One of the highlights of my spring break was traveling to Seattle to speak at the Northwest Horticultural Society’s 60th Anniversary Symposium. The trip included tours of incredible gardens thanks to our wonderful hostess Nita-Jo Roundtree, and as a southerner who hadn’t seen any horticultural highlights in the Seattle area, this trip was an opportunity to learn about Pacific Northwest gardening.
The first garden that we visited was the Elisabeth Miller Botanical Garden. Before we walked the garden in the mixture of rain and snow, executive director Richie Steffen gave us some context about the space. The main part of the garden is 2.5 acres and sits between the house and Puget Sound. The garden is part of the Highlands, an Olmsted-designed community. And, because it is part of a neighborhood, the garden is limited to 500 visitors a year. Tickets are sold online, and they sell out in minutes!
Richie said that Betty was not a gardener when she moved in, but that she fell in love with plants. Noted local horticulturist Karl English started making the garden. Betty’s early focus was on western North America flora and Japan. After our introduction to the garden, we walked around in the wintry precipitation to enjoy the plantings. Enjoy these inspirational photos from my visit.
An old panorama of the house and property before it became the garden that it is today.
The back terrace was planted with a plethora of interesting species in pots. I quickly noticed that the Miller Botanical Garden featured a wide offering of plants in containers, and the next several images showcase the gardeners’ creativity.
Carnivorous plants always catch my eye. One container had a few colorful Sarracenia (pitcher plants) in it.
And, check out these cool metal tags that each container had. I loved the attention to detail.
The patio behind the house used to be covered with an arbor, but deterioration forced them to remove it, which opened up more light. A few containers here and there give a nice pop of green. I loved the wooden planters they constructed.
What a nice color echo between Enkianthus serrulatus (white-bell enkianthus) and Narcissus ‘Ice Baby’.
Look at these frilly pansies! Richie was really excited to have these and commented how unique they were. Viola ‘Elegance Twilight Collection’ (pansy) was bred by Isao Sato of Japan, and there’s more colors available.
A colorful collection of containers featuring Cordyline australis 'Torbay Dazzler' (cordyline), Helleborus (hellebore), Euphorbia (spurge), and more. I loved the color echo where it seemed each plant had a hint of that russet red from the containers. The gardeners said they had just finished planting these containers a few days ago, and of course it was now snowing.
One of the things I enjoyed seeing in Seattle gardens were these tabletop gardens. I think this design would be possible back in the southeast, but you’d probably need to water once a day.
Here’s another collection of containers to showcase bulbs for spring color. The logs were a nice touch and provided protection from vehicles for the pots. And to the left of this image was …
… two more table top gardens!
A few troughs and containers are perched around this sitting area. Walking sticks to the center right provide an option for support for walking through the garden.
At the bottom of the garden there was an overlook of Puget Sound with a few scattered containers.
Besides interesting containers, the garden also featured amazing plants. We were able to enjoy a Polyspora longicarpa (long-fruited polyspora) in flower. I love the fried-egg appearance of these flowers in the wintertime.
The stairs lead from up near the house to a lower level of the garden.
The flowers of Epimedium ‘Black Sea’ had just emerged for us to enjoy.
I saw silvery camellia-like foliage and asked if that was what it was. Sure enough, Richie said this was Camellia sasanqua ‘Silverado’ (sasanqua camellia). He said it can be difficult to root.
I love seeing wood in the garden. Here they used fallen logs to build up beds.
My first time seeing the ornamental seed pods of Cardiocrinum giganteum (giant lily). They provide such good winter interest.
Richie talked about how Cardamine quinquifolia (five-leaf black sea toothwort) spreads in gardens. Here it makes a nice groundcover.
I haven’t seen Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana (flowering ironwood) since graduate school at NC State. This member of the witch hazel family has pearly white bracts below the yellow flowers.
The rain and snow made the bark of this Arctostaphylos manzanita × densiflora ‘Monica’ glisten a brilliant crimson.
As we were about to leave, my eye caught a glimpse of trillium in a bed. These Trillium kurabayashii (giant purple wake-robin) were just coming into full bloom.
One last photo. I was stunned to see this massive foliage on Trillium chloropetalum × kurabayashii. You really can’t appreciate the scale here, but it was massive!
#keepgrowing