Waterfall and Maple Leaves
Heatherwood Japanese Garden
A good friend and photography mentor, John Barclay, stressed the idea of “When you see red, shoot!” in my first workshop with him. Red always demands attention as it does in the photograph of our Japanese garden stream. We have only three weeks more to enjoy the main stream and waterfalls in our Heatherwood garden. We will need to shut the stream down as we prepare for the winter ahead.
Upper Waterfall
Heatherwood Japanese Garden
One of the prominent elements of our Japanese-inspired garden is the waterfall and stream. I love when the falling red Autumn Brilliance maple leaves decorate the stream and surrounding banks. Weeping conifers (Uncle Fogy Jack Pine, Hillside Creeper Scots Pine, and the Blues Weeping Colorado Blue Spruce) along with Little Dipper Cotoneasters flow over the stream bank. Together with the water cascading over the rocks, they make a beautiful vignette.
Stream of Grass Through Banks of Color
Heatherwood Autumn
A wandering stream of green grass flows through colorful beds of trees and shrubs in Heatherwood’s lower garden. Strolls through the garden stimulate my imagination and vision. Each time I walk, I visualize and imagine different scenes. Many times, I find a comfortable bench to sit back, observe, and reflect. I recall the times in my youth when Uncle Ben and I would sit on our rock overlooking the lower Naches Valley below. We would observe the orchards, farms, and hills beyond. He would tell me stories of adventures of my fantasy hero, Bobby Raccoon. As I wander through the garden, I imagine what my next adventure will be.
Lower Garden Vignette
Heatherwood Autumn
Some see this vignette as a mixture of plants; purple asters, geums, Autumn Joy sedums, Niemitz blue spruce, yellow yarrow, Hillside Creeper pine, Globosa Japanese red pine, and nine barks. To me, it is a sea of color, shapes, and textures weaved together to create a warm feeling. This is what gardening is about.
Lower Garden Path
Heatherwood Autumn
Over the past several years, we have been gradually developing a garden path along the perimeter of our lower Heatherwood garden. The image above is the transition from our lower conifer garden to the woodland garden. The Lebanon cedars on the left and the birches on the right form a doorway across the lawn into the woodland garden above. Along the path, benches provide shaded places to rest and become immersed into the garden’s beauty. It’s time for a walk!!!
View from the Street
Heatherwood Autumn
Conifers, grasses, Japanese maples, perennials, and deciduous trees all blend together to form an abstract collage of color. Colors change every passing day for a new display. This window into our Heatherwood garden provides a little vignette to greet our daily walkers along the street. The garden provides us the gift of being able to walk among nature every day.
The sagebrush covered hill above along with its ridge of a past volcanic lava flow puts history in perspective. It also provides a reminder of the importance of our 100-year old irrigation canal that has brought water to our fertile valley.
Looking Up Into the Japanese Garden
Heatherwood Fall
Colors abound as we look from the back yard up into the Japanese inspired area of our Heatherwood garden. The reds of the Autumn Brilliance maples and the yellows of the linden and other Japanese maples provide the bright color. The blues and greens of the various conifer trees and shrubs fill in the gaps. The bright orange of the heather provides a special accent in the bottom center. The tan of the background hill sets off the garden colors. The Japanese Kotoji lantern stands out to orchestrate the changing colors. Soon the chartreuse of the Wintersonne mugho pine on the left and the green of the Saratoga ginkgo in the center will turn to brilliant yellows.
The autumn colors seem to change every day. Our daily walk through the garden is always full of surprises!
Upper Garden Entrance Path
Heatherwood Fall
We have been blessed with many beautiful blue-sky early fall days this year. Some trees have already turned color and lost their leaves. Others are just starting to turn into their fall colors. Soon many of the orange maples will turn into scarlet red. We always enjoy the contrast of the garden colors with the stark beauty of the hill above accented by the bright blue sky.
Japanese Garden Lower Path
Heatherwood Late Summer
Shades of green dominate the lower path of our Heatherwood Japanese garden area in late summer. The light orange tinge of a Japanese maple in the background is a harbinger of the beginning of autumn. During the next several weeks the path will gradually sparkle with the changing colors of the Japanese maples and other deciduous trees that grace the landscape. Fall is just around the corner.
Historic Irrigation Flume in NW Bed
Heatherwood Late Summer
Irrigation gives life to our Heatherwood garden. Without the water that the Selah-Naches canal brings, our landscape would be a dry shrub steppe area like what can be seen on the hillside rising above our home. This small section of the wooden flume that originally brought water to the area is a reminder of the canal that was built over 100 years ago. It brought precious water to the fertile soil for the orchards and farm lands of our valley.
We have had a continuous drought for several years. The mountain snow pack and reservoirs have been low. So far we have been able to keep our little oasis thriving. We are very conscious of how we apply the limited water supply. Over time, I am sure that we will need to replace much of our landscape plants with ones that are much more drought tolerant.