Tag Archives: Seattle

A Garden of Endearing, Eclectic, Exuberant Refuge

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Of all the gardens I visited during the July 2024 Garden Fling in Washington State’s Puget Sound region, I was completely smitten by the Seattle garden of Daniel Sparler and his husband Jeff Schouten. Located in the city’s Seward Park neighbourhood, they call it their “garden of exuberant refuge”, but I would add some more “E” words, besides the ones in my title. Like “excellent”, as in horticultural excellence; “ebullient”, as in cheerful and colourful; and “exotic”, as in featuring plants from many of the far-off places where Daniel has worked or visited, including East Asia, South Asia, South Africa, all over Latin America and the Mediterranean. So let’s start our tour at the front of the house and this collection of pots planted with cordylines, cannas, bananas, agapanthus and other choice treasures.

Daniel is the expert gardener — and writes a column called ‘Horticulturally Yours’ for the Northwest Horticultural Society — while Jeff has built the garden’s many structures and hardscape elements, like the painted concrete posts below. Sculpture is featured throughout this garden and whimsical elements occupy each nook and cranny.

I love this curved, purple wall that acts as backdrop and shelf while separating the patio from the plantings behind it.

Throughout the Pacific northwest, I’m blown away by the magnificent lilies in almost every garden. I realize I almost never leave our lakeside cottage north of Toronto in the summer months, so a July garden tour means seeing a cornucopia of horticultural riches.

Having visited our youngest son and his wife in Tuscany in early June where perfumed star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) grows on every arch and stone wall (in fact, we gave them this vine as a housewarming gift), it is fun to see it here in full bloom against a trellised pergola.

On a bench inside, a mossy Buddha invites a moment of tranquility.

And though I’m sure the garden has no shortage of the real things, a menagerie of toy frogs and lizards surround the Buddha.

Metal woodpeckers climb the stem of the windmill palm.

A gravel path is edged with a long line of moss-covered, concrete columns, many topped by a bromeliad or succulent.

The fun of Daniel and Jeff’s garden is the effort they’ve made in creating so many artful delights for the eye, like this pile of beautiful slag grass in its rebar cage next to a column topped with glass art pieces.

Along the path, a lily offering sits before a Shiva

Whimsical bamboo vases on the trellis hold allium seedheads and a coiled visitor of the non-venomous variety.

A green ceramic ball partners with a beautiful houseleek (Aeonium arborescens).

On the north side of the 1952 brick house which Daniel and Jeff bought in 1992, a path winds past shade lovers arrayed around an interesting mask-decked iron screen.

As Daniel said in a video online about the garden: “My philosophy of gardening is pretty simple. A garden should be authentic. Which means it should reflect as accurately as possible the values, experiences and even the whims of the gardeners.” 

Further along the path we see shade-lovers such as Tasmanian tree fern (Dicksonia antarctica), Chinese mayapple (Podophyllum pleianthum), astilbes, hostas and other shade and moisture lovers.

Isn’t this a beautiful vignette? That’s a shrubby St. Johnswort (Hypericum androsaemum) in the centre with the glossy Chinese mayapple.

In the back garden, dense plantings edge a flagstone patio.

A potted ponytail palm (Beaucarnea recurvata) mulched with polished glass stones tops a concrete post.

Daniel and Jeff built this viewing pavilion in 2007, the perfect place to contemplate the garden, martini in hand. We are fortunate to visit on the one day the white epiphyllum cactus is in bloom. Behind is an 80-foot tall blue eucalyptus (E. glaucescens), the sole survivor of the original 14 species acquired by Daniel in an early fit of “eucalypt fever”. As he wrote in an Oct. 2022 column called “Eucalpytus: Gumming up the Garden”, “Within a few years the tally had withered by two-thirds as several were either slain by sudden, brutal cold snaps (as in November 2010) or deliberately killed by Yours Truly once I awoke to the reality of their obstreperous nature.”

I find the owners of this fabulous 1/3-acre garden holding court in the back. Daniel Sparler, below, is a retired teacher of humanities and Spanish at Seattle’s Northwest School. Apart from his writing, he also teaches Botanical Latin for the Northwest Horticultural Society.

Dr. Jeff Schouten is a physician, associate professor at the University of Washington, and former director of HANC (HIV/AIDS Network Coordination Center) at Seattle’s Fred Hutch Cancer Center.

Back to the garden and its gorgeous plants: of course, there are hydrangeas here, as there are all over the Puget Sound gardens on our tour.

And a nicely-grown tiger flower (Tigridia pavonia).

In the gravel garden is a ghostly eryngium with a very distressed-looking gargoyle and a pair of blue Dustin Gimbel ceramic cacti.

A pot containing a ‘Snow Leopard’ mangave (Agave) sits in the gravel garden surrounded by blue glass art.

And in a place of honour on a table nearby sits the spiral cactus Cereus spiralis ‘Forbesii’.

Breadseed poppy (Papaver somniferum) seedheads form near an indigo-blue obelisk, part of the ‘blue garden’ vibe in this part of the property.

It’s my first time seeing double tiger lily (Lilium lancifolium ‘Flore Pleno’), just one of more than 4,600 taxa that Daniel has amassed in what has been described as a terminal case of “Compulsive Plant Collecting”!

Speaking of plant collecting, I stop to marvel at the shelves of cacti and succulents against the house wall…

…. and occupying a ledge and every step of the stairs, along with the resident dinosaurs.

Bordering the path in the sunny, south-facing side-yard is a pot containing Agapanthus Twister (‘AMBIC001’), my favourite agapanthus. It was selected in 2008 by Quinton Bean of De Wet Aloe Farm in South Africa, a single, bicoloured plant from a complex cross involving A. pracecox subsp. orientalis and A. campanulatus.

A beautiful solanum (S. crispum ‘Glasnevin’, I believe) is in full flower on this side.

Agaves and aloes enjoy the reflected heat from the house.

Jeff has adorned an octagonal concrete post with coloured tiles, creating a fancy perch for the winged griffin and an eye-catching background for the plants at its base, including a pot holding a restio AND a cordyline!

The pendant flowers of Fuchsia boliviana ‘Alba’ catch my eye here.

Daniel and Jeff are rightfully proud of the compost that nurtures their garden, so I stop to pay homage.

Circling back to the front (I think…. it’s a little confusing in a garden so densely planted), I come to the striking, above-ground, concrete pool. Constructed in 2002 to replace a large, naturalistic pond they had built in the 90s that had become too difficult to maintain, this, I think, is Jeff’s masterpiece. The fact that I’m crazy about chartreuse in the garden might be a factor! It’s adorned with its own crocodile….

….. and a flotilla of coloured glass balls.

I’m also a fan of purple accents in the garden, so I love this handsome bench.

A pot of tillandsia on a moss, tile-adorned post would have been impressive, but why not encircle it with a snake and add a lizard, too?

I think I’ve circled around the house again, because the blue glass agave on its painted post is part of that ‘blue garden’ theme.

As is the blue Hydrangea serrata.

Himalayan maidenhair fern (Adiantum venustum) cascades gracefully over a mossy rock.

Scent is important in this part of the garden and rubrum lily (L. speciosum var. rubrum) adds lots of perfume.

A bumble bee forages in a dahlia flower. Singles and semi-doubles like this variety are popular with pollinators, who cannot access the stamens and nectaries of the fluffy doubles that many gardeners like.

Phormium ‘Jester’ pops up behind dark dahlia foliage.

It’s impossible to capture all the amazing plants and vignettes in our short visit, like this big schefflera.

There are bromeliads mixed in, including this Vriesea splendens.

A Rex begonia gets the star treatment with its circle of green slag glass — the honour, according to Daniel, owing to the fact that it miraculously survived the terrible January deep-freeze.

There’s an inner child in all of us and the Garden of Exuberant Refuge embraces that notion fully.

A broken clay pot in a sea of ferns becomes a vehicle for a waterfall of green slag glass.

As I head back to the bus to continue our tour of fine Seattle gardens, my final image in this garden of delights is a perfectly pink lily.

Thank you Daniel Sparler and Jeff Schouten. May your abundant, exuberant garden continue to be a place of beauty and refuge for years to come.

*******

Like playful gardens executed with polish and horticultural skill? Have a look at my blog on The Giant’s House in Akaroa, NZ, the mosaic domain of artist Josie Martin.

A September Visit to Bellevue Botanical Garden

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On our brief stop in Seattle in September, we paid a visit to Bellevue Botanical Garden. I had been to the garden years earlier and it was still enchanting — if only the weather had cooperated (she says, with a wink). For unlike most people who revel in a warm late summer day without a cloud on the horizon, photographers tend to gaze skyward hopefully for the chance of overcast – even a light sprinkle – because midday sunshine creates difficult, contrasty light in a garden. Nevertheless, that’s what we had and I was resigned walking in that I would be focusing on shadier spots in the garden.

This is a map of the garden, which I modified to show both the small keys and actual sections in one image. From their website a bit of history:  “The Bellevue Botanical Garden Society (BBGS) was founded in 1984, by Iris and Bob Jewett, with the idea to build and support a free public botanical garden for their local community. It came to fruition when Harriet and Cal Shorts generously donated their home and 7.5 acres to develop the Bellevue Botanical Garden (BBG). The Society was then incorporated in January 1986, as a non-profit organization. Beginning in 1992, and in partnership with the City of Bellevue, more than 45 acres has since been added to the Garden. Today, the 53-acre Bellevue Botanical Garden is a world-renowned community treasure for everyone to enjoy”.  

The entrance walkway features a unique in-ground rock fountain which feeds a rill that flows along the pathway.

Beyond is an interesting slatted wall fountain.

If you have a cellphone, you can use the Tap or Scan app for the garden.

The Fuchsia Garden has been maintained by Seattle’s Eastside Fuchsia Society since 1992. I could have spent a long time here shooting macros, but we had a big driving day ahead, so I satisfied myself with….

…. just one or two close-ups. This lovely blossom is ‘Delta’s Sarah’.

Then we were approaching the famous NPA (Northwest Perennial Alliance).Perennial Border, which is actually a series of parallel borders arrayed on a slope.  Though this is an older article, I appreciated reading about the history of the border. 

There are attractive benches throughout the garden…..

….. and interesting stacked stone sculptures (these ones in goldenrod about to flower.)

I wish I could show you the border as it should be seen, but in the harsh light I took very few photos.  There was an ebullient display of Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), Verbena bonariensis and blue mist bush (Caryopteris x clandonensis).

And out of the sun, I liked the way V. bonariensis insinuated itself into this heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica).

Verbena bonariensis always attracts bumble bees, and since I do a lot of photography of bumble bees and all kinds of other native bees and honey bees, I stopped for a moment to watch a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) nectaring on the tiny flowers.

Gaura (Oenothera gaura) was a cloud of tiny flowers.

The purplish-blue spikes of anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) made a pretty pairing with the gaura.

Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henry Eilers’ is one of the late season charmers among the myriad yellow daisies.

I loved the way false hemp (Datisca cannabina) created a living arch on a path behind towering pink Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum ‘Gateway’).

Ornamental grasses are featured abundantly in the perennial border.

Bulbs are also used in the perennial border, like this tropical ginger lily (Hedychium coccineum ‘Tara’).

And the border features shrubs and small trees like crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia) ….

…. and hydrangeas, which were undergoing their beautiful late summer colour transformation.

Red-orange heleniums (H. autumnale) were attracting pollinators in one section of the border.


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In a shady section, below, I was charmed by this small vignette of hydrangea, brunnera and geranium……

…. and the azure-blue flowers of Gentiana asclepiadea cascaded over stairs between the parallel paths.

The cultivar name of this pure white toad lily (Tricyrtis hirta) is ‘Shirohohotogisu’, which means ‘white cuckoo’, a descriptive metaphor for the upswept petals.

On higher ground beside the lawn near the garden’s gift shop, I stood in the shade of the silk tree (Albizia julibrissin) and looked back at the borders below.

The silk tree was in full flower.

At the far end of the border, the Dahlia Display Garden maintained by the Puget Sound Dahlia Association was at its late summer best.

Who doesn’t love the brilliant colours of dahlias?

The bright sun on this dahlia suited the leafcutter bee just fine. (Bees love single-petalled dahlias!)

Even this southern green stink bug nymph looked fetching on an orange dahlia.

Since our schedule had us driving to the beaches of Oregon that day, we hurried out of the NPA Perennial Border area on a path through the forest. Here you’ll find the Native Discovery Garden. From the website: “The Native Discovery Garden, maintained by the East Lake Washington District of Garden Clubs and the Washington Native Plant Society, inspires visitors to look to the native plant palette when planning their home gardens. Adapted to the climate and conditions of the Pacific Northwest, native plants in urban landscapes can be ecologically sound, beautiful, and low maintenance. Adjacent to a natural wetland, this garden illustrates the many layers of plant life in the Northwest, from ground covers to trees. It serves as a transition from the gardens to the woodlands and forested lands to the south.” 

 

I stopped at a beautiful bench, sculpted from Washington state hexagonal columnar basalt by sculptor Barry Namm.

There were excited children watching the fish beneath the waterfall in the Shorts Groundcover Garden.

Water is used throughout Bellevue Botanical Garden, in inventive ways both natural and highly artificial.

I captured some of those water features in this short video.

To honor its ‘sister city’ relationship with Yao City near Osaka, Bellevue originally established the Yao Japanese Garden at Kelsey Creek Park.  In 1992, the garden was moved to the Bellevue Botanical Garden, where it opened two years later. This is the entrance gate.

Unlike many traditional Japanese gardens, there are lushly beautiful plantings here.

I loved this timber bridge.

But there are also the more traditional features of a Japanese garden.

We stopped briefly at the Tateuchi Viewing Pavilion, nestled under massive red cedars (Thuja plicata).  It was a gift from the Tateuchi Foundation, i.e. Atsuhiko Tateuchi and his wife, Ina Goodwin Tateuchi.

Then it was time to take the Tateuchi Loop Path to return to our car and drive south towards Oregon.

Flora & Friendship at Seattle’s Soest Garden

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What a pleasure it was for me to visit the University of Washington Botanic Garden’s (UWBG) Center for Urban Horticulture and the Soest Herbaceous Display Garden in Seattle earlier this month! Part of the fun was that I was meeting a little group of Facebook friends for a picnic – a bring-what-you-wish buffet among people who’ve “known” each other online for years, but answered my invite to meet “in the flesh” on the first leg of a 2-1/2 week circular driving vacation my husband and I embarked on from Vancouver throughout Washington and Oregon. (More on that later.)  But much of the pleasure came from exploring a garden where the fullness of late summer was on show everywhere, including these spectacular swamp hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos) adjacent to the parking area.

We wound our way past an impressive Hydrangea integrifolia (a new species for me) blanketing a building wall…..

…. down a path beside the library…..

…and arrived in a courtyard outside the NHS Hall. Here were colourful container displays of annuals and tropicals…..

…. and a lovely combination of ‘Rustic Orange’ coleus (Plectranthus scuttelarioides) with Begonia boliviensis.

I was drawn by the sound of water through the arches in the little Fragrance Garden (where we’d have our picnic later)…..

….toward the charming fountain at the center of the Soest Garden.

The Soest Garden is designed with eight beds radiating out from the central fountain and all divided by paths. This is what it looks like standing at the fountain and turning slowly to view the garden.

At the beginning of September, the garden was resplendent with ornamental grasses and late-flowering perennials. Here are some of the spectacular plants and combinations, beginning with beautiful ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ pineapple lily (Eucomis comosa) combined with Antonow’s honey bush (Melianthus major ‘Antonow’s Blue’).

The foliage on the honey bush is entrancing, isn’t it?

It was fun to see azure-blue Agapanthus inapertus.

I liked the dark-red colour echo going on with the Potentilla thurberi and the ‘Cheyenne’ switch grass (Panicum virgatum).

The beds have useful signs to identify some (not all) of the plants.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen largest masterwort (Astrantia maxima) before.

Northern sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium) was one of several native grasses putting on a late-summer show..

Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) is always among the most graceful of edgers in any design.

In a garden full of often-rare plants, there were some familiar favourites, like Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’.

Persicaria ‘Painter’s Palette’ was paired with Phlox paniculata ‘Nora Leigh’. 

Long-blooming Aster x frikartii ‘Mönch’ peeked out from a cloud of fall asters still in bud.

Here’s a fabulous Spanish grass I wish was hardy for us, giant feather grass (Stipa gigantea).

And here it is as background for hemp-agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum) and the newish white-flowered coreopsis Star Cluster, at front.

I’ve always liked the romantic late-summer combination of pink-flowered border sedums like ‘Autumn Joy’ with the soft blue flowers of Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Little Spire’).

The shape of this bed is enhanced by the chartreuse foliage of Sedum ruprestre ‘Angelina’, which is itself enhanced by the soft shield fern (Polystichum setiferum ‘Divisilobum’) behind it.


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At the opposite end of the garden to that which I entered is the public entrance from the parking lot. Here visitors can see the donors who made this wondrous garden possible, the late Orin Soest and his wife Althea Soest. As the obituary for Orin Soest stated: “In 1990, he began a relationship that continues in perpetuity with the University of Washington and the Center for Urban Horticulture. In 1998, The Orin and Althea Soest Herbaceous Garden was dedicated and has been a cherished gift to the University and the community of Seattle for its educational and healing purposes.”

And here we see the overall layout of the Center for Urban Horticulture and the context of the display garden within it.

Grasses like variegated purple moor grass (Molinia caerulea ‘Variegata’) are airy enough to act as scrims or screens for plants behind them. I liked how the little flame lilies (Hesperantha coccinea) sparkle behind the molinia.

Here’s the purple moor grass from the far side of the bed.

And this fabulous big shrub is Himalayan honeysuckle (Leycesteria formosa).

Although the flowers had withered, angel’s fishing rod (Dierama pulcherrimum) still created an interesting effect in this bed.

One of my favourite images of the Soest garden was this luscious pairing of globe thistle (Echinops ritro) and ‘Gateway’ Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum). Even in the northeast, this is one combination we can carry off!

This is the view from the far end of the garden. What a lovely place for strolling slowly, absorbing the plant combinations and taking in details large and small.

I think this is a dry streambed in the South Slope below the garden, with a variety of heaths, heathers and drought-tolerant sedges like Carex buchananii.

The beautiful begonia (B. grandis ‘Heron’s Pirouette’) was collected in Japan in 1997 by Dan Hinkley (Heronswood) and is hardy to USDA Zone 6.

Circling around the garden, I came to some benches framed with ornamental grasses and containers of succulents.

I loved the way this tree aeonium (Aeonium arboreum var. atropurpureum) – in the container with blue chalk sticks (Senecio serpens) – echoed the flowers of the fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides).  Behind is tall toe toe grass (Cortaderia richardii) and yellow-flowered shrubby hare’s ear (Bupleurum fruticosum).

Finally I came to a generous stand of Fuchsia magellanica …..

….being explored for nectar by a honey bee.  It seemed like the perfect time to stop for lunch.

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For it was now time to meet my friends: Seattle photographer-writer-philosopher David Perry and his partner, UW School of Medicine Administrator Mary Pyper, (me in the centre), the Center for Urban Horticulture Elisabeth C. Miller Library’s  librarian-poet Rebecca Alexander,  and Sue Nevler, who has been trustee or board member for some of Seattle’s finest gardens, including this one.

We tucked into our picnic, made special with freshly-smoked salmon and all the trimmings from David and Mary…..

…… and an apple cake made by Rebecca’s partner, Carlo, from their own Akane apples.

There was a gift of dahlias from Sue’s garden, with a special ‘pollinator nosegay’ to honour my love of bees.

We took our plates to the Fragrance Garden, where scented lilies…..

…. and white summer phlox (P. paniculata ‘David’)…..

… and English roses perfumed the air.

It was a day for exploring a most charming garden – and bringing friendships made in cyberspace down to fruitful, late-summer earth.