Next-door gardening neighbors at Puget Sound Fling
August 10, 2024 As we rolled into co-planner Camille Paulsen‘s Puyallup, Washington, neighborhood at the Puget Sound Fling last month, my bus was invited to tour a couple of her neighbors’ gardens while the other busload of Flingers worked their way into Camille’s garden first. I was charmed that Camille’s ...
Plants and garden art at VanLierop Garden Market in Puget Sound
August 09, 2024 Lunch on Day 2 of last month’s Puget Sound Fling was held at Sorci’s Italian Cafe, which just so happens to share a location with VanLierop Garden Market in Sumner, Washington. Tasty appetizers, pizza, and salad plus plant and garden-art shopping? Yes indeed. VanLierop Garden Market After ...
A plant playground at the Risdahl-Pittman Garden
August 08, 2024 Susan and Guy Risdahl-Pittman described their Milton, Washington, garden at the Puget Sound Fling last month as an eclectic plant playground. It’s also a beautifully designed space with winding paths to explore and a naturalistic pond to enjoy, complete with birch log lying across it. I started ...
A taste of Italy in a Puget Sound garden
August 07, 2024 The first two private gardens on Day 2 of the Puget Sound Fling last month were neighbors, each gardening intensively but in very different styles. It was fun to explore the two gardens side-by-side and imagine the owners bonding over a shared love of plants. Let’s start ...
Amid the trees at Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden and Pacific Bonsai Museum
August 06, 2024 The Puget Sound Fling last month started its second full day of touring in a forest of towering trees. Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden At the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden in Federal Way, Washington, I sought out the Victorian Stumpery, “the world’s largest public stumpery, with ferns spilling ...
Toad-henge sculpture is king of the hill in garden made for entertaining
August 05, 2024 Steep lots, rocks, lush plantings, and mountain views were a running theme at the Puget Sound Fling last month. The garden of Meagan Foley and Mac Gray fit right in thematically, but it also had us exclaiming wow as we walked around the house and spotted this ...
Garden and beach views at Point Defiance Park
August 04, 2024 After taking the ferry back to Tacoma, the Puget Sound Fling buses stopped in Point Defiance Park for a quick look at the public gardens there. Point Defiance is a jewel for Tacoma: a 760-acre park that includes a zoo and aquarium, gardens, beaches, bluffs, trails, a ...
Hopping around Froggsong Gardens
August 03, 2024 Lunch on the first day of the Puget Sound Fling was held on beautiful Vashon Island at Froggsong Gardens, a private home with a 5-acre estate garden that can be rented out as a wedding/event venue. Needless to say, they were well set up to host 100 ...
A woodland art collector’s garden on Vashon Island
August 02, 2024 While touring the Carhart Garden at the Puget Sound Fling last month, I met one of the owners, Mary Carhart, who upon learning I was from Texas enthusiastically told me that she is from Texas too. Decades ago, she and husband Whit moved to Washington for work ...
Love letter to Puget Sound Fling, starting with Halstead-Robinson Garden
July 28, 2024 Every year since 2008, I’ve been lucky enough to attend the annual Garden Fling, a gathering of bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, and other gardeners on social media, held in a different city each year, where for 3-1/2 days we tour gardens, socialize, get a flavor for a new ...
