My Friend Mari's Garden

It's actually my friends Mari and Andrew's garden in West Seattle. And I should have shown you photos of it weeks ago. I took these photos on May 28. The day was very bright, and I still haven't found the manual for my camera, so I don't know how to adjust the exposure. I hope to go back to their garden and take better photos later this summer. Anyway.

Andrew's a sculptor. He made all the containers in their garden out of scraps of steel that he welded together. They are my favorite containers in the whole world.



Andrew also designed the concrete forms for the patio area. It's not finished yet, but there's going to be a fountain and a fireplace.



I want an orange hose too. It looks great against this freshly blue-painted wall.



Bronze fennel.





One of Andrew's many sculptures. They're often military and/or industrial looking (though Andrew himself seems like a pretty pacifistic guy).









Andrew likes to sculpt guns and artillery out of rebar and wire. I'm not sure if I'm getting these terms right. My vocabulary does not extend very far into machinery and weaponry.



In fact, he has a whole arsenal of stuff like this.

Groucho Marx Heads and Plants

Subtitle: Bad Pictures of Good Things

OK, I've been trying to get photos of these bizarre Groucho Marx heads for you guys for weeks now. But we're always going too fast over the West Seattle Bridge. Today I noticed that most of them are gone, and there's only one left, so I'll just show you what I've got so far.

Pictures from 4/17:

(WTF?)





Picture from today:



Now back to the plants. Here are my beloved smoke trees back on 4/17. The blue oat grass has exploded since then.







Here's my Ceanothus on 4/17:



And the rest of the photos are from this evening.

Some books say you can cut the seedheads from your Helictotrichon sempervirens, but I would never do that.



Lovely Cotinus.



My husband sometimes complains that it looks weedy, but I love this big fluffy fennel.



This Japanese maple was a birthday present from my stepmother-in-law. The Japanese maple is like the patron plant of Mid Beacon Hill. Virtually everyone has one. They're nice. I need to try to find a protected place for this guy. It may be a planter plant, to tell you the truth.



Another gift. Euphorbia. I like them. 2,160 species can't be wrong, right?



More gifts. Raspberries!



Some of the leaves aren't looking so hot, but the alliums themselves seem to be fine so far.



I've been really busy with all that birthday stuff, so I still haven't had a chance to plant this beautiful little Hebe yet. I know I am going to love it.



Ginkgo leaves. So sweet.

A Trip to West Seattle (3/24/07)

The grayest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle.



A cute front yard.



The view of Puget Sound from my friends' house.



The wallpaper in their basement.



Rebar as yard sculpture.