Garden Touring Again

 Our garden club, which is associated with the larger organization, Northwest Perennial Alliance, also meets once a month to do our own thing. Each month has a different organizer. For this month I was asked for advice, and I said, " Let's go somewhere where they water. We have enough of our own dried up gardens." And so we chose Powellswood, a private garden open to the public for a small fee. 

We had a guide, the head gardener, a young man who fairly recently was just a learner himself and didn't even know what a horticulturalist was. Now he is one. He was a fun guide.

This property has been gardened for about 30 years and has gone through many changes. We hardly recognized it from when Tom and I were there many years ago. It's in a ravine, wooded, and you would hardly know it is surrounded by the city of Federal Way. 

Get ready for a photo dump. 

Listening to our guide, surrounded by the sunny color boarder,

Transitioning to another "room".

And down to another level.

There's a pond back in there but it is now filled with vegetation. 

This is the pond, filled with boggy plants.

Transitioning again, to a shade garden. 

And then we are in the forest. 

Observation deck with views of the tamed in the foreground, the wild behind. 

Heading back to another room in the cultivated garden, and a place to sit and visit until it's time to go to lunch. 

The view from my bench where I sat under the cherry trees. 

Then back on the patio where we began, and where with better light, I couldn't resist a few more photos. The final flourish: succulents, palms, and bananas.

Then we went to lunch. There were 17 of us. The wait for our food was long but the restaurant staff managed us well. Trying to carry on conversations with that many people with my hearing loss was exhausting. I was happy to be home, but also happy to have gone, shared more beauty,  managed the walking and stairs, and connected with gardening friends.