Plant Talk

Innovative, Inspiring Vashon Nursery Partners with Plant Talk - Have You Been to DIG Yet? ?

I first saw gabion pillars at DIG Nursery on Vashon Island, and these cool rock and wire constructions are just one of owners Sylvia Matlock and Ross Johnson's clever ideas. I'm so pleased to have such an exciting and stylish nursery partner with Plant Talk....

Sylvia has a great eye for what's new and fresh in the way of plants and design. You can count on finding fabulous pots, succulents, ornamental grasses, and small shrubs at DIG. From the practical to the artistic, from houseplants to trees, DIG has what you need as well as things you haven't yet imagined for your garden. DIG is worth a trip to Vashon, and serves as a perfect excuse for an island excursion.

Sylvia and Ross started DIG 15 years ago. They also have a tour-worthy garden and stunning little house on Vashon that I've written about for the Seattle Times (read it here) and Garden Design magazine. While the nursery is known for its seasonal, drought-tolerant plantings, art, and reclaimed materials, the talented duo at the helm are famous for their inspiring style and constant innovation that keeps DIG, and our gardens, fresh and exciting.

When I dropped in to DIG last week, I was impressed with the deep blue-blooming agapanthus, and impressive number of carnivorous pitcher plants, plus ingenious water features, troughs, pots, gloves, hats....well, see for yourself below.

Rooster-topped gabion pillar at the entrance to DIG - note the cool little pails and pots of succulents, and flashy agapanthus -

Entrance to the shop at DIG - and a tempting selection of outdoor rugs...

So many good ideas at DIG your head will buzz.... including this series of water-filled pots and runnels...

One of Sylvia's eye-catching displays - everywhere you look at DIG is something beautiful, new, unusual, desirable, inspiring, or just fun...it isn't easy to leave DIG empty handed, believe me....

 

 

 

 

DIG Nursery on Vashon Island - Grasses, Succulents and Gabion Walls

DIG Nursery is one of my favorite destinations, even on a cold, windy Monday morning. I'm so impressed on every visit, for proprietors Sylvia Matlock and Ross Johnson have always changed the topography of the nursery, built something new, found some very cool new plants - this hard-working, innovative duo keep coming up with fresh ideas.

Sylvia says she's specializing these days in grasses, succulents, and sturdy, small evergreen shrubs - just what we need for easy-care, durable, beautiful gardens...and she stocks such an amazing range of plants that are fragrant, unusual, surprising, tantalizing....including mats of textural sedums, cheery wallflowers, scented geraniums, annual flowering vines, and tables of colorful little carexes.

A visit to DIG is both an education in plant possibilities and a wealth of design ideas - the aesthetic is simple, modern, clever, recycled...take a look....

DIG Floral & Garden
19028 Vashon Highway SW
206 463-5096

A feed trough raised up on a scaffold for a contemporary take on a shade umbrella....

Gabion walls add height and structure (that's a rooster on top, sorry I cut off its head in the photo...). A framed, textural sedum mat contrasts with the gray stone and looks almost like a window into a garden...

Close up of the sedum mat...DIG sells them ready to peel up and place in your own garden...

How's this for a cool water feature; a spillway made of rusty metal, discarded concrete culverts or pipes, and those great floating silver spheres bobbing in the biggest tank...

And here's my favorite use of an old concrete culvert  - a modern doghouse with green roof for nursery dog Sophie to stay cool in on the warm days that are surely headed our way...

 

 

 

Vashon Island gardens...

It was snowing when I left Queen Anne hill on Friday morning, but the sun beamed through before I'd reached Vashon Island. I was scouting a story about the Vashon garden tour (June 27 & 28). Organizers have recruited some very special gardens this year - stay tuned for a story and photos in Pacific Northwest mag in early June.

Vashon Island is gorgeous this time of year - pastures full of pygmy goats, horses, and llamas, sweeps of fruit trees in hazy white and pink bloom. Here are a few of the spring sights, and a teaser for the garden tour....

If you think you're behind on pruning back your lavender, imagine the task ahead of this Vashon gardener with an entire front landscape of lavender....

A labyrinth in tour chair Anita Halstead's front garden - what a great way to cover the ground

I wonder if gardeners on Vashon realize how lucky they are to have such a stylish and well-stocked nursery as DIG Floral and Garden, which is one of my favorite nurseries anywhere....Proprietors Sylvia Matlock and Ross Johnson have created a destination full of cool plants and clever ideas...here are a couple of DIG scenes: a water feature made of sewer pipes, and a little outdoor seating area on gravel - shows that  a great outdoor rug can create a comfy scene just about anywhere...
 

Narcissus in full bloom, and one of many pebble mosaics in one of the tour gardens.