Strawberries in snow

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For some time, I've been fascinated by Arbutus (also called Madrone), Arbutus menziesii, a native plant to the Pacific Northwest and Northern California regions, growing in many gardens around here. Its European cousin, Arbutus unedo, is aptly called the Strawberry tree, because of the big, inedible berries it carries during the autumn. It is evergreen, and the bright red and unripe orange berries make a merry sight, looking like furry pom-poms hanging from the branches. It is supposed to flower in the spring, but here it seems to have both flowers and fruit at the same time; just two days ago I was watching five green hummingbirds drinking nectar (or at least trying to...) from its bell formed, white flowers. I can't really decide what I think about this shrub; it is a bushy, not very stylish plant, but it still makes me childishly glad with its strong coloured berries and hanging flowers. It definitely brightens up wilder parts of the garden, and it probably would be nice to have one growing under one's kitchen window.

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Arbutus berries in snow

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Magnolia buds in snow

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Otherwise, we received seven inches of snow the last couple of days and our life has taken "snow-mode"; the schools have been closed for several days and the grown-ups are staying at home, if possible. Of course, this small amount of snow would not have stopped anyone from their daily chores in Finland or Sweden, but here, as this happens so seldom, it definitely feels like we are in a state of emergency. As we haven't lost the power and have good outdoor gear for the children, I quite enjoy these snow days, sliding down the slopes nearby with our small sledges together with the kids.

... snow falling on cedars...
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The remains of a holly farm

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In 1902, a holly farm was established in Yarrow Point, a narrow peninsula north of Bellevue on the East side of Lake Washington. At some stage, this farm was the largest supplier of holly in the United States, providing cheerful materials for Christmas decorations and wreaths for the whole country. Holly farming at Yarrow Point ended in the 1960’s, and the area was gradually built over with houses. The street name of Holly Lane reveals where the farm was situated.

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Some of the original hollies still remain, huge and beautiful with gnarled, thick trunks, and branches carrying bright, red berries. It is wonderful to see them as main attractions of the gardens they stand in, hopefully for many years to come.

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To pick up the theme, many house owners at Yarrow Point have planted holly hedges, some of which are now over 4 meters (12 feet) high, providing birds with excellent hiding and feeding places throughout the winter season. In these times of total eradication of all old - both houses and gardens - when new residences are built, it is lovely to see these examples of appreciation for the local history in Yarrow Point.

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Gas Works Park in Seattle

An update: On January 2, 2013, Seattle’s Gas Works Park, a significant example of Richard Haag’s innovative landscape architecture, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. For more information, see The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

A tiny note in my favourite garden magazine, Gardens Illustrated, inspired me to seek out Gas Works Park in the North side of Lake Union, near Seattle city centre. I had heard about this park earlier, as it is a very popular place for 4th of July celebrations, kite flying and other summer activities, but I had somehow never got to this side of town.

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Gas Works Park has a hundred year old history connected to the industrial evolution of Seattle. Dating from the first decade of the 20th century, this plant manufactured illuminating gas made from coal, and later also city-gas used for cooking, refrigeration, and heating homes and water. It also had equipment for producing “Gasco charcoal briquettes”, toluene, solvent naphtha, sulphur, xylene and resin tar; products that now are strongly associated with soil and land contamination everywhere in the world. Production of city gas at The Seattle Gas Company’s production plant ended in 1956 when Seattle converted to natural gas.

The former exhauster-compressor building, now a children's play barn, features a maze of brightly painted machinery. Unfortunately, no children were around, just some homeless people, sleeping by a fire on the pick-nick area.

The site of Gas Works Park, a 20 acre point on Lake Union, was acquired by the city of Seattle in 1962. The park was designed by Richard Haag, a prominent Seattle landscape architect also known for his work at the Bloedel Reserve. A massive soil cleaning effort was needed to create the park, and it was opened to the public in 1975. This act finally fulfilled the vision of the Olmsted Brothers, who already in 1903 recommended that “…the point of land between the northeast and northwest arms of Lake Union and the railroad should be secured as a local park, because of its advantages for commanding views over the lake and for boating, and for a playground.” What the Olmsted Brothers could not have imagined is the long road of development that lead to the final result.

The sundial at the top of the mound was created by two local artists, Chuck Greening and Kim Lazare. The viewer’s shadow tells the time of day and the season - an optimistic feature for a park in Seattle...

The Gas Works Park with its structures tell a lot about our attitudes towards the nature and its resources during the last century; how we went from seeing them as something to exploit and abuse, to appreciating the nature as the basis of sustainable life. Also, it is an important part of the history of how we build our parks; a development that has gone from beautifying the nature through control and planning, to seeing the nature as valuable in itself; and now to considering even the man-made and industrial (an opposite to the traditional meaning of parks) as worth of our attention and preservation.

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The remaining Gas Works buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places, and the park is also a Seattle City Landmark.

 

A later update: I just read in the Seattle Times that the Gas Works Park is one of the most popular parks for weddings in Seattle, and that already now in January, many weekends are already fully booked. Sculptural, monumental, impressive - all words that I would connect with this park, but romantic? Not in my eyes... Avant-garde? Yes, and I would love to see a wedding here. Another small detail; I just found Katie Campbell's book "Icons of Twentieth Century Landscape Design" (2006), where she takes up the Gas Works Park as one of the 29 landscapes that have dramatically changed the way we look at designed outdoor spaces. Very interesting, I really need to visit this park again when the weather warms up.

Quote of the Day

One kind word can warm three winter months.

- Japanese proverb -

An Edwardian treat in Victoria, BC

The garden gate at the Prior House Inn.

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It is always intriguing to see how deep footprint the Britons left even in the far flung parts of their empire. There are many things the little town of Victoria, BC shares with the state of Victoria, my favourite part of Australia; both were named in honor of the same Queen, both were prosperous due to a gold rush from 1850 until the first World War; and due to this, both had a building boom that left them with an excellent stock of Victorian and Edwardian buildings and private houses. And both still celebrate their British roots in a visible manner with afternoon teas and games of cricket.

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The gardens at the Inn; I love the circle of ferns under the large beech tree.

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To give our recent trip to Victoria a bit more local touch, we stayed at the Prior House Inn, a Tudor-style manor from 1911-1913 that was built by Edward Gawler Prior, a former Premier of British Columbia. It is a designated heritage building, with beautiful, oak clad interiors and exteriors with granite rock terraces and balustrades of stone. The English style gardens have beautiful borders combining perennials and shrubs and they have received several awards; they were beautiful even now, when almost no flowers were out. As the weather was typically damp and grey, what a treat it was to stay in the rooms in the evenings and read in front of the fireplaces. A little bit of old England, far away in the Western coast of Canada.

The Butchart Gardens

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Being "Thanksgiving orphans", as our American friends called us, is not a completely negative thing; it leaves you to do whatever you want during these traditional family gathering times. We opted for a long weekend in Victoria on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia in Canada. I had visited Victoria once before when I was five years old with my parents and siblings, so I felt quite nostalgic, seeing before my eyes all the old family photos, with three young children dressed in typical 70's clothes skipping around in the gardens of Vancouver Island. One of them, the Butchart Gardens, has after all these years become something of a family legend, and I don't know how much I really remember or how much I just think I remember after seeing the pictures for so many times. Anyway, I was very keen on a new visit, or maybe a "reality check" of the gardens, more than 30 years later.

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The sunken garden in the old limestone quarry.

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The Butchart Gardens consists of 22ha (55 acres) of differently themed gardens, restaurants, shops and other entertainments. They are a well-known tourist attraction and receive more than a million visitors each year. The gardens were first created as a part of the Butchart family home, but already by the 1920s more than fifty thousand people came each year to see them, many of whom by car (this gives a hint of how prosperous this part of the world must have been then!).

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The Butcharts were, what could be called the nouveau-riche of their time; Robert Pim Butchart was a former dry goods merchant who became a highly successful pioneer in the cement manufacturing industry in North America. The West Coast of Canada had rich limestone deposits that are vital for cement production, so he built a factory at Tod Inlet on Vancouver Island and in 1904, established a home there with his family. As the lime deposits were exhausted in the quarry near their house, his wife, Jennie, decided to turn the enormous hole in the ground into a sunken garden, much in vogue during that time. An old black-and-white film in the visitors centre showed this operation, where thousands of tons of top soil were brought in by horse and cart and used to line the floor of the abandoned quarry. It was quite amusing to imaging all the fun they must have had, playing around like this, doing what they loved with their newly-earned money.

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Reflecting their world travels, the Butcharts added a Japanese Garden in 1908 and an Italian Garden some years later. A Rose Garden replaced a large kitchen vegetable patch in 1929. In 1939, the Butcharts gave the Gardens to their grandson Ian Ross (1918–1997) on his 21st birthday. Ross was involved in the operation and promotion of the gardens until his death 58 years later; the ownership of the gardens remains within the Butchart family. In 2004, the gardens were designated as a national historic site.

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From the Japanese Garden; the wet climate of Vancouver Island is perfect for growing moss.

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All this adds up to the central experience of the gardens now; they are a huge business, meticulously maintained and orchestrated to serve the masses visiting them every year. Just driving in to the large and well-organized car park gives a feeling of what is to come; then passing through the shops and entertainment areas, now lavishly trimmed with Christmas decorations of all kinds and colours, rips off the hope of seeing something personal or individual. The gardens are still beautiful, even in the middle of a dark November day; the sunken garden is still as amazing a gardening idea as it was for a hundred years ago. But I really would have hoped that all the kitsch would have been left out (I am leaving it out from my blog, well aware that it changes the impression you get as a reader). Of course, the gardens were designed to impress from the beginning, but is there such a need to overdo it? The gardens should be left to tell their story, unusual and eccentric as they are, and I am sure (or I hope...) that garden visitors still would come in thousands to see the impressing floral displays in their wonderfully beautiful natural environment.

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Oh, I could not resist - the giant sized Three French hens from the Twelwe Days of Christmas displays found in the gardens in December. What a delight...?