Western Garden Meccas with Ken

This Week's Podcast: Whirlwind — My Early May Tour

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MP3 File

From May 3 to
16, I visited gardens in Northern California, Seattle area and Montreal,
Quebec, Canada. Here are some photos from my trips.

Clockwise from top right: One of Marcia Donahue’s sculptures – a variety of what she calls Bambusa ceramica with an Abutilon, flowering maple (Marcia’s Berkeley gallery/garden is
open most Sunday’s, from 1:00 to 5:00 PM, 510-540-8544). A stone sculpture by
Marcia in the creek at Jana Olson’s Berkeley garden. The rotating table and
magnifying lens in the garden of Kathy and Ed Fries in Washington State. A view
of the Elizabeth C. Miller garden in Seattle. The largest example I’ve ever
seen of the rare Glaucidium palmatum
‘Album’ – the white Japanese wood poppy – in the Shade Garden at the Montreal
Botanical Garden.
I also visited the gardens of Greg Graves, one of my hosts, Richie
Steffen and Riz Reyes, another host who drove me everywhere! I gave a lecture
to the Northwest Horticultural Society, thanks to Greg, and that was a great
success with a great group!

The last stop on my trip was to give a lecture to the
Montreal Garden Club in Canada where I was treated like a star! Then, a tour of
private gardens and the Montreal Botanical Garden where I saw the Shade Garden,
the Rhododendron Garden and had a behind the scenes visit to some of the
greenhouses. I also visited the library, where I was asked to sign a half-dozen
of my books.