The remains of an old nursery

The mossy, old boiler house, slowly sinking into the water-logged ground...

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This morning, an article about the historic Winters House in Bellevue being on the way for light rail construction caught my eyes in The Seattle Times. I drive regularly past the building, but being a rather ugly, Spanish Mission style house from the 1920s, it has never really roused my interest. Behind the house, the Winters had a nursery that grew and sold azaleas, daffodils and irises from the 1920s to the 1940s. After that, a rhododendron nursery operated for years in the same location. A brief note that the remains of a sinking old boiler house still stand behind the house woke immediately up the "ruin romantic" in me and I just had to brave the miserable weather and venture out to take a look.

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The mouth of the rusty old boiler stands gaping above a mirror of water. Heat from it was led through pipelines to seven hothouses where azaleas were propagated.

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The mossy remains of a hothouse are barely visible under the rhododendrons gone wild.

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With water dripping down my neck and my camera carefully bundled under my raincoat, I trailed along the boardwalk built on the boggy terrain, admiring one of the most impressing, accidental rhododendron parks I've seen. The moss-covered, gnarled trunks stood up from the water-logged soil, mingling together with ferns and great horsetail plants and sending up desperately beautiful trusses of bright flowers in all shades of whites, pinks and maroons. Beneath the glossy leaves, remains of the seven hothouses could still be seen, their broken roof lines slowly rotting away and sinking into the soaked ground. In one corner, between tangled rhododendron trunks, giant leaves and slender white flowers of the umbrella tree, Magnolia tripetala, tried to make their way towards the light.

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A boardwalk leads through the area, as the soil is covered with water most of the year. Hundreds of old rhododendrons fill the ground, fighting for place amongst the ever increasing native vegetation.

Pink and red rhododendrons growing through a carpet of horsetail.

As the Seattle Times reported, the Winters House is now under threat of ending under the new light-rail to be built through the area, and of course, the construction would alter the parkland behind it too. Somehow, despite this closer inspection, I couldn't quite warm to the house itself, but I loved the overgrown, forsaken old rhododendrons patiently growing through the watery marshlands, like giant old ladies who still were putting up the show even if all the money was gone a long time ago. Completely realistic about the barren economic climate of today, I understand it would require a miracle to raise the funds and build a tunnel just to save an abandoned, old nursery, but it still would be lovely if someone would come with a miracle wand and make it happen...

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The Seattle Times: National register house in Bellevue lies within path of light rail.

More information and old pictures of the place is found on: History of the Winters House.

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Varied about variegated leaves

Helleborus argutifolius 'Pacific Frost'

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It is a pity I didn't take photos of this variegated Corsican Helleborus, Helleborus argutifolius 'Pacific Frost' a bit earlier in the season, when its ghostly pale shoots emerged from the soil. After a while, the leaves turned into a spotted jumble of lime and cream, and the flowers opened equally spotted, only a couple of shades lighter in color. Now, the strong, glossy leaves form an excellent contrast to the softer spring time perennials around it, and their waxy tone picks up the whites of the flowering Corydalis and Omphaloides effectively.
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Russell Page discusses plant combinations with variegated leaves in his book The Education of a Gardener (this book from 1962 is my perennial favorite, one of the most wonderful books about garden making ever published...). In a garden he planted for the Duke of Windsor, he used the variegated Acer negundo and underplanted it with Eleagnus pungens aureo-variegata, Elymus arenarius, Eulalia zebrina (now Miscanthus), variegated hostas and the variegated form of Iris pallida dalmatica; all plants with spotty and stripy, variegated leaves.
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He writes that the planting made him think "even in grey weather that a patch of sunshine had been caught and held in that shadowy corner", which is a wonderful description, even if the combination sounds a bit too visually restless to me. I prefer using variegated plants against a backdrop of plain, preferably dark green or even purple leaves; for example, the pale, spotted 'Pacific Frost' Helleborus above would probably look wonderful against a bed of black mondo grass, too.

Until quite lately, I've had a bit ambivalent relationship with variegated plants. I've always liked the stripy ones, like Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' and many hostas. They always look elegant, like they would have been touched by a thin brush adding strokes of light on their leaves. But variegated leaves that are spotted have always made me look a second time to check if they really are meant to be like that, or just affected by some kind of a nasty bug or a virus. Coming from the harsh, Nordic climate, I naturally prefer strong, healthy plants; variegated plants, having less chlorophyll producing tissue, tend always to be weaker than their plain green relatives. But I guess I now have an excellent opportunity to rethink my likes and dislikes: while living in the temperate, horticultural Eden of the Pacific Northwest, I can for the first time fully revel in the possibilities of using variegated plants without any concerns about their hardiness.

A portal of monkey puzzles

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Walking past the stately, century-old houses that fill the residential area of Capitol Hill in Seattle, these magnificent two monkey puzzle trees, Araucaria araucana, caught my eyes and I had to add this snapshot of them to my photo collection of period gardens in Seattle. Probably planted as small saplings soon after the large Arts & Crafts style house was built in 1909, their umbellate canopies now join gracefully together, forming a decorative even if quite prickly portal in front of the main entrance.
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Monkey puzzles were one of the it-trees of the Victorian era, after they first had been discovered in Chile in the end of the 18th century. First in 1844 enough of viable seeds were obtained by plant collector William Lobb, who had been to South America to collect plants for the firm of Veitch.

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Monkey puzzles are very hardy and long-lived; some specimens in the Chilean forests are well over thousand years old. They are also one of the oldest living species of plants, dating back to the days of the dinosaurs; their scaly, prickly needles seem to me very well suited to that era, and I think they always look a bit alien in residential gardens.

* A Tudor Revival style house in Seattle, with a young monkey puzzle tree on the front lawn. Period photo by Seattle photographer Asahel Curtis, early 20th century.

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During the second half of the 19th century, monkey puzzles became very trendy and many were planted on the grounds of Britain's great estates. As so many other garden trends from Europe, this one also followed the newcomers to the Seattle area. Planting monkey puzzles, Chilean conifers popular in English gardens, must have given their owners more status than using any of the handsome native conifers readily available in the area (which in turn were very much sought after in Europe - I guess the grass is always greener...).

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Many photos of residential houses in Seattle taken in the late 19th and early 20th century show monkey puzzles proudly planted as solitaire specimens to adorn the front lawns of the houses. Some of them have survived and thrived in the temperate climate of Seattle, and are now, a century later, huge trees that have since long outgrown their allocated spaces.
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Having two of them, like these magnificent ones flanking the main entrance of the house above, must still be extremely unusual, and I was thrilled to find such fine, living examples of garden history. Admittedly, they are now far too large and dwarf the house with their huge trunks, and they probably cast a deep shade and drop their extremely prickly needles everywhere. But I still hope that all inconveniences can be overlooked, and that the present and coming owners of this house see the historical value and charm of their huge monkey puzzles. Given that they often live for over thousand years, they can still delight several generations to come...
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PS - the history of the name "monkey puzzle tree" is just as silly as the name itself: in the mid-1850s, some Englishmen who saw the tree for the first time, commented that climbing the tree would puzzle a monkey. Amazingly, the stupid name stuck, even if there are no monkeys neither in England nor in Chile where the tree comes from...

The gardening life of a man called Pearl

There's always gonna be obstacles.

The thing is, you don't let those

obstacles determine where you go.

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-Pearl Fryar-

Yesterday evening, as I struggled in the snail-paced rush-hour traffic to the other side of the town, I quietly wondered if the lecture I was heading to really would be worth the tedious effort. It was, every minute of it. Pearl Fryar, the 70-year old self-taught master of artful topiary, spoke about his life and garden, and as he spoke, he proved to be just as much of a philosopher as a gardener.

Pearl Fryar's garden, photo by Erica Glasener.

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Coming from a poor family, Pearl told how he seldom was able follow on the school field trips, as he could not afford the 25 cents needed for the transport. But he never let those circumstances hinder himself from trying hard to get what he wanted, ending up with a good job and house with a garden for his own family. In 1984, he began to work with his 3 acre garden trying to win the local "Yard of the Month" competition of his hometown, Bishopville, South Carolina.

A topiary sculpture by Pearl Fryar, from Tales of the Microbial Laboratory.
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Pearl knew nothing at all about gardening when he started, so he didn't have any limitations or expectations about what would be or not be possible. He rescued some half dying plants from the local nursery, and off he went, arguably creating some of the most incredible topiary in the world, with wildly sculptural, almost extraterrestrial forms reminding of both Dr. Seuss and Salvador Dali, combined. As Pearl described his work, it "flew from him naturally", and he just felt where the forms of the plants would go. He talked about his love to seeing other peoples gardens as they always are an expression of the creativity flowing from the person gardening in them. I would have loved to ask him what his garden tells about him with its laboriously cut and shaped forms, but being paralyzingly shy for asking questions in front of crowds, I unfortunately don't have an answer.

Topiary sculpture, photo by Erica Glasener.

Since starting his garden, Pearl has become something of a celebrity, and several newspapers and gardening magazines have pictured his work. Also, a documentary "A man named Pearl" was done for two years ago, telling Pearl's story from the early days as a sharecropper's son to the celebrated cultural icon of his hometown that he is today. The Garden Conservancy has now included Pearl's garden into its protected gardens, working on preserving the garden to the future generations; an amazing journey for a man who just wanted to win the local "Yard of the year" competition.

At the end of his presentation Pearl told that he gardens with a purpose: he sees his garden not only as an artwork, but as a tool to learn the unprivileged young kids of today about his life's philosophy of never giving up. As he said, "you have to think and and positive, 'cause negative thinking has never led to positive results." If he could beat the odds of a poor childhood, anybody can; "If people see you trying hard to achieve something, sooner or later some of them are bound to try to help you." And couldn't agree more with him, leaving the lecture feeling warmly and deeply touched by Pearl and his wonderfully eccentric topiary garden that is a living testament to his philosophy in life.

Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden, official website.
A visit to Pearl Fryar's garden, a blog post by Tales of the Microbial Laboratory, with excellent pictures.

The first picture is from a postcard given out by Pearl at the lecture.

The month of the Moutan

White tree peonies, their golden anthers shimmering against the milky white petals flecked with rosy pink.
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On my early morning walks, I've been admiring the unfurling blooms of tree peonies opening up in many gardens in my neighborhood. I love their fleeting beauty; their fragile, golden anthers and their huge, silky petals gently fluttering in the breeze, reminding of how many of the precious things in life are only momentary, passing.

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Originating from the mountains of China and Tibet, tree peonies have been loved and cultivated by the Chinese for at least 1,500 years. In the Chinese calendar, each month is represented by a flower. The fourth month, beginning in early May, is the month of the Moutan, the tree peony. Tree peonies are often called an imperial flower, and it is not only because of their magnificent blooms. Already during the Sui dynasty (589-618), Emperor Yang Ti placed the plant under imperial protection, and many select varieties were selling for up to a hundred ounces of gold per plant. Since the tree peony was called 'the King of Flowers', it was a natural favorite of the emperors, who planted thousands of Moutans in their imperial gardens.

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In Chinese art, tree peonies represent spring, and the scholars of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) attributed it the qualities of prosperity, vitality, opulence, and the active male principle of the universe. Already during the Tang dynasty (618-907), the Moutan was celebrate in poetry, song and painting, and there is an abundant literature describing the many varieties in detail. Also the Japanese loved the beauty of the tree peonies, which they call the Botan, arranging 'peony-gazing' celebrations when they where in full bloom. An excellent idea to take after, and since I unfortunately don't have any Moutans in my garden, I'm open for invitations...

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The deep green foliage is quiet and reposeful,

The petals are clad in various shades of red;

The pistil droops with melancholy -

Wondering if spring knows her intimate thoughts.

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Wang Wei, AD 699-731, translated by A. Waley.

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Thank you to my mother-in-law, MaryLou, for kindly sending me the article "Moutan" by Peter Smithers, in Arts of Asia, vol 14, 1984. If you are interested in reading more about Moutans, I recommend Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall's lovely book "Peonies, the imperial flower" (1999) which is extremely well-researched and -written and has beautiful photos and illustrations. All photos in this post were taken by me and show Moutans flowering for the moment in my neighborhood.

Such an impeccable little polyanthus....

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Primrose, auricula, polyanthus... don't ask me about the differences between these little spring bloomers, as I'm not sure how they are classified correctly. They are all members of the Primulaceae family, and have been loved by gardeners and florists during the last couple of centuries. Penelope Hobhouse mentions them to have been bought to Britain by the Huguenots by 1700, and then having been popular florist's flowers during the 18th century. Those days collectors often displayed their finest specimens in so called Auricula Theaters, which were decorative cases with shelves for easy viewing of the plants. I found this little impeccable one in my friend's garden, here on the Eastside of Seattle (you know where, if you have been reading my posts lately...). Almost over its prime and petals already a bit tattered, it still looked like a vintage Chanel suit in black velvet with a perfect trim in gold.

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The little primrose is very much like Gold Laced Polyanthus from Barnhaven Primroses, described as a "florist's polyanthus, bred to exacting standards for more than two centuries"; exactly the kind of plant one can expect to find in the garden it grows in. Barnhaven has an interesting history from the Pacific Northwest point of view: Florence Bellis, who developed a passion for primroses in the 1930s, founded Barnhaven Primroses in Oregon, on the west coast of the US. For a long time, she researched the subject at the Oregon University and was one of the founders of the America Primrose Society, working as a Editor of the Society for several years. In the end of 1960s she sold her business to a couple in the UK. Since then, Barnhaven Primroses has won several awards for its primroses, and it has been operating from North Brittany, France, since 1990. So my association to a vintage Chanel suit was not so much amiss, after all...

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The New York Botanical Garden has an Auricula Theater on display, April 16 through May 9, 2010. Auricula Theaters have been used since the 17th century to exhibit collections of fine specimens of the species.

Quote of the day

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We don't express nature, we express our relations to nature.

The fact of creating is the expression of nature.

-Adaline Kent (1900-1957), sculptor-

Adaline created the human-like, reclining sculpture in the famous pool at the Donnell garden in Sonoma, designed by Thomas Church in the 1940s. This pool became the most photographed one in the world and articles with pictures of it were widely published in magazines and gardening books. Adaline's name was rarely mentioned in the articles.

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I found a autobiography by her, published in 1958, the year after she died in a car accident. The quote above is from this wonderful collection of fragments from her notebooks and photos of her sculptures. There are several pictures of minerals, shells, pebbles and magic and primitive artifacts that she kept in her atelier; many of them functioned as inspiration to her artwork. Adaline's sculptures have strong, biomorphic forms; her language of expression had its roots in her close relationship with the nature, just as she writes above. Her smooth but powerful, abstract style reminds me especially of Henry Moore; maybe it is the strong connection with the nature that makes the work of both sculptors so calming, consoling.

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Adaline Kent: Presence, 1947. Collection SFMOMA.

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I photographed the logs above on the Ruby Beach at the western shores of the Olympic Peninsula; the glowing logs of redwood brighten up the leaden grey and murky brown tones of these cold, Pacific beaches. Adaline would probably transformed the essence of them into one of her sculptures...

Oh, baby, you are so beautiful...

Trillium gradiflorum 'Floro plenum' in full bloom in my garden. Every nodding flower is like a perfect miniature camellia - or not quite, somehow these feel a bit more sensitive...

I'm madly in love. With a White Wake-robin that grows in my garden. And there is nothing to do about it. And I swear I won't leave this place, ever, without it (not that I am moving anywhere for the moment, but so that you know, just in case...).

I've been kneeling besides my camellia-flowering Trillium grandiflorum 'Floro plenum', gazing into its pearly white, nodding flowers. It seems fully aware of its preciousness and quite reluctant have its portrait taken. Of course, my gorgeous Wake-robin was another invaluable gift from Marian, one of the few gardeners who had such priceless rarities growing around in her garden just like other people have tulips and daffodils.

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Briefly, I wondered how I can ever thank her enough for all the treasures I have got, but I guess I do: I love and take care of every single one of them, with passion. And what more can you ask for when you have to leave your babies behind?

Almost everything in a Trillium - petals, sepals and leafs - grow in clusters of three, even if in the double forms this can be a bit difficult to see.

The double forms of Trillium gradiflorum are mutations, where all the reproductive organs have mutated to petals. These forms often possess a great beauty, and are highly sought after by gardeners and collectors. most double forms are sterile and must be propagated by slow, asexual division. Thus, if available at all, they command very high prices - a couple of days ago, Carol Klein called it "a holy grail for plant collectors" in the Guardian. Horticulturally, these forms have been given name 'floro plenum' or "multiplex', meaning "many petaled", which is not a correct latin name, but is used for convenience in trade.

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"Trilliums", by Frederick W. Case, Jr, and Roberta B. Case, by Timber Press in Oregon, is an excellent book about this plant genus.

Spellbound by magical mosses

The road to the Hoh Rainforest winds through the wet, moss-coated forests, giving a inkling of the wilder things to come...

A never-ending sound of water: dropping, drizzling and splashing everywhere. And a smell of drenched, soaked earth, combined with the aromatic fragrance of water-dripping conifers. The Olympic National Park in western Washington state might seem like an odd holiday destination for winter weary Seattleites being a place four times wetter than our drizzly hometown, but it is nevertheless the place where we spend our spring break, hiking the forests and beachcombing the shores of the Pacific ocean.

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Waterfalls run through the soaked slopes of the mountains.
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On these western slopes of the Olympic mountains, the storms from the ocean drop off their wet cargo drenching the area with up to 170 inches (almost 4 meters) of rain per year and creating perfect growing conditions for fertile temperate rainforests. Once, they covered the land between Oregon and southern Alaska, but today, only the lush valleys of Hoh, Queets, Quinault and Bocachiel protected within the National Park remain as a testament for how the landscape looked like before logging took over. In the tiny town of Forks near the Hoh Rainforest, there was no escaping from commercial buzz created by the "Twilight" vampire sagas, but for once this felt like a stroke of luck, as the place (the village, not the surrounding nature...) seemed to need all the help it can get to be any kind of a magnet for visitors.

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Mossy trees and ferny banks by the shallow, stony Quinault river.

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Walking through the Hoh and Quinault Rainforests, the landscape felt spellbound and almost unreal in its magnificent, great wildness. Everything was dripping, drenched, saturated with water, and all things growing seemed to be involved in a slow but ceaseless competition for light and space. The ground was filled with older generations of giant trees, now gently nursing the younger ones with nutrients from their gradually decaying huge trunks. An earthy, rich smell of decomposing wood lingered in the air, competing with the fragrant scent of the conifers. With their canopies almost 300 feet above, the great, straight stems of Western redcedars, hemlocks and Sitka spruces formed a cathedral with only two colours, emerald and rust, in its stained-glass windows.

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Beard mosses hanging form the old sugar maples.

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A thick coat of mosses and lichens clung to every surface. These usually humble background players seemed almost have taken over the scene, celebrating their triumph by forming intricate tapestries in olive and coppery tones, hanging like wet rags from the branches and covering everything on the ground with billowy mounds. Burrowed in these moist cushions, small seeds had germinated and peeked up their heads, ready to begin their long journey upwards guided by the thin threads of light peeking through the greenery from the distant sky.

The bright leaves of common wood sorrel carpeted the ground together with mosses everywhere.

Even the river bottom was covered with bright green mosses, swaying gently in the cold, glazier-fed water. Careless of our excited glances, a flock of deer grazed on the adjacent meadow, only interested in the fresh new shoots that poke up from the waterlogged soil.

Tiny spruce saplings sprouting from the fallen trees.

In the evenings, we huddled around the fireplace in our room at the lodge. Listening to the pounding waves outside the windows, we thought of another favorite hiking place of ours on the other side of the same ocean: the Otway National Park with its temperate rainforests of tree ferns, gumtrees and tiny frogs in southeastern Australia. So different, and still so similar. Contented with our visit to these stormy, mossy shores, we couldn't help sending our longing regards with the waves to the gentle, southern sister of these wild northern forests.

Erythronium time

The lemony white Erythronium citrinum, citrus or cream fawn lily, is native to Oregon and northwest California.

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I've been sneaking in, protected by the adjoining forest, to a garden where a great gardener lived. Her house and garden were sold and stand now empty with a "For lease" sign in front; later, the place will be demolished and built over. After a late November plant rescue when thousands of rare specimens were lifted up and sold for charity, the garden looks like it had an organ transplant.

*The beautiful, innocent looking Erythronium oregonum, also known as the giant fawn lily, has pearly white tepals with yellow bases.
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Still, hundreds of bulbs and deciduous perennials emerge from the fertile soil, peeking up their heads to a scary new reality. I have been adopting some of them, trying to give a new home in my garden for at least a few, before the bulldozers arrive and the inevitable lawn turf will be rolled over.

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Erythronium revolutum, the pink or coast fawn lily, is native to the west coast of North America, from California to British Columbia.

Today morning, I dug up some Erythroniums and carried them carefully to my garden and found them a shady spot under three large Korean dogwoods. With pictures of the abandoned, battered but still enchanting garden in my mind, I couldn't stop thinking of the all those years of love, enthusiasm, knowledge and hard work that went into creating it. And now, there's only me, carrying my camera and my spade, picking up the leftovers.

Erythronium tuolumnense, the Tuolumn fawn lily from the Sierra Nevada foothills in California.