus before DNA analysis. It has a compact, topiary-like nature and tiny white summer flowers.

Silver tussock grass (Poa cita) is a tough, drought-tolerant native adapted to the poorest soils.

This is a lovely view from the Cockayne Overlook.

Below, a path is flanked by some of the sedges (Carex sp.) for which New Zealand has become renowned throughout the gardening world.

We catch a glimpse of New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) on the right along the path.

Castlepoint daisy (Brachyglottis compacta) is native to the limestone cliffs on the Wairarapa Coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Like many species here, it is considered at risk in the wild.

We had seen Marlborough rock daisy (Pachystegia insignis) at the Dunedin Botanical Garden earlier in the trip. It’s such a handsome plant.

A gardener trims the base of a sedge along the path. There are signs in the garden stating “Please do not pull out our ‘weeds’”, explaining that they may look like weeds but several are threatened endemics that are allowed to casually self-seed in the garden.

Orange tussock sedge (Carex secta), aka makuro or pukio. is common to wetlands throughout New Zealand.


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Gardeners are at work trimming the sedges with the podocarp-northern rata forest in the background.

The Wellington Coastal Garden, below,  is home to native plants found on the rocky foreshores, sand dunes and scrub-coloured cliffs of Wellington. Many plants here have thick, fleshy leaves or waxy surfaces to cope with wind and salt spray.

The Rain Shadow Garden features plants native to Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago in the South Island, specifically to regions lying east of the Southern Alps where rainfall is scant. From Wikipedia:  In the South Island of New Zealand is to be found one of the most remarkable rain shadows anywhere on Earth. The Southern Alps intercept moisture coming off the Tasman Sea, precipitating about 6,300 mm (250 in) to 8,900 mm (350 in) liquid water equivalent per year and creating large glaciers. To the east of the Southern Alps, scarcely 50 km (30 mi) from the snowy peaks, yearly rainfall drops to less than 760 mm (30 in) and some areas less than 380 mm (15 in). The tussock grasslands are common in New Zealand’s rain shadow.

To northern hemisphere eyes, New Zealand has a lot of strange plants, but none tickle our fancy more than toothed or fierce lancewood (Pseudopanax ferox). You’ll see its mature tree form a little further down in our tour of the garden but I love this photo illustrating the juvenile form, often described as Doctor Seussian or like a broken umbrella.  It is now seen in gardens throughout the world, mostly owing to the 2004 Chelsea Flower Show where it starred in New Zealand’s gold-medal-winning garden exhibit.

This is my favourite image in the garden because it celebrates plants that typify the New Zealand native palette – the buff sedges and the wiry shrubs in ‘any-colour-but-green’. Save for the sword-like leaves of the cabbage palm (Cordyline australis) at the top of the picture, there is nothing ‘luxuriant’ about the plants in this garden. They evolved their sparse foliage to outsmart hungry predators or to protect themselves from wind, heat and salt.

As an illustration, here is Coprosma obconica, considered threatened in its native niche, with its “divaricating” growth habit (branching at sharp angles) when young. Note that its tender foliage is in the centre of this wiry sphere, thus protected from the nibbles of herbivores.

But then there are the big grasses and phormiums, which lend the opposite lush feeling. I love this garden, too, with its collection of flaxes, both the large New Zealand flax or harakeke (Phormium tenax) and the smaller mountain flax or wharariki (Phormium colensoi, formerly P. cookianum).  In milder climates of North America, we see P. colensoi cultivars used extensively, e.g. ‘Maori Maiden’, ‘Black Adder’, ‘Sundowner’, etc.  This is P. tenax ‘Goliath’.

A closer look at ‘Goliath’. The Māori grow harakeke plants especially for weaving and rope-making.  Note the leaves of the Carex, illustrating the mnemonic “sedges have edges”.

At the base of the steps is a beautiful stand of South Island toetoe grass (Austroderia richardii, formerly Cortaderia). It is related to the South American pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana) which has become an invasive in New Zealand (and also coastal California).

Below we see the juvenile (right) and mature (left) forms of fierce lancewood (Pseudopanax ferox) growing side by side. Note the stout trunk and the different leaves on the adult tree. Botanists theorize that the tree evolved its narrow, young form with its hooked leaves to thwart herbivory by New Zealand’s flightless bird, the giant moa, which was hunted to extinction by Polynesian settlers five hundred years ago. Once the plant reaches a certain height – around 3 metres or 9 feet in 10-15 years – it gets on with the regular business of being a tree.  The forms are so different that early taxonomists mistook them for different species.

Nearby is a garden labelled “the hybrid swarm”, featuring offspring of crossings of two other lancewood species, Pseudopanax crassifolius or horoeka and P. lessonii or houpara.

One of the tour members calls to me that she has heard the tui bird and I pass a stand of Richardson’s hibiscus (H. richardsonii)…..

…. as we go exploring into denser garden areas.

Sure enough, there it is – not the best photo, but it’s a treat to find it here. The Māori call this bird the ngā tūī, and this particular bird’s black-and-white colouration (its iridescence isn’t notable in this light) illustrates why the colonists called it the parson bird.  It is one of two extant species of honeyeaters in New Zealand, the other being the bellbird. If you read my blog on Fisherman’s Bay Garden, you might have watched the YouTube video I made of that lovely garden with the entire soundtrack comprised of the bellbird’s song.

But time is fleeting and we still have the Fernery to visit. I stop for a moment to photograph Kirk’s daisy or kohurangi (Brachyglottis kirkii var. kirkii).  It is in decline and classed as threatened, mostly due to predation from possums, deer and goats.

Common New Zealand broom (Carmichaelia australis) is not related to European broom (Cytisus scoparius), which is as invasive in New Zealand as it is throughout the temperate world.

Here is a large specimen of bog pine (Halocarpus bidwillii).

I pass a small water garden surrounded by rushes.

Crossing back over the canopy walkway, I come to the totara (Podocarpus totara) with its stringy, flaking bark. This specimen was planted in the 1930s and could live for more than 1,000 years. It is one of 5 tall trees in the Mixed Conifer-Broadleaf Forest type here; the others are kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides), matai (Podocarpus taxifolia), rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) and miro (Prumnopitys ferruginea).  Totara wood is strong and resistant to rot; it was used traditionally by the Māori for carving and to make their waka or canoes.  On trees 150 to 200 years old, an anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory medicinal product called totarol can be extracted from the heartwood on a regular basis. A dioecious species, female trees bear masses of fleshy, red, edible berries that the Māori collected in autumn by climbing the trees with baskets.

Now I’m on the boardwalk heading back through the Fernery to the parking lot and our bus. It was April 10, 1968 when Cyclone Giselle brought sudden winds of 275 kilometres per hour (171 mph) to Wellington, sinking the interisland ferry Wahine in sight of the harbour, with 53 lives lost of the 734 aboard. But the cyclone, the worst in New Zealand’s history, also knocked down trees throughout the country, including a swath cut through the forest at Otari-Wilton’s Bush. The opening created light favourable for the growing of ferns, and thus the fernery was launched late that year.

I see New Zealand’s iconic silver fern or ponga, which has had a botanical genus name change from Cyathea dealbata to Alsophila dealbata, courtesy of DNA sequencing.  Look at the ferns colonizing its trunk.

Later, I get a closer look at the plants climbing another silver fern, which were identified for me by an Otari botanist for my 2018 blog New Zealand – The Fernery Nation. The climbing thread fern is Icarus filiformis (formerly Blechnum filiforme) or pānoko. The broadleaf plant is scarlet rātā vine or in Māori akatawhiwhi (Metrosideros fulgens).

I pause at a few low-growing ferns, including Cunningham’s maidenhair (Adiantum cunninghamii).

…… and the rhizomatous creeping fern Asplenium lamprophyllum.

But it’s the tree ferns that are most spectacular here. Milne’s tree fern (Alsophila milnei) has also had a genus name change from Cyathea. It is endemic to Raoul Island.

Kermadec tree fern (Alsophila kermadecensis) is also native to Raoul Island.

Mamaku or black tree fern has also been moved out of Cyathea; it is now called Sphaeropteris medullaris. It can grow very tall, up to 20 metres (60 feet).

I take a quick glimpse into the native bush, which encompasses 100 hectares here as our guide calls for me to hurry. I’m the last one on the bus!

Leaving the garden, I glance back at the beautiful pou whenua carved with the creatures of the forest. Given that “Otari” is a Māori word for “place of snares” recalling its heritage as a traditional place for bird-hunting, it is fitting that it is now celebrated as a place for watching birds and all manner of wildlife and plants.

As I run for the bus, I stop to take one last photo, of the unfurling crozier, or koru in Māori, of rough tree fern or whekī (Dicksonia squarrosa).  Traditionally, the koru symbolizes perpetual movement, a return to the point of origin. It seems that the people of Wellington and those who fought to reclaim the bush for nature and education have done that here very well.

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If you enjoyed this blog, be sure to read my New Zealand series of blogs:

  1. Totara Waters – A Tropical Treat
  2. Connells Bay Sculpture Park – Waiheke
  3. New Zealand – The Fernery Nation
  4. Finding Beauty and Tranquility at Omaio
  5. Bay of Islands – Māoris, Kauris and Kia Ora
  6. From Forage to Flora at The Paddocks
  7. Queenstown – Bungy-Jumping & Botanizing
  8. A Night on Doubtful Sound
  9. Dunedin Botanic Garden
  10. Oamaru Public Gardens
  11. A Lunch at Ostler Wine’s Vineyards
  12. Hiking Under Aoraki Mount Cook
  13. The Garden at Akaunui
  14. Christchurch Botanic Gardens
  15. Ohinetahi – An Architectural Garden Masterpiece
  16. Fishermans Bay Garden
  17. The Giants House – A Mosaic Master Class in Akaroa
  18. A Visit to Barewood Garden
  19. A Grand Vision at Paripuma
  20. A South Island Farewell at Upton Oaks
  21. We Sail to Wellington

 

A Garden Embroidered with Myriad Threads

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Most times when we tour gardens, we arrive en masse and then we “oooh” and “aaah” and marvel at all the beautifully-grown plants and cleverly-designed components. We might say hello to the gardener, if he or she is there. Sometimes we even delve a little into the shared passion for nature that has one person judging what the other person has taken many years to achieve. But rarely do we learn much about the gardener’s other life.  So it was with great interest that I read about Carol and Randall Shinn of Fort Collins, Colorado, whose beautiful garden I visited this month with the Garden Bloggers’ Fling. They met at the University of Colorado in Boulder, then enjoyed long careers in education, Carol in visual arts, and Randall in music composition. Their careers took them across the country, and finally to Tempe, Arizona for 28 years. When they moved to Colorado from the desert, it was because “water seemed more plentiful here than in any other city in the front range”.  This was my bus window view as we pulled up in front of their home.

Carol’s artistic career has involved observing nature, photographing scenes that move her, transferring the images to fabric, then machine-stitching them to enhance the details and intensify the colours. This embroidery is as intricate and unusual an art form as her garden, which stitches together various manifestations of her interests as they evolved since moving here in 2006. Walking up the driveway, on one side is a traditional June planting of peonies, sages and bearded irises at their peak….

…. while the other side features gritty soil and a spectacular mix of colourful Colorado native penstemons, erigerons, white Astragalus angustifolius and tall yellow prince’s plume (Stanleya pinnata).

In front of the garage is a shrub we would see a lot of in the Denver area, native Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa).

A sumptuous ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ peony flanks the walk to the front door…..

….. where a comfy wicker chair rests near the roses.

Bearded irises perform well in Carol’s garden, here with Rocky Mountain penstemon (P. strictus)…..

…. and peonies are the essence of June.  Note the compact conifers, which lend winter interest to gardens where snow can appear even in late spring, as it did this year in the front range.

A dry stream bed meanders past a lupine and presumably diverts rain water in wet weather.

The most striking feature is the crevice garden, a haven for alpine collectables and a nod to the sandstone and basalt of the hulking Rocky Mountains nearby.  I loved how it was artfully integrated into the more traditional plantings…..

…. and sections stitched together with thymes and other groundcovers.

Vertical crevice gardens are increasingly popular with alpine enthusiasts, patterned after the first iterations of this style as created by Czech rock gardeners like Zdenek Zvolánek, Ota Vlasak, Josef Halda and Vojtech Holubec, as Denver rock garden czar Panayoti Kelaidis relates in this blog. (As an aside, I have written about and photographed the massive crevice garden designed by Zvolánek for Montreal Botanical Garden’s Alpine Garden.)  Some of Carol’s crevice gardens were designed by Kenton Seth.

Carol Shinn, left, explains the process to Garden Design owner Jim Peterson and his wife Valerie.


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Look at all those tiny treasures, each in its own space, protected against incursion of other plants by mighty rock walls.

The path to the back garden leads under an arched gate…..

…. behind which is wreathed a tangle of clematis.

Roses and irises continue the June show here, along with chives…..

….. and I do love bronze bearded irises.

In a far corner is the vegetable garden and….

…. beyond that, a series of no-nonsense compost bins.

And surprise, surprise! more rock garden in the back, this time horizontal crevices with the sweetest hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum).

There is water back here, too. This bird-friendly waterfall and pond makes a lovely splash near the house….

….. and mounted on the fence is this very cool Corten and concrete wall fountain.

The iconic bluestem joint fir (Ephedra equestina) looks happy in front of a colour-coordinated wall in a well-contained niche to prevent it from colonizing….

… while a striped amaryllis lights up the dappled shade under a conifer.

What a diverse, beautiful garden – all “embroidered” together with skill and love.

Spring at Ontario’s Royal Botanical Gardens

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After a long winter, it always nourishes the soul to soak up spring in public gardens as they begin their season-long parade of blossoms. So, last Thursday, I paid a short visit to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, Ontario. It’s also in Hamilton, the neighbouring city – which is what happens when you have discrete properties spanning the municipal boundary along Plains Road. There was a lovely ‘Gorgeous’ crabapple attracting bees in front of the visitor centre.

Tulips (I think that spectacular orange one is ‘Daydream’) were in full flower along the walkway.

The raised gardens here attract lots of attention, given that they’re at eye level.

I loved this combination: yellow-flowered cushion spurge (Euphorbia polychroma) with ‘Blue Ensign’ lungwort (Pulmonaria) and eastern shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia) in front.

Then I arrived at what used to be called the Hendrie Rose Garden and is now the Centennial Rose Garden within Hendrie Park, which is the new name encompassing all the gardens at this location. The roses will begin in June, of course. I must say, I miss the old vine pergolas with the clematis and pleached trees overhead, but I’m sure these black metal gazebos will stand the test of time.  And from the photos I’ve seen online, this new incarnation is going to be more inspiring to gardeners who want to know how to design with low-maintenance roses in their own gardens, i.e. using companion plants rather than seeing the shrubs all alone in a “rose zoo”.

As we walked along the edge of the forest of the Grindstone Creek Valley, I saw native redbuds (Cercis canadensis) with their branches lined in tiny pink flowers.

A little flash of yellow alerted me to a male goldfinch in an oak tree. Lots of birders come here with their long lenses!

A horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) was just opening its first flowers, left, below. Did you know that this European tree has a fascinating reproductive strategy? Bees can see yellow, but not red, so the tree features a little yellow splotch on its newest flowers, the ones containing fresh nectar and pollen. As the flowers age, they turn orange, then red (right). Red is not a colour bees can detect, so they don’t bother with the old “used” flowers any more.

The Scented Garden was awash in fragrant daffodils (no labels, alas), while magnolias and perfumed Koreanspice viburnum (V. carlesii) were offering their olfactory best in the distance.

A favourite spot for me is the Helen M. Kippax Wild Plants Garden. I like its naturalistic approach to life and pollinators.

Mayapples were just coming into flower beside brilliant Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica)…..

….. which were attracting queen bees to the nectar-rich flowers, like the one below.

Our native common blue violet (Viola sororia) was putting on a pretty show.

How thrilling to see a young American chestnut (Castanea dentata), in a cage here to protect the tender shoots from voracious rabbits. Once a major eastern deciduous forest component (thought to have comprised 25-30% of hardwoods), this now endangered species suffered a massive decline because of chestnut blight, which is estimated to have killed between 3-4 billion trees in Eastern North America between 1904, when the disease was discovered, and the 1950s. Currently, the Canadian Chestnut Council is working to reintroduce trees bred to have better resistance to the blight.

The familiar flowers of wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) lit up a corner.

American red elderberry (Sambucus pubens) was in flower at the top of the Grindstone Creek Valley.

There was an informative and artful display set up to explain the role of solitary bees. I didn’t see any in residence, but perhaps it’s still early in the season.

Native bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) was showing off its catkin flowers.

The pond featured an interesting sculpture and a good interpetive sign explaining earth’s water cycle.

Most of the gardens were still waking up. In the Medicinal Plants Garden…….

…. the only plant in bloom was pink lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis var. rosea). Evidently, in careful doses, the root, which contains convallatoxin, has been used for cardiac arrhythmias and other heart issues. (The berries, however, are highly poisonous.)

Our next stop was a short drive down Plains Road to The Arboretum to see the RBG’s big lilac collection of over 700 species and cultivars. I wanted to see the early-blooming lilacs on the Kitsy Evans Lilac Walk…..

…. including the common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) which has given rise to so many cultivars over the past century.


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The Hyacinthifloras were in flower, given the early season……

….. and renowned Manitoba breeder Dr. Frank Skinner’s 1966 introduction, the compact, pink-flowered S. x hyacinthiflora ‘Maiden’s Blush’ (S. oblata, ssp. dilatata x S. vulgaris) was perfuming the path.  It’s a favourite of many lilac fans.

I headed down the slope of the Katie Osborne Lilac Garden to see what other early lilacs were in bloom.

There is now a path along the bottom of the Dell, which makes walking through easier……

…. but I must say that given that the Royal Botanical Gardens was once the International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRA) for lilacs and has such a deep collection, I was disappointed in the attention being paid to the lilacs on the steep south slope. Pruning has been let go here and elsewhere, which has allowed many lilac shrubs to grow too tall. In some places, lilacs have died and there are now hazardous depressions where people who want to climb the hill like mountain goats can twist ankles or worse. I have been many times to the RBG at lilac time, and I’ve written about lilacs and Hyacinthifloras and hybridizer Frank Skinner in particular – see my Canadian Gardening 2008 story, below. In one memorable interview with the RBG’s former lilac specialist Charles Holetich in the mid-90s when I was writing my weekly newspaper column for the Toronto Sun, he said he was a “strong believer that lilacs should be kept pruned at between 6-9 feet”.

I understand the difficulties associated with a steep slope (and limited staffing), but it seems to be me that some of these important lilacs, below, could easily be transplanted to the empty, flat lawn at the top on the north side of the Dell, where they could be maintained as they should be.

As we headed out of the Arboretum, I enjoyed this lovely ‘Midnight’ chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), and gazed beyond it to the big, flat lawn where those ignored lilacs might enjoy a new lease on life.

With a few hours left before we had to drive north to Guelph, we decided to stop in at the newly redesigned David Braley and Nancy Gordon Rock Garden back down Plains Road.

I attended the opening in 2016 (following a 4-year renovation of the 1929 garden) but the plantings have matured in three years. While it was primarily a spring display garden in its previous life, it had been re-imagined courtesy of Janet Rosenberg & Studio as a four-season garden featuring many more shrubs and a big palette of perennials. This was the view from the top.

Nearby was a fragrant ‘Heaven Scent’ magnolia (M. liliiflora x M. veitchii).

I did find some familiar little paths on the edge of the valley slope, where I could look through flowering almond (Prunus triloba ‘Multiplex’)…..

….. to old plantings of basket-of-gold (Aurinia saxatilis) still going strong decades later…

….. and some beautiful views down to the valley through fragrant Viburnum x carlcephalum ‘Cayuga’.

But it was down on the valley floor where you get the big picture, over a sleek, sinuous water feature up towards the new visitor centre, intended to attract not just garden-lovers but year-round restaurant diners and wedding and special event revenue as well.

The water feature extends around in front of the old 1962 teahouse, which is now called the Garden House.

A beautiful bridge spans the water, which will host water lilies in summer.

Along the main garden path which takes visitors on a gentle (wheelchair-accessible) ascent back to the Visitor Centre, only a few spring perennials were in bloom.

Retracing my steps, I climbed a path at the far end of the rock garden, past a lovely Korean maple (Acer pseudosieboldianum) …….

…… and a pretty little waterfall.

There were pale fritillaries (Fritillaria pallida) peeking out from ostrich ferns….

…. and at the top of the stone steps, the reward of a ‘Valentine’ bleeding heart in flower.

We walked through the late blossoms of ‘Kanzan’ Japanese cherries in the RBG’s cherry collection to return to our car.

After a long winter, it was a joy to walk among cherry blossoms, daffodils, scented lilacs and viburnums in yet another spring at the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Dunedin Botanic Garden

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After travelling on the 10th day of our American Horticultural Society “Gardens, Wine & Wilderness Tour” from Lake Manapouri and Doubtful Sound to Dunedin in Otago on the east coast of the South Island, a 3-1/2 hour journey of 291 kilometres (182 miles)……

…. we arrived in the city late in the afternoon. Our route took us past the Dunedin Railway Station. Built in the Edwardian Baroque style in 1906, it provided train service for a city that had been founded 58 years earlier by the Free Church of Scotland. In fact Dunedin is the old Gaelic name for Edinburgh, and it was the Scots who were the first colonists, though the Māori had already occupied the land for some 700 years. It was a big whaling port in its early days, then the Otago Gold Rush of the 1860s led to its rapid expansion.

Where we had slept in a stateroom aboard a boat on Doubtful Sound in Fiordland the night before, tonight we would be sleeping in a rather lovely room at the Distinction Dunedin Hotel. What made it extra-special was the fact that the room was equipped with a clothes washer and dryer. If you’ve travelled for any length of time on a bus tour, you’ll know how welcome that would be.

Feeling a little tired after the drive, we ordered up a light room-service dinner of cheese plate & salad, and cracked a bottle of Marlborough Chardonnay.

The next morning, we headed out to Dunedin Botanic Garden….

…..where we were met in the parking lot for an orientation by Alan Matchett (left), Garden Team Leader/Curator and Collection Curator, Dylan Norfield.

Opened in 1863, it is New Zealand’s first botanic garden. It occupies 30.4 hectares (75 acres) on a property that slopes from native Lovelock Bush, the New Zealand Native Plant Collection, Geographic Collection and Rhododendron Dell at the top down a hillside through the Southern African Garden and Mediterranean Terrace  and Rock Garden – all considered the Upper Garden – to the Lower Garden where you find Herbaceous Borders, a Knot Garden, Glasshouses, the Clive Lister Garden, the Rose Garden, Theme Borders and a Water Garden. The main gates open to an intersection of three of Dunedin’s main streets.

We set off behind Alan and Dylan for a tour that was sadly much too short to see all the features of this wonderful garden.

The Native Plant Collection is vast, and includes traditional borders…..

….. featuring grasses and shrubs and with some of the country’s native tree ferns, like Dicksonia fibrosa, with its persistent frond ‘skirts’. (For more on NZ ferns, have a look at my previous post.)

There were cultivars and hybrids of natives here, like silver-leafed Brachyglottis ‘Otari Cloud’….

….. and the lovely variegated Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Irene Patterson’. Unlike the UK and the mild west coast, pittosporums are not much seen in northeast North America.  I wish I’d had time to search out many more.

In the shadier sections, the New Zealand rock lily or renga renga (Arthropodium cirratum) was in flower…….

…… and bush flax (Astelia fragrans) was already in fruit.

We toured a fascinating Alpine Scree.  On an island so dominated by the rugged Southern Alps (it is estimated that one-third of New Zealand’s flora exists in the alpine zone), it’s interesting to see plants adapted to the gravelly slopes of mountains…..

…..like giant Spaniard (Aciphylla scott-thomsonii), below. Though often called Spaniard grass or speargrass, the spiky Aciphyllas are actually umbellifers, members of Apiaceae that flower in November. The flowers in my closeup below have withered and blackened.

Here’s a vigorous clump of Marlborough rock daisy (Pachystegia insignis).

In the Geographic Collections, we noted South American plants like evergreen Luma apiculata from the Central Andes between Chile and Argentina…

….and Lomandra longifolia from Australia.

We made a brief stop at the Rhododendron Dell, which forms a large part of the 4-hectare (10-acre) Woodland Garden.  Naturally, as we visited in summer, nothing was in flower,  but I can only imagine what these massive ‘Halopeanum’ rhodos would have looked like in November.

Descending, we made our way through the large Southern African Garden.

There were beautiful king proteas here (P. cynaroides).

….. and masses of the dwarf Agapanthus ‘Streamline’.

How spectacular is this eye-popping planting of Crassula coccinea, native to the fynbos of the Western Cape?

With time running out, I raced through the Mediterranean Garden, with its formal pool…..

….. and balustrade overlook, with the hills of Dunedin in the distance.  But I knew I’d be coming back here today after another tour stop to spend lots of time retracing my steps to really explore the place!

In the Lower Garden, there was a Knot Garden patterned on the one in the Shakespeare Garden at Stratford-on-Avon.

And in classic public garden style, there was a stunning herbaceous border that I viewed from one end……

….. to the other.

Look at these lovely combinations:  alstroemerias and bright pink phlox with Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blue’…..
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….. and salmon achillea with old-fashioned Shasta daisies…..

….. and unusual (for me) Lobelia tupa with Phlox paniculata……

…… and soft pink achillea with chocolate cosmos (C. atrosanguineus). Isn’t this fabulous?

There were loads of bumble bees foraging on the alstroemerias……

….. and on the lovely blue bog sage (Salvia uliginosa).

And just to add a little design intelligence to all that floriferous brilliance, the garden also features a number of “colour borders”, including yellow…..

….. and red….

….. and violet, featuring Lythrum virgatum, Monarda fistulosa and Agastache foeniculum.

I was impressed by the massive size of this English oak (Quercus ruber) – aka the ‘Royal Oak’ – which was planted in 1863 to commemorate the marriage of the Prince of Wales and the Danish Princess Alexandra.  The children in the playground seemed unmoved that they were frolicking atop the roots of a piece of Dunedin’s colonial history.

For sheer elegance, I loved the Clive Lister Garden – and also the story behind it, below. What a wonderful way to enrich a public space, especially one that has meant much to you during your life.

Look at this view of grasses and many native plants from one side of the bridge in the Clive Lister Garden……

….. and the other side, featuring hostas, Japanese maples and other shade plants.

The garden is full of textural plants…..

….. and those with attractive, coloured foliage.

Flowering seems less important than good foliage in the Clive Lister Garden, but there were some lovely surprises, like this ligularia-montbretia combination.

This is the shimmering Astelia chathamica ‘Silver Spear’, which we’re starting to see in N. American gardens.

Alas, our time at the fabulous Dunedin Botanic Garden had drawn to an end without me seeing the glasshouses, water garden, theme gardens, rose gardens or fully exploring the native and geographic collections in the Upper Garden we’d walked through so quickly. So I trotted out to the bus reluctantly and vowed to come back by taxi later in the day.

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When I returned, clouds were gathering in the sky so I hurried to the Winter Garden Glasshouse. At its opening in 1908, it was said to be the first public conservatory in Australasia. It has three wings; the west wing contains a good cactus collection.

Tropicals find a warm, humid home in the central Tropical House.

And the east wing contains the sub-tropical collection, with plants like the lovely Vireya rhododendron, below.

It started to sprinkle as I left and eyed the Rose Garden – very nice, I’m sure, but I wanted to get back to the Upper Garden.

I decided to buy an ice cream in the visitor’s centre to see if the shower might abate, but it continued. So I headed quickly over Lindsay Creek to the Rock Garden…..

….. eyeing these spectacular red-hot pokers (Kniphofia sp.) as I walked. The climate here in Dunedin seems perfect for these South African natives.

The rock garden is stunning, and one could spend a half day just here examining all its lovelies, like…….

….. strange-looking Raoulia apicinigra, one of the “mat daisy” clan, …..

….. and Dierama pendulum, fairy bells.  But the rain had now intensified and having given my umbrella and raincoat to my husband to take back to the hotel (“Nah, I won’t need it.”), I found a plastic bag to partially cover my hat and tucked my phone under my shirt to keep it dry.  My cameras were now back in the camera bag as the heavens opened and the rain poured down.

One last shot, of a butterfly lily (Gladiolus papilio) that was as soaked as I was, and out I ran, down the steps and past the now deserted herbaceous borders to a bus shelter outside the gates, where I waited in the monsoon for 20 minutes to flag down a passing cab.

As sad as I was not to have had more time to spend at Dunedin Botanic Garden, I was so very grateful that I’d had the opportunity to see it at all.

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Love botanic gardens? You might be interested in my blogs on New York Botanical Garden, Idaho Botanical Garden, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, UBC Botanical Garden and Toronto Botanical Garden’s fabulous containers and Piet Oudolf border. In South Africa, there is the mighty Kirstenbosch, the Harold Porter National Botanic Gardens and Durban Botanic Garden.  And outside London, Kew Gardens in autumn.