Tag Archives: Heatherwood

Progress

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“New Understory Plants”
Heatherwood Woodland Garden

Our 2022 spring planting project is completed except for a little barking touch up here and there. This year we added understory plants to our woodland garden. Last year we added standard maples, several dogwoods and Japanese maples, and a few shrubs along the garden edge and internal pathways. This year, we added shrubs and perennials to central part of the garden. It is starting to look a little more like a woodland. As the trees get larger, we will start to add more filtered shade loving woodland plants. But for now, most of the plants need to be sun loving. We need to be patient and wait for the trees, shrubs, and perennials to grow and mature a bit before we make significant additional contributions to the woodland. We will follow the shade.

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View for the Neighborhood Walkers

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“The Flume”
Heatherwood Spring

We have several walkers who daily walk through our neighborhood. This view is for them as they walk up the road past our driveway. At this point, a walker can look across the street and see another neighbor’s flume section and then look up over the street intersection and see yet another neighbor’s flume section. The three of us have been able to preserve a little bit of history that graced our hillside for over 100 years.

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Spring Surprise

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“Picea Pusch”
Heatherwood Spring

There is always a surprise almost everywhere we look in our spring garden. We have several of these little ‘Picea Pusch’ Norway spruce shrubs scattered along paths in Heatherwood’s Japanese garden. In the spring, vibrant red cones appear at the tips of new growth. By mid-summer, they turn to their brown seed cones. New spring growth abounds in our little Eden.

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Good Morning World!

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“View From My Office Window”
Heatherwood Spring

If I sleep in and get up at 7:00A, then go into my office to write, this is what greets me as I look out the window. It is always an inspiration to start my day thinking about what is right about the world that surrounds me. There is so much to be thankful for. Taking a moment each day to think about that prepares me to make the most of each new day in front of me.

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Remembering the Virginia Countryside

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“Dogwoods & Redbuds”
Heatherwood Woodland Garden

One of my fondest memories of the rural Virginia countryside is the springtime bloom of the native dogwoods and redbuds. They were such a beautiful contrast of purplish pink and white that abounded along the country roads in the Virginia woodland areas. I remember the beautiful drives from Fairfax down to Jefferson’s Monticello and the trips along Skyline Drive.

Here at Heatherwood in Eastern Washington, we are trying to create a similar feeling in our woodland garden. Our first challenge is to select trees that will withstand the harsh summer sun. Both dogwoods and redbuds are understory trees that flourish under the canopies of taller trees. We have taken the risk of planting taller trees simultaneously with the dogwoods and redbuds. The second challenge is to select the dogwoods that will bloom at the same time as the redbuds. The eastern dogwoods and redbuds bloom together. However the Eastern dogwood is susceptible to anthracnose which we do not want to have. Thus, we are experimenting with different species of Kousa dogwoods to match the early blooming time of the redbuds. Time will tell how successful our efforts will be.

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Why Did I Create This Image?

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“Front Yard Planting Area”
Heatherwood Spring

I try to be mindful when I make a photograph. I ask myself why do I want to take an image before I snap the shutter on my camera. There is nothing really unique about this image. It does not have any special composition or a single subject of interest. It certainly is not an iconic view. It was not taken during exceptional lighting giving it a moody feeling. It does have contrasting colors, shapes, and textures. When it comes down to the reason I took the image, I guess it was simply that I liked the view looking into our garden from the front yard planting area into the beginning of our woodland garden.

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Patches of Spring Color

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“Spring Vignette”
Heatherwood Japanese Garden

Spring is a beautiful time in our Heatherwood Japanese garden. The various trees and shrubs blend together to provide a beautiful patchwork of colors. As I peek through the trees, my eyes take a circuitous route through the vignette. They first focus to the left on the bright pink of a Shin deshojo Japanese maple, then move up to the magenta of a flowering crabapple. They move to the right corner to see the deep purple of a Bloodgood Japanese maple and then down to the rhododendrons that are just about ready to burst in bloom. They next move up to the center to see the white flowers of a fothergillia. Finally they move up a little more and see the chartreuse of a Shigasura Japanese maple. I squint my eyes and see a blurred impressionistic patchwork of color.

The image above is from the most mature area in our Japanese garden. The flowering crabapple was here when I moved in during 2016. The first tree I planted in the garden in 2016 was the Bloodgood Japanese Maple. The following year, I received the Shin deshojo Japanese maple from wonderful friends. In 2018, I added the rhododendrons and the Shigasura. And then in 2019, we planted the fothergilla. Now after three years, we have an intriguing combination of colors, shapes, and textures.

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Here Come the Dogwoods!

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“White Kousa Dogwood”
Heatherwood Spring

Here come the dogwoods joining the blooming crabapples and redbuds. Individually each tree has its unique character. Together they yell out “Its Spring” in our Heatherwood garden!

Over the years, I have become addicted to dogwoods. The first dogwood tree I remember is a small pink one that Dad planted in our yard in the early 60’s. I received my first real appreciation of their collective beauty when we moved back to the Washington, DC area in the early 80’s. We planted a white Florida dogwood as a center piece in our front yard. It was so little when we left. Years later in the late 90’s, I drove by our past home and saw that it had matured into a beautiful tree that had was the star of the front yard. Since then we have planted several dogwoods in our Kent, Woodinville, and Fountainville homes as we moved back and forth between the East and West coasts. And now in Heatherwood, we have planted ten dogwoods. I can’t get enough and plan to plant several more throughout Heatherwood as the years go by.

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Redbuds for J. Charles

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“Blooming Redbuds”
Heatherwood Woodland Garden

The woodland is coming to life with the blooming redbuds and the new understory that we have been planting during the last two years. It will take 3-5 years for trees to get large enough and the understory to fill in to be able to start to get the feeling that we are walking through a woodland. In the meantime we will enjoy the blooming young trees and understory highlights and dream what it will be in the years ahead. Patience! Patience! Patience!

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Trying to Preserve a Little History

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“Irrigation Flume Section”
Heatherwood Garden

Our neighborhood was sad to see the historic Selah Naches irrigation flume taken down. What is left is a scar along where the flume gracefully stood for over 100 years. It will take many, many years (longer than my lifetime) for the scar to transition to a natural vegetation state.

Several of our neighbors were able to get a section of the flume and preserve a little history in our gardens. At Heatherwood we will add additional trees and shrubs that will highlight and frame the flume segment. We also plan to add trees to shield the scar that remains in areas where we had previously created windows to view the flume .

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