8/04/2006

The Bloedel Reserve

Among other things I did when I was in Seattle last week, I visted the Bloedel Reserve. It's a 150 acre estate and you have to make reservations to visit. They only let in 150 people per day. Here are some pictures.

This beautiful Paulownia tomentosa stands next to the visitor center.

Paulownia tomentosa

The flowers are gone; here are the fruit.

Paulownia fruit

The path leading away from the visitor center, and toward the meadow.



The meadow serves as a transitionary period between the stress of the day behind you and the restorative forest ahead of you. You can see the woods in the distance; you anticipate your arrival as you make progress. A few sentinel trees stand in the meadow to ease the transition.

in to the meadow

in to the meadow 2

into the meadow 3

into the meadow 4

meadow-5

I want everyone to put this kind of color consideration into their own landscape. Dark trees everywhere? Plant a light tree in front of them!

Inside the woods; Gaultheria shallon (Salal, or Lemon Leaves when used as a foliage cutting in flower displays; the berries are delicious), many ferns, Berberis sp. (formerly Mahonia, or Oregon Grape)...

2nd bridge more salal

woods 3 fern

woods 5 berberis berries


To be continued... I have to wake up at 6 a.m. tomorrow to catch a plane for the east coast. I'll be gone for a week, and I'll finish this post then.

Cheers.

ADDED: Okay, maybe I'm never going to get all my Bloedel Reserve pictures up. Let's try tho'. Shortly, after entering the meadow, this pond:

pond 1

All the benches, and there are many, come from Smith and Hawken.

pond 3

There's a swan, but I couldn't get a good picture of it.

pond 7 swan

It's just a swan.

So, after the pond, this bridge:

2 woods bridge 3

Over this gulch...

2 woods bridge 4

Comes before this bridge, which is bent at 90 degree angles to confuse bad spirits...

2nd bridge

Some pretty pitcher plant off the side of the bent bridge:

2nd bridge saracinea

Madenhair ferns fail in my garden. Look at that texture.

2nd pond maidenhair

We approach the Bloedel House...

2nd pond

Salix. I have the species name in a book...Will try to remember to post it.

2nd pond salix

Behind this Salix is the Japanese garden. We'll get there in awhile.

2nd pond salix 1

I'm not a big fan of hydrangea...

2nd pond hydrangeas

But these are pretty:

around house hydrangea

around house hydrangea 2

At the house, I'm most impressed with this planting. It looks like grape, but w/ really big leaves.

house grape 2

And soft thorns.

house grape 3

I'm not even sure if these are called thorns. Maybe there's a better word.

house grape 4

I also like this duck in the Buxus.

house duck

I can't remember what came between the house and the Japanese garden, so I'm going to skip to the Japanese garden, and append anything I can't place at the end of the post.

Japanese garden 1

jap garden 4

Acer.

acer palmatum

I remember identifying it as Vaccinium ovatum under the Acer palmatum, but I could be wrong.

huckleberry maple 1

Leaving the Japanese Garden, there's a lovely moss garden.

moss garden 1

moss garden 2

I think this is beautiful:

moss garden 5

moss garden 3

river of cabbage

Time to go... there's a reflection pond that was kind of under restoration so I didn't take pictures.

On the way out.

3 woods 1

Back to the meadow where I started.

exit 2

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing! It's neat to see how different things were not even two months before I visited.