Sunday, July 24, 2016

There is no tour on July 31st!!!

The post about the garden tour was for LAST year - sorry for the confusion! The NHS Meet the Board tour this year is on Sunday, August 13th, 2017. Join NHS for more info!

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

The 5th Annual Normandy Park Garden Festival


It's happening! The 5th annual Normandy Park Garden Festival will be held on Saturday, July 9th from 11-3 in the Galicic garden. Stop by and tour the gardens & plant sale all while nibbling on a crowd-sourced lunch way better than what you would probably be eating otherwise. We scaled things down a bit this year with no garden talk, but everything else is firing on all cylindars! Free as always. Hope to see you there!

Note: If you're going to be driving here, please park on the WEST side of the street (our friendly neighborhood officer loves to ticket law-breaking savages who park on the sidewalk). You can also park at Marvista Park and follow the ample signage to the festival from there.

For questions, please contact Justin Galicic at jgalicic@gmail.com.  See you there!

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Life in the Amazon

Walking down to Pike Place Market a few weeks ago, I noticed they finally took the fencing down from the first building in the new Amazon mega campus.  So I took a little stroll through.  Their selection of plants had me salivating.


My first thought was someone who really likes Dan Hinkley designed the landscaping.  I later found out that he was hired as a consultant for the project.

Looks like Holboellia coriacea, Beesia deltophylla, and Adiantum venustum
This Holboellia vine, located directly in front of a heat exhaust vent, was already strutting its fragrant flowers.
There were lots of nooks and crannies filled with interesting plants.  Because of the towering canopy of the skycrapers, all of the plants here are adapted for shade.

This looks like Disporopsis, Disporum, and Beesia.  
Evergreen hydrangea relative Dichroa febrifuga
Close up of Dichroa febrifuga's metallic-purple berries
Can't wait to see how these plants naturalize together
Not a doggie toilet!
I can't say it's all good.  I want to like this plant's blackness but seeing it here finally made me realize it's just not black enough to qualify as a black plant.  I guess it's still slightly better than an azalea.

Coprosma 'Black Cloud'
Just across the street, construction is well underway for the greenhouse that will house more tropical plants.  I have been told that some plants that are outgrowing the conservatory at the Rhododendron Species Garden in Federal Way will move here.  At the rate it's going I'd say they should be done with it by summer.