Veg Plotting

Editor's Letter Hello and welcome to this very special edition of Veg Plotting . Our final day's Fling in Seattle was spent in The Bloedel Reserve . We took the ferry across to Bainbridge Island (a treat in itself) whereupon the marvellously warm and sunny weather we'd been enjoying refused to come and play and we finally got a taste of the rain which the Pacific North West is famous for. In addition to having exclusive blogger access to the Reserve on a day it's not usually open to the public, we were also treated to the wit and wisdom of David Perry who kindly agreed to provide 3 mini-photography workshops spread across the day in order to accommodate us all. There's lots more to come in later posts, but for now I'll just say that David's challenge to us was to pretend we were on assignment for a magazine and come up with the all important front cover shot, a story plus the photographs needed as illustration. Today's post forms the fi...

One of the highlights of our trip to Seattle was the photography workshop kindly provided by David Perry . I've followed his blog for a number of years and from that know he's extremely talented and just how passionate he is about his subject. Here he's giving us our initial introduction at the start of our visit to the Bloedel Reserve - in the pouring rain, hence the slightly fuzzy shot. Guess what's in the paper bag?...No Idea?... ...it was a mirror - chosen to illustrate our first key point of the day: the most important element of taking a picture is ourselves. Each one of us is unique. This affects the way we see the world and ultimately the pictures we choose to take. I hope David doesn't mind I've scanned his Fling handout into here. Apologies for the state of it, but a wet day in the Reserve, plus travelling thousands of miles hasn't kept it in a pristine condition. You can click to enlarge if necessary - there are some really good points o...

Monty Don in Phoenix, Arizona; Lotusland, California; and Monty in Central Park, New York. © Derry Moore.  What is an American Garden? asks Monty Don in the introduction to this lavish volume. The images above give us a clue to his unsurprising conclusion: America is simply too vast. The varied landscapes, climate, and people are too mind bogglingly wide to provide a definitive answer.  Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC. © Derry Moore That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find out and I'm pleased Monty Don did in both his TV series in January, and now in the follow-up book published earlier this week. I was due to visit America again for the latest Garden Bloggers' Fling , but of course Covid-19 put those plans on hold. It's great to do that from my armchair instead, especially as one of the gardens featured - The Lurie in Chicago - is one I was due to visit on my way to Wisconsin. Another garden - Dumbarton Oaks - was closed when I visited Washington DC in 2017, so I...

As I said last Friday , our Fling trip to The Bloedel Reserve didn't have the best of weather. NAH and I hadn't really dressed for this eventuality, so it was rather a relief that the Reserve had a plentiful stock of umbrellas for us and quite a few others to borrow. My previous post on Meeting Blogging Friends shows NAH posing with ours. Whilst we had an umbrella large enough for two, NAH did make sure he wiped each branch we went under so I was showered with raindrops. By the end of the day I was thoroughly soaked but instead of me getting all cross with him, it just gave us fits of the giggles. So what could have been a miserable day turned into lots of fun. I had the same fits of giggles when trying to photograph Jim under his umbrella (see above) as I wanted a picture of the Reserve's logo. He's using the umbrella to protect his camera and tripod, but was finding the space rather tight to work within. So it ended up twirling around like something out...

Pre-Portland Fling , it was an absolute delight to have the chance to return to the Bloedel Reserve, my personal highlight of the Seattle Fling in 2011. I felt very privileged as I walked through the Reserve again on a not-open-to-the-public day with board member Stacie Crooks as our guide. I believe the above quote is very much at the heart of Prentice Bloedel's lasting legacy there and it also helps to convey its sense of place. It also sums up neatly the biophilia hypothesis , proposed by E.O. Wilson, which I often come across in my public planting researches. It was great to return... in sunshine rather than rain this time. You'll find a summary with links to all my yummy 2011 posts here , but in the meantime, here's a small selection of this year's photos below. I'm always blown away by the height of the trees in the Pacific North-West, even though most of what we saw was secondary growth forest. Here, Stacie (left) and our pre-Fling trip organ...

We have a large patio which I've spent ages keeping free of weeds and moss over the years. Since coming back from the Portland Fling I've been pondering some of the ways gardeners there use the spaces between their paving and how their ideas might add an extra dimension to my garden. Japanese gardens are big on moss and the Portland Japanese Garden was no exception. I've tried to be more relaxed about moss since I saw a similar feature at The Bloedel Reserve in Seattle 3 years ago, but I've come to the conclusion that whilst it looks good in this kind of setting, it doesn't translate that well onto my patio. This is more like my garden's setting and I liked the way Omphiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens' is used to separate different parts of the hardscaping at the John Kuzma garden, even though I'm not that keen on the particular plant used. I preferred this 'woollier' approach seen at the Ernst Fuller gardens, though this time...

Thank goodness arriving late for the party (by one day) didn't mean I missed out on a warm welcome when I joined the others at the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling . NAH strikes a pose at the Bloedel Reserve - thank goodness that brolly was big enough for 2! NAH decided to come with me too (after sending many emails to him with links to goodies marked Persuasion ), which was the first time everyone met the both of us. On the way to breakfast on the first day, NAH suggested he went in first so that no-one would catch on it was him. We were both unprepared for the screams of delight when I showed up, not only from Gail , Frances and Victoria who were at breakfast together, but also from Barbara and Carol on the same table! Blog regulars Pam , Dee and Cindy soon joined in the welcome party :) Tales of the gardens we visited will follow in due course. It was a packed programme with lots to see and marvel on each day, but I feel the most important thing to show you fo...

The garden's enjoyed the rain we've had over the past few days and I took advantage of a brief lull over lunchtime yesterday to grab a few photos. Raindrops have a great way of accentuating the form of flowers and vegetation, and some plants like Alchemilla mollis and lupins are positively made for the vagaries of our English weather. An overcast day means there's even lighting to play with and no need to get up so early as there's a good light to be found in the middle of the day. This kind of weather is great for blooms with richer colours, or for yellows and whites to add highlights to the gloom. However, early morning or evening may be still be preferable on breezier days as the wind usually calms down at those times. I used to moan about garden visits in the rain, but a trip to the Bloedel Reserve a few years ago opened my eyes to the possibilities of wet days. I've found they help me home in on tiny details which I might otherwise have missed. The sam...

You may recall that Hmm Hakonechloa was something I was pondering for my front lawn just after reading Neil Lucas' fantastic book, Designing With Grasses . Sorting through my photographs from Seattle, I'm struck that this thought hasn't strayed that far yet. The above example from the Lane garden is just one of many shots I took of this grass and you'll probably be seeing more in later posts. Seattle may have a similar climate and planting palette as our own - though both Victoria and I were struck by how much higher and lusher our familiar plants were growing - but I'm pretty sure gardeners across the pond are making much more use of grasses than we tend to do (or perhaps I'm more tuned into them nowadays?). They're effective too - as I hope this quick trawl through some of the gardens we visited and the public planting I found (like the above example from the University Shopping Village right by our hotel) will show... The meadow...