Botanic garden, Kousa dogwood, and kicking the shut-in habit

Photo of a Seattle bungalow in fall or winter, by Wonderlane, Flickr Creative Commons license.

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One of the things I’ve learned in the past 10 days: When in a dark, rainy place without the need to leave home for work, and while living in a lovely Arts & Craft house, well-insulated and well-gardened, it’s easy to become a sleepy shut-in.

But, here at the housesit house, I’m leaving my slumber. I’m happy to say that soon I start a copywriting contract gig at an ecommerce company. Also, I’ve done some political canvassing.

Here’s to the vigorous productivity and growth that follow any plant’s necessary dormant period, right? Ha.

And, as we watch those flood waters slowly recede from New Jersey and New York—where I once lived, have dear friends, and remember well the turn of the streets and sounds of people’s voices—it’s good to know progress occurs.

(Last night I ordered a pizza and specified the “South Philly,” in honor of areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. Because it’s the least I could do, the “Brooklyn Bridge” was more expensive, and I figured I could add my own bell peppers, after all.)

Photo of pizza by Arnold Gatilao, Flickr Creative Commons license

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On an active weekend recently, I took a field trip to Kruckeberg Botanic Garden. It's a 4-acre public garden in a north Seattle suburb, founded as a private garden in 1958 by

husband-and-wife botanists and horticulturists Arthur Kruckeberg and his wife Mareen. 

The place has more than 2,000 plant species, collected over 50 years.

Kruckeberg, a University of Washington botanist for decades, is known in regional horticulture circles for ground-breaking writing about Pacific Northwest and Western native plants.

His book, Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest (UW Press, 1996), is a comprehensive primer considered enviable by many regions.

The fact is, West Coast bio-climates are unique on the North American continent. They vary widely according to proximity to mountains, valleys, and the Pacific and other water -- and much of the contemporary planting research has taken place since the 1950s, including Sunset magazine’s Sunset Western Garden Book and Dr. Kruckeberg’s research.

What I mean is, these people have done important work -– so I looked forward to seeing Kruckeberg Garden. It has about 30% native plants and 70% exotics.

On a Sunday bus schedule, I took the bus to a spot five blocks east of the garden. I didn't realize that the blocks were long and terraced, descending toward Puget Sound’s Richmond Beach. The views of the Sound were pretty, but the streets were curving and sometimes steep. Luckily, no disabilities hindered my trip. (To those who go later: It's possible to transfer to a bus that travels further down the hill, then walk a level street to the garden.)

Plants seen along the way:

Pacific crabapple. I had been on the lookout for these, with their trademark oval shape. They are smaller than crabapples from some other regions – each an inch or less in length. They had rosy sides, and grew on trees in front of an elementary school. I’ve read that crabapples can vary from tree to tree; these had an unripe, bland taste. I collected a few, in case they’re better in jam mixed with berries.

Photo of (clockwise from top) spindletree (inedible), crabapple (edible), magnolia (inedible), and rose hip (edible), by Leslie Seaton, Flickr Creative Commons license. 

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Red huckleberry bushes, with their light, multi-leveled grace, grew by someone’s mailbox. Unlike in most places around here, huckleberries still remained on the branches. They were next to the usual salal ground cover, which grows everywhere in the Northwest.

Photo of red huckleberries by waferboard, Flickr Creative Commons license.

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An apple tree in a front yard was hung heavily with large apples. They were rosy and buoyant, indicative of the plenty that is everywhere if we let nature grow.

After winding down the hill and past many houses, I found myself outside the garden and its small, almost residential-sized parking lot.

Trees clustered gracefully at the lot’s edges. A Kousa dogwood, native to Asia, had fruit caught on slender limbs. Each was a small red sphere flecked with bumps. The flavor is mild; I’ve eaten several more since then, and their taste has grown on me. They are light-weight, white inside, and remind me of the light sponginess and look of a cerimoya.

Photo of Kousa dogwood fruit (not yet fully ripe/red), by liz west, Flickr Creative Commons license. 

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Keep in mind that Kruckeberg Garden is a small public garden, not a standard-sized city arboretum. Once you're there, the trail passes MsK nursery, where native plants are sold -- then descends a slope to a spacious lower garden. This lower area is part statuary and setting for restful glades, and part labeled plants and trees. If you go, check out the online walking tour.

On the slope above the lower garden, a 100-foot-tall Giant Sequoia towers. It inspires awe, with a 20-foot trunk that fans wide like a woman’s hips at its base and becomes narrower higher on the trunk. This tree was transplanted to the garden by the Kruckebergs in 1958 as a six-foot sapling. Now it is the height of a 10-story building, and towers gloriously, with branches fanning like so many umbrella spines up its trunk.

Next time, when it isn’t raining, I’ll see more of the garden. I’ll look for the birds, since more than 40 species are found there, and because the garden is free of herbicides and uses organic fertilizers.

It's worth it for the sequoia alone.

Photo of a Giant Sequoia (taken at California's Kings Canyon NP) by upsilon andromadae, Flickr Creative Commons license.

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Found: Berries and Salal on trail to Annette Lake

 

Photo of mountain lake by Henofthewood on Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Saturday, a hike to Annette Lake in the Cascades with my friend E. We snacked along the way on clustered salal berries – and the occasional dusky blue or lightly red huckleberry on airy bushes.

The day was glorious: The last weekend in September, and still dry and sunny. This is unusual in the Northwest, but we’ll take it!

Back to berries, though. Admission: Until now, I’ve never really valued salal. Apparently that’s because I’d never had them fully, tip-top ripened to a dark navy, and on a sunny Cascade hillside.

They're an acquired taste: I asked E. what she thought, and she said questioningly, “Grainy, rough?”

Salal aren’t blueberries, I had to admit. They lack the easy charisma and bright flavor of more popular berries.

 

But in this case, to me, they were downright flavorful. There was a depth to them, a sun-warmed richness. I wanted pots full of them, I wanted pies and crumbles.

 

I was content with snacking, though. I gathered handfuls, each with its slightly hairy bulb and knobby end.

 

They were ugly enough to be left on their leathery leaf-branches for me to find on a sunny fall hike, and I loved them for it.

Photo of salal berries by Nordique on Flickr Creative Commons license
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The berries provided moisture, Vitamins C and A, and the usual antioxidants as we headed up the 1600 feet of elevation change between the trail head and Annette Lake.

 

I found them refreshing, and I was grateful: When I arrived in Washington state, I often walked past these and other berries, not knowing what they were. My past is full of the slight irritation of not knowing berries or fruits on trees, of feeling as I pass them that I could be wasting something valuable that will go bad on the branch.

Eating the berries gave me the “I’m a hardy hiker, I’m like Heidi with the goats in the Swiss mountains,” thought pattern that I alternate with “I’m like Grizzly Adams; I can survive!” when I’m flattering myself. And yet, it was a little bit true.

After a good many switchbacks and walking past many majestic firs and spruce, E. and I made it to Annette Lake. It is a lovely lake, surrounded by wooded hillsides. I always like the peace of arriving at a mountain lake after a long hike, finding the cove in the woods that opens with light, spotlighted by the sun as a rare place, a place of water that attracts all of us: animals, humans, birds.

We had our lunches there, E. with her tuna sandwich and shelled pistachios and fruit leather, and me with my peanut-butter-and-banana pita, HoneyCrisp apple, and dark chocolate squares.

We sat in the sun on the grainy beach, facing the light of the water, watching circles form on the surface and talking about relationships and life and work, and listening to the calling voices of the fewer than 10 other people on other shores of the lake as they threw balls to retrievers and talked about we knew not what.

The water, just to fill you in, was probably pretty cold. Maybe surprisingly, I didn’t go in!

The sky was overcast when we arrived, and I had the recent memory of swimming two weeks ago in Mason Lake here in the Cascades, and finding that the water was not just limpid and chill, but downright bone-chilling.

I’d learned that although I’ll swim in large bodies of water in any temperature, in mountain lakes I prefer to dip when they are sun-warmed and it is high summer. Call me particular, call me someone who doesn't want to be chilled before a long hike in falling light, and you will be right.

Another thing we found: A king bolete mushroom, or porcini. Not exactly a feast, but we also talked to the Forest Service officers about logging roads that are handy for berries (and presumably for mushrooms).

There will be return trips, after all!