Garden Blogs Flinging Themselves upon Seattle! (Pre-Fling Prep Course: Kubota Garden)

Grrrrrrr. I'm an anatomically incorrect stuffed eel toy and I'm about to take Seattle! I'm a lean, mean, green, garden stalking machine. 

The Amateur Bot-ann-ist has never been a flinger, but I'm flinging this year to give it a shot. I'm almost always open to new garden viewing opportunities, especially when my cohorts are not kids groaning in the backseat. Garden Bloggers Fling 2011 (Seattle). 

My husband needed a break from California so he came with me. After our arrival, I tagged along while he accomplished some work. There is a tasting planned for this Saturday so first we dropped off several cases of wine at the Fremont Wine Warehouse. Then we jumped back on the freeway and headed back to another shop. I marveled at the greenery both times we passed through downtown. Due to our wet and mild summer it is looking even better than usual.

While he was pouring samples at another shop in West Seattle I sat in the car and played with my new camera. It's a Canon PowerShot SX30 IS and I think I'm in love. Seriously.

While I was in the car I realized that on our way back into the city we could revisit a garden that I'd only seen once during a winter trip to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show: Kubota Garden.

We bloggers will be visiting the Bloedel Reserve on Monday so the least I could do was revisit the garden left behind by Fujitaro Kubota. He was a Japanese immigrant from the island Shikoku, a self-taught gardener, and a man who became a keystone to what is called the Northwest Garden Style. He also designed the Japanese garden at the Bloedel Reserve. 

An island of Bergenia cordifolia. 

After having seen the Kubota Garden during the winter, I have to admit that today it felt like an entirely different place.

Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo.'

This Japanese maple, known in Japanese as the "Floating Cloud Tree" took my breath away.

The green canvases he painted with a textural brush are so calming and peaceful.

As you walk through the scenes, experiencing the layers, it feels cleansing and refreshing.

 There are nooks and paths that lead to views.

You may even find a place to rest in the small forest. It was planned and planted in such a way as to make the space seem larger and longer. This is very pleasing to the eye.

There are two red bridges. One bridge is lower and wider.

Red berried of a Vaccinium parvifolium.

There were native red huckleberries.

The other bridge is higher and is more of a Moon bridge.

As we left the garden we both noticed the construction that we'd seen several years ago was now complete and that they'd added a new wall and passageway into the garden. The contemporary construction includes "tiles" made of rusted metal rectangles which truly enhance the garden with their weathering. Additionally, the concrete blocks reminded me a great deal of the Gordon House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, where I used to work. Do you like the wall finished or unfinished? I love either, but I think that the raw and unfinished wall could look a lot worse. It truly is kind of interesting.

I've not yet met any of the other garden bloggers, but I certainly feel as though I've arrived. I look forward also to deeper contemplation of the Northwest Garden Style that means so much to me. Cheers to you Seattle!

Wordless Wednesday: The Itsy Bitsy Sedum Fell Down the Garden Wall

Here Comes the Rain Again

It's July in Oregon, and this year, we've had horrible weather. Typically this is our driest season and yet it continues to be anything but dry around here.

Even though the weather has not been rosy, I trekked out anyway to visit Heirloom Roses in Saint Paul, OR with a friend of mine and one of the foster kids.

Despite the horrible rain, we all had a really good time learning about roses by shopping for the ones with the characteristics we wanted the most. I looked for miniatures and super fragrant old roses for crafts and my ever-so-lovely rosewater. I just cannot get enough of the stuff for my iced tea. Last year I even made rose petal beads too and it was much easier than I ever would have imagined.

Other than the nursery visit, I've been spending a lot of time indoors in my chair, working on my shop on etsy. I have been collecting tons of seeds in the garden too, and when I rest up at night, I flip through old gardening books to unwind.

This year my neighbor friend is letting me collect seeds at her house so I can add to my online inventory. Like me, she just lets things grow and it's all natural and I've had a great time collecting seeds from the plants I grew from seed a year or two ago. I kind of feel like a parent almost!

Bottlebrush Grass, Elymus hystrix.

It bothers me that there are still piles of completely neglected plants around our house, but I am finally getting back to them. Some of the plants have been sorted to sell on Craigslist, and others have been sorted to plant asap. Many of them are super lovely wildflowers from California and other Western places. So many of them are so breathtaking I feel awful about overdoing it to the extent I may have jeopardized their well being and perpetuity. I need to keep their seed strains alive, right? Somebody other than myself has to care about this. 

Elegant Clarkia, Clarkia unguiculata.

Lastly, I suppose I should explain the neglect since up until now I believe I've been pretty sheepish about my little incident. I am sad to have to show you my foot amongst all of the blooms but let this be a reminder to all of you gardeners out there with weak ankles. I fell twice before I hit the jackpot with my last big tumble and this ensuing swollen ankle has been with me now for a few weeks. With a husband working hard at the vineyard in California, and a swelling disease that worsens when an injury occurs, life has been really wonderful around here.

Continually re-injuring an ankle is not that uncommon and I should have prevented this by doing better aftercare after I stumbled over a bag of potting soil and fell and hit my face on a rock just after twisting my left ankle for the first time. Little more than one month later I fell again walking on some river rocks but that time I only gave myself whiplash after hurting the same ankle again. This past time I really did it.  Walking down concrete stairs in the dark and missing a step ended up with me being completely unable to walk on the foot for a week. 

Tomorrow I am off to see the doctor though and I am seriously hoping that I will be more comfortable for the upcoming Garden Bloggers Fling in Seattle next weekend. It should be a ton of fun, swollen ankle or not. 

Wordless Wednesday: Vintage Garden Tour (September 1958)