Waterfalls and a Rain-Drenched Outdoor Room - New Room & Board Landscaping

Room & Board opened at University Village a week or so ago, the first R&B anywhere in the Northwest, the 12th one in the country. I was happy to see, even in October, that they carried a good selection of contemporary, clean-lined outdoor furniture....

But the landscaping is a puzzler. Several very different things are going on in a fairly small area, from a little birch grove underplanted in blood grass (lovely, naturalistic) to a stiff, formal planting of kale and annuals.

Room & Board is on the 2nd floor of the old Barnes & Noble space, so faced the challenge of landscaping around an elevator. They did an interesting job of it, with a skinny, contemporary-styled granite waterfall between the up and down elevators. Both sides are planted in ferns and Japanese forest grass, and the water plunges down into a smooth, glassy pool. The steep hill next to the elevators is thickly planted in swathes of small, colorful shrubs and ornamental grasses.

At the base of the escalators they've pushed the sidewalk out to make space for a well-furnished patio, that was drenched the day I visited...but nonetheless effective for showing off Room & Board's outdoor furniture collection. And it doesn't hurt that the patio is framed in dahlias...you can see the birch grove behind the umbrella...

This soggy scene makes me wonder if Room & Board knew what they were getting into, furnishing an outdoor room in late autumn in the Northwest?

Then close by are new raised beds with plantings of annuals...that whole area is an odd blend of modern and traditional, casual and formal...

At least this planter is pretty, with shiny-leafed acanthus contrasting with masses of bright little cyclamen.

But this planting is so stiff and formal, with those kale all planted in a dark line, it looks as if it escaped from Butchart Gardens and moved south for the winter...Next time you're at Ravenna Gardens, head towards Eddie Bauer and you can't miss the new plantings and outdoor room....

 

Comments

[DariaW]

Maybe it's your photographic skills, but the cartoonishness of the last photo seems amusing and light hearted to me.