Plant Talk

Garden Touring

There's no more enjoyable or illuminating way to learn about gardening and meet fellow enthusiasts than to tour open gardens...as reflected in this inquiry from blog reader Nancy Crowell:

Question: Hey Valerie - Do you or anyone else you know of publish an accurate list of garden tours in the Pacific NW? I keep missing the ones I'd like to see because I'm not sure where to go to find the info!

Answer: We live in gardening paradise, with a wealth of skilled gardeners creating inspiring properties. But how to keep up with what's open when? One way is to join the Northwest Perennial Alliance; with membership comes the prize of an "Open Garden Directory". Various NPA members open up their gardens every weekend of the season, so pick your geographical area and start touring. It's a chance to move at your own pace, avoid the crowds, see cool plants and meet enthused gardeners.

For a thorough and updated list of area garden tours, see the Miller Horticultural Library's web page. You'll find a handy list of dozens of open gardens, from a midnight pond tour to a champagne gala for the Bellevue Botanical Garden. The staff at the library keep it current, along with a list of area plant sales...beware falling down the wiki-hole of this tempting web page...better yet go on into the library, and discover the riches of this collection, open and available for public use.

The End of Forestry and a New Home for UWBG.....

Okay, I admit it, I'm celebrating. And so are a great many former, and my guess current, University of Washington employees and supporters. A committee just recommended to Mark Emmert, U.W. President, that the College of Forest Resources be dissolved, or perhaps demoted would be the word, and integrated into the new College of the Environment as the School of Forest Resources. Dean Bruce Bare put it this way in an email to faculty and students, " Attached please find a copy of the CFR RCEP Review Committee Report which concludes that the College of Forest Resources should be eliminated and reformed as the School of Forest Resources in the College of the Environment."

The committee vote was unanimous; the majority of Forestry faculty support the move. Of course they do - the College of the Environment is the future - Forestry is the past.

When I worked at the Center for Urban Horticulture (18 years managing the Miller Library), which was part of Forestry, the college was in decline, and an inhospitable home for CUH, especially after the 2001 eco-terrorist fire which destroyed Merrill Hall (photo, left) and damaged the Miller Library.  I left my job at the library only a couple of years away from retirement because of decisions and demands by Forestry, especially Dean Bruce Bare, which made it impossible for me to perform my job and raise money with integrity.

I'm sure CUH and the Arboretum, collectively known as UWBG (University of Washington Botanic Gardens) will fare much better as part of the College of the Environment. But it seems such a miss that UWBG is entering the new college under the auspices of Forestry. And because Forestry is being demoted from a College, does this mean, in effect, that UWBG will be demoted, too, within the UW hierarchy?

Stephanie Harrington, Assistant Dean for the new College of the Environment doesn’t see it that way. “UWBG will continue to have its own director,” she assured me. “This is a strategic long-term decision. Forestry and UWBG will have a stronger future and be better integrated into the University under the College of the Environment.” Let’s hope she’s right.