The Bloedel Reserve is a place of utter beauty and almost spiritual peacefulness. Rain drips quietly from mossy branches, and the color green wraps you in a soft embrace. I explored the grounds for two-and-a-half hours—not nearly enough time to see all 150 acres, but enough to walk some of the trails at a slow, reflective pace, in peaceful solitude and deep happiness.

I visited the Reserve with other bloggers on the final day of the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling last month. Only a 35-minute ferry ride from Seattle and then a short drive, the garden feels a world away from the bustle of the city. Our group toured on a Monday, when the Reserve is normally closed to visitors, so we did have to put up with a few noisy mowers as the groundskeepers did their work, but that was only where lawn rules, near the Bloedel family’s former home, now a visitors center.

In back of the house, a terrace overlooks Port Madison Bay, blanketed this day in clouds. It was the only rainy day of my Seattle visit, and we even had thunder and lightning at the start of our tour. The staff were kind enough to share their umbrellas with us. However, photography was a little challenging as we tried to protect our gear from the rain.

Professional photographer David Perry, who writes an introspective (and of course beautifully photographed) blog called A Photographer’s Garden Blog, joined us to offer free, short seminars on taking better photos. He is an excellent and entertaining speaker. It was a treat to meet him after following his blog for several years.

The mowers interrupted his talk for a while but eventually fell silent. After sitting in on one of David’s seminars and then eating a quick box lunch, I decided to embrace the silence of a solo exploration of the garden. I descended the stairs pictured at the top of this post and entered a forest trail.

A hush

A sense of mystery and wonder

Moss cloaks everything in this climate, softening all hard surfaces with its ferny texture.

A chocolate-colored pond appeared, with a little waterfall…

…and a footbridge crossing over.

Silvery blue hostas along the bank, jeweled with raindrops, caught my eye.

Further along the trail, the heaviness of hemlock, Douglas fir, and western red cedar gives way to an airy, naturalistic allee of birch.

A single red-flowering shrub in bloom—could it be a rhododendron at this time of year?

The slender white trunks shine in the filtered light.

While trees and moss dominate the Bloedel—the highest and lowest layers—taller groundcovers are given a lot of play too.

Nearby, a dainty cluster of pink bells

A Japanese garden occupies the center of the Reserve, with several inviting paths leading in, including this one.

The simple beauty of wet flagstone set in grass…

…and mossy boulders.

In spring I am sure these flowering fruit trees (cherry? apple? peach?), mossy-trunked and -limbed, awaken with a profusion of frothy blooms.

Beautiful texture

I admired this zig-zagging design of groundcovers.

A wider view

A Zen garden offers a restful spot for contemplation in front of the guest house, built to resemble a Japanese tea house.

Stone and moss

Another gate and a more formal walk lead out toward the moss garden, but I’m not ready to leave the Japanese garden just yet.

In back of the guest/tea house, a sheltered deck and benches…

…an overlook…

…and a view of pond and garden.

You can see raindrops on the pond.

An elegantly contorted Japanese maple perches on one of the banks.

A “wishing bench” overlooks the pond too.

And now on to the moss garden.

I’d never seen anything like these golden carpets of moss.

Ferns, artfully planted, are set off by frames of moss. New fronds stick up like feather quills.

The sinuous branches of trees leaning toward the light wear cloaks of moss.

Such sumptuous, soft texture. This is a much gentler climate than that of thorny, prickly central Texas.

Near constant moisture makes it all possible.

An opening in the woods, and a formal reflection pool appears. I understand that the Bloedels are buried here. I can’t imagine a more peaceful resting place.

I don’t feel that my words or pictures have done justice to the beauty, serenity, and quiet joy of the Bloedel Reserve. But I hope they inspire you to visit one day. I’m astonished to think that I’d never heard of the place until the Garden Bloggers Fling, because it’s one of those incredible gardens that any lover of nature or gardens should visit.

Up next: A happy-hour, end-of-the-Fling visit to Dragonfly Farms Nursery in Kingston, WA. For a look back at the color-rich Farley Garden, click here.

All material © 2006-2011 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

If you’re lucky enough to live on a hilltop in Seattle, odds are you have a nice view of something, seeing as the city is surrounded by mountains and the sea. In the Epping Garden, which we visited on Day Two of the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling, the nice view is rather stunning.

After piling out of the buses onto a terraced lawn and patio with a striking circular arbor, we gazed out over the slope to admire…

…the Seattle skyline and Olympic Mountains in all their glory.

The view of Lake Washington isn’t bad either.

With riches like these viewable from the patio, do you bother to create a garden? But of course! Michelle and Christopher Epping have made a lush, lovely garden that took 3rd place in the 2007 Pacific Northwest Gardens Competition. Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden has managed to tear herself away from the skyline views to focus on the garden.

I made a beeline for a blazing stand of crocosmia (the Seattle Fling’s signature plant?), where I took a bazillion pictures of this dramatic beauty against the charcoal boulders holding the slope.

A closeup—like a bird’s head, don’t you think?

A curvy gravel path leads into the shady side of the garden.

A vaguely Asian trellis screen is simply but beautifully constructed, with a V-shape bend in the middle. That’s Andrea Bellamy of the Vancouver blog Heavy Petal on the left. I was delighted to meet her, having recently read and reviewed her new book, Sugar Snaps and Strawberries.

A variegated tree catches the morning light.

This tiered fountain adds water music to a quiet spot in the shade.

I liked these wood carvings found throughout the garden. They seemed as if they might be inspired by the totem poles of Pacific Northwest Indian tribes.

In the bright sunlight flowers glowed as if lit from within.

Among apricot lilies, a statue of Kuan Yin gazes over the garden.

With views like this, no wonder she looks so serene.

Next up: The fantasy and woodland magic of the Lane Garden. For a look back at the stylish, colorful Ravenna Gardens, click here.

All material © 2006-2011 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Ever since my Carolina childhood, the mountains of western North Carolina have been one of my favorite weekend destinations. During a recent vacation I had the pleasure of introducing my children to some fun hikes and nature outings in the Asheville area.

Pictured above is a view from Chimney Rock State Park, which after a century of private ownership recently became a state park. As my kids scrambled up ahead of me (how well I remember that youthful energy; where does it go?), I panted my way up several flights of steps to the top of the 315-foot monolith, where an incredible vista of green mountainsides and narrow Lake Lure spreads out before you. From here we huffed and puffed our way up to Exclamation Point, a bald rock face at 2,480-foot elevation. Sadly, the cliffside trail that used to lead on from there to a cascading waterfall where The Last of the Mohicans was filmed is no longer open. In fact, that trail doesn’t even appear on the map or the website, and it took a bit of sleuthing on my part to figure out how we’d missed the best part of the Chimney Rock experience, in my opinion. Probably there were safety concerns about the steep drop-offs along the trail, but I’m saddened that it was simply closed down rather than improved for safety.

Happily, Sliding Rock in the Pisgah National Forest is still as I remember from my childhood. An icy stream slides over a smooth, 60-ft sloping rock, and those who brave the cold water are rewarded with a natural slip-and-slide that picks up speed all the way to the pool at the bottom. My children slid a couple of times and were done. I remember, as a little kid, sliding for an hour with my sister and older cousins, making long chains with teenage boys who were happy to hang onto 16-year-old girls in cutoffs and bikini tops. I didn’t see any of that on this visit; it was an orderly, solitary bunch taking turns zipping down the rock, with only an occasional whoop to let the spectators know what they were missing.

What else did we do? Aside from hiking, sliding, and visiting Biltmore House, which I blogged about earlier this week, we poked around and rock hopped in the Rocky Broad River, which flows through Chimney Rock Village. Look at the size of those boulders.

We spotted three water snakes there…

…and a rattlesnake along the Chimney Rock park road—the first one we’d ever seen in the wild.

No, I didn’t get too close. I used the telephoto and didn’t get near enough to earn a warning rattle.

We enjoyed lunch at Larkin’s on the south end of beautiful Lake Lure.

On my dad’s recommendation, we ordered their pulled pork nachos: “A pile of fresh potato chips topped with slow roasted pulled pork, cheddar cheese, red onion and jalapenos.” Yum! We ate every bite.

We had a lovely time at Lake Lure and on the rest of our Blue Ridge trip. It’s so nice to escape the heat of an Austin summer for a few days. Now I’m dreaming of cool Seattle, and the 4th annual Garden Bloggers Fling next month.

All material © 2006-2011 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.