Left Coasting

I’ve recently returned from a speaking tour in the Pacific Northwest, that included talks at the Bellevue Botanical Garden and the Northwest Flower and Garden Festival, both in the Seattle area. This is my second opportunity to speak at the show, which I’d rate as one of the top in the county. I was also blessed to be part of the garden judging panel with English ornamental grass guru/author, Neil Lucas, and expert bulb designer/author, Jacqueline van der Kloet from the Netherlands.

The downtown Convention Center show features over 100 talks, with an extraordinary array of presenters from around the world. I was delighted to run into two other Carolinians there to present, SC topiary artist, Mike Gibson, and fellow NCSU alumni, Derek Haynes, (aka: the Chocolate Botanist). I also ran into several former NC residents and PDN/JLBG volunteers and customers at the show, so it was great to catch up.

While the vending area had some hot tubs and window vendors, I was quite impressed by the number of plant nurseries and the quality of their plants. As was the case when I previously spoke at the show years earlier, the array of hand made crafts vendors was truly mind-boggling. I typically breeze through these sections, but could have easily spent a full day here.

As expected, the competition gardens were excellent, with most featuring the use of massive rocks. The gardens are all installed by either professional landscape designers, contractors, or nurseries. While installing a garden is quite expensive, the garden installers shared that they would expect a return of $200 – $400k in annual revenue from the show, so they can usually be found near their gardens to field questions from potential clients.

Despite the cool temperatures and misty rain, my host, garden communicator, Nita-Jo Rountree escorted me around for a little garden hopping. Always high on my list is a visit to Heronswood, our “sister” garden on the West Coast, founded the same year we started JLBG, by my friend, Dan Hinkley.

As always, the garden didn’t disappoint. It was great to hear about the new plants and garden expansion plans from their amazing garden director, Ross Bayton. The rock garden section, much of it constructed by Patrick McMillan, when he was there, was filled with choice gems. Perhaps the best surprise was running into Canadian crevice garden specialist, Paul Spriggs, who happened to be wrapping up a visit when we arrived.

It’s always great to meet new plants, like Luetkea pectinata, which was thriving in their rock garden.

I fell in love the with dwarf golden selection of Opuntia fragilis, which draped over the rocks.

The Renaissance fern garden and stumpery had filled in nicely since my last visit, featuring many of Dan’s wild collections.

It was here, I fell in love with Trichophorum (Scirpus) subcapitatum, which arched gracefully from the rock cracks. I didn’t remember, but we actually planted it last fall at JLBG, so we look forward to watching it prosper.

After a quick tour of Heronswood, we were off to visit Dan and Robert’s current home and garden, Windcliff. It had been four years since I last visited, so there were lots of new plants to see as well as checking in on old plant friends. Several years ago, Dan started a new rare plant nursery at his home, but unlike the old Heronswood, there is no shipping.

Dan shared some remaining seed of the baseball-size fruited Aesculus wangii (assamica), which hails from the border of China and Vietnam. Wincliff houses what is probably one of the only fruiting specimens in cultivation. Hopefully, if these grow, they will be included in our upcoming Southeastern Plant Symposium auction. The seed actually started to sprout on the airplane ride home, so they are sitting on go.

Along the driveway was a flowering plant of Fatsia polycarpa. While we grow this at JLBG, we always manage to get a freeze before the plants flowers, so this was a real treat.

It was great to see that the Schefflera relative, Brassiopsis dumicola survived last winters’ 12 degrees F, which gives us hope for similar results.

Also intriguing was Dan’s new Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Windcliff Sunrise’, which we look forward to being able to trial at JLBG, although the winter hardiness is a bit suspect.

I felt the “adultery in my heart” that Jimmy Carter once described, when I gazed out on a patch of Dan’s new Carex accession from Hubei, China. Fortunately, some managed to make it into my suitcase.

Dan’s clump of the Hart’s tongue fern, Asplenium scolopendrium ‘Imperial’ was also quite lust worthy, and has now been added to my desiderata list.

It was great to check in on Dan’s selection of Schefflera (Heptapleurum) delavayi, that he named ‘Windcliff Lace’. The foliage is dramatically more cut that any seedling we’ve ever seen. We have this planted at JLBG, so we’ll show it the photo of what we’ll be expecting as it grows.

Another side trip featured a visit to the Bellevue Botanical Garden, where I gave a presentation. It had been a couple of decades since I visited, and since then, then gardens have greatly expanded and matured. I was particularly impressed with the large specimen of Daphniphyllum teysmannii ‘Mountain Dove’. I’m pretty sure this is the largest specimen in the country.

It was great to see more and more Schefflera taiwaniana being planted around Seattle. In Taiwan, where this amazing species is native, we saw it growing, but only above 8,000′ elevation, indicating its dislike of hot weather. So far, we’re 0 for 9 at JLBG, although 8 of those died in the nursery before getting planted. We were able to bring back seed, so hopefully, we’ll find at least one seedling that can tolerate our hot, humid summers.

I was really impressed with the groundcover English laurel, Prunus laurocerasus ‘Mount Vernon’. With as many English laurels that are grown in the Southeast US, it’s amazing that this cultivar, which is widespread in the Pacific Northwest, seems non-existent here.

The parking lot at the Bellevue Botanic Garden was lined with a number of witch hazel cultivars. The one that attracted my attention was Hamamelis × intermedia ‘Pallida’. Instead of being a clone, as it should be, someone sold them a mixed bag of seedlings. Hamamelis x intermedia is a cross between the Japanese witch hazel (Hamamelis japonica) and the Chinese witch hazel (Hamamelis mollis). Both parent species drop their leaves before flowering. Some of these plants were leafless, while others were still fully clothed with brown foliage, so I’m not sure what’s going on here that made them hold their foliage into the late winter flowering season. Witch hazels will do this when young, but these were certainly old enough to know better.

My one disappointment at this garden was the lack of labels. As a Botanical Garden, I would hope labels would have been a top priority. Instead of using labels, someone thought it would be a good idea to use QR codes for the entire bed. I understand it’s much easier, and you can get a list of plants in the bed, but it is completely useless, even for a keen plant person to know which plant is which. I would love to have been able to find the name of each hellebore in a bed of 50 different clones, but there was absolutely no way to do so, with such a system. It’s truly shocking that someone thought this was a good idea.

Another visit was to the Washington Park Arboretum, which I had visited in 2020. This time, we had the wonderful opportunity to walk around with curator, Ray Larson. Many of the new gardens that were just being installed when I visited previously, were looking quite mature. The garden is just embarking on a divorce from The University of Washington which currently oversees it, to an independent facility, so we are sending best wishes for a good result.

While some gardeners in the region don’t think much of their native fern, Polystichum munitum, I find them fabulous, especially in large masses under the giant Thuja plicata (Western red cedar). As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt.

I didn’t recognize the stunning plants of the Chinese Viburnum henryi, probably because we’ve killed this three times….once in the ground and twice in the nursery. We simply must try this again.

We were able to also squeeze in a couple of small private gardens as well. Below is the splendid garden of my host, and local garden celebrity, Nita-Jo Rountree.

I also wanted to make sure to visit the home garden of a long-time friend, Seattle landscape architect, Richard Hartlage. Richard is also a NC State grad, and we both went on our first out of the country botanizing trip (Northern Mexico) together in 1994. You may recognize the name from his cross that created the hybrid, Calycanthus x raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine’. As expected, the garden didn’t disappoint.

The only thing I didn’t have time to visit was the earthquake floor at my hotel, which, based on the location of the elevator button, must have been perched above the Fitness Club. Perhaps next time.