Today I visited four gardens in Orting and Graham, Washington for the Garden Conservancy's Open Days. It was a cloudy but comfortable day -- no rain -- which was good for picture-taking. I'm only going to write about two of them -- Homeranch and the Old Goat Farm.
I also visited the Chase Garden, which I visited last year and wrote about
here. The fourth was the
Mt. Tahoma Nursery garden, which was interesting and full of little alpine plants, but I didn't really get pictures that can capture it adequately. It is, however, an excellent little boutique nursery, open only by appointment, with a very knowledgeable owner, and I highly recommend it if you're into small, unique rock garden plants.
Homeranch -- Ted Van Velzen and Ruben Corpuz
This first garden I visited was quite a lovely garden, large and spread out, with lots of island beds in a sea of grass, and large trees with shade beds under them.
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| Quite a few pots were scattered throughout the garden. I loved this one with an orange and red Abutilon. |
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| The lovely house, which is actually much larger than it looks here, is nestled in the middle of the expansive garden, amongst the trees and grass. |
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| These island beds were just to the right of the house. |
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| Loved these tall concrete pillars! |
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| Look at the red veins on that ornamental rhubarb! |
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| Island beds like this one were spaced randomly throughout the grassy garden. |
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| These stacked stones (just stacked and balanced, no glue) were in quite a few beds too. |
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| A gorgeous blooming Clematis. |
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| The garden had several of these decaying stumps nursing a new tree. |
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| One of the many shady beds with a meandering path. |
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| A cute garden shed had its own foundation bed. |
The cutting garden contained an abundance of irises, poppies, peonies, and columbines.
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| I have to find a source of seeds for this light pink poppy. |
Old Goat Farm
This demonstration garden is part of the
Old Goat Farm nursery, a small nursery open to the public one weekend per month, or by appointment.
One of the first things I saw when I entered the garden was...a gabion!
And another one.
I love the little rock gardens growing in a jumble on top.
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| Rocks, moss, driftwood, ferns, mini hostas... |
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| Clay chimney flue liners make good planters too. And hey, look over there! |
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| More gabions, very similar to mine. They sell these in their nursery area. |
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| This bench made from a mossy log supported by piles of rocks was pretty cool. |
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| It had some truly beautiful fungi growing on it. |
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| The garden shed was interesting too. |
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| These cool clay faces were hanging on the side of the shed. |
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| The barn and house both were surrounded by gorgeous beds and various items of garden decor. |
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| A pig with Mardi Gras beads, LOL! |
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| I loved this cone full of feathers next to a picture of birds. |
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| The source of the feathers? |
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| Trust me to find the chickens. |
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| And the turkeys. |
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| Peacocks too. |
Of course I had to stop in the nursery area and buy a few plants.
What's this? An agave? No, it's not. It's an Eryngium agavifolium. I bought two for the drought-tolerant garden.
I also bought a Trachystemon orientalis for my dry shade bed and a Clematis recta purpurea, just because it was beautiful. I do have a good spot for it.
And I am now kicking myself for not buying this large Agave americana.
Well, they're open to the public next weekend. Hopefully, it will still be there.
