Spring Promenade

For at least a century, Seattleites have been celebrating spring with a promenade along Highland Drive on  Queen Anne Hill. With Kerry Park viewpoint at one end, and the lovely little hellebore-filled Parsons Garden at the other, with dozens of mature cherries in bloom in-between, this historic street is at its peak of beauty. The top of Queen Anne, with its many street trees, wide parking strips and older houses and gardens offers great gardening lessons and inspirations.

Set against the pale froth of cherries and plums, saturated colors warm up a spring morning; Dark purple hyacinths ('Kronos') golden daffodils with orange centers, rusty-red wallflowers (Erysimum ssp.) and the intense chartreuse of euphorbia are perfect foils to all the sweetness of spring. This shade of scented wallflower was used by Vita Sackville-West in her Sunset Garden at Sissinghurst Caste.

 

 

And from the sublime to the just plain wrong: An entire city block of rat-trap, aggressively spreading English ivy, sure to infest nearby parks. There are many old gardens plagued with ivy, but this is a brand new house, the "garden" planted a year or so ago...

 

And in the spirit of Plant Amnesty asking "What the.......???" Just because an older house, like so many on Queen Anne, is formal doesn't mean the garden needs to be sterile, trees tortured, or flowers lined up as if by a drill sergeant. What's with the alternating red-and-white, let alone those colors with the rusty brick?  The tree trunk you see tied up here is an unfortunate lollipop of a magnolia. It's like the homeowners set out to strip nature of any possible naturalness...

 

And here's formality done right - a cherry tree allowed to claim its magnificence, its full, glorious shape enhanced by the hedging.

Comments

[Christine B.]

I found the rusty, or was it chocolate-y, color of the wallflowers to be delightful. The red and white primulas were beyond the pale though.

Christine in Alaska