Meadow Creek House, Seattle

The first evening I was in Seattle for the Garden Blogger's Fling, I went to a local APLD meeting. The meeting was held at beautiful home with a fabulous garden. To reach the front door, one crosses over a reflecting pond with blown glass floating balls.

I love the huge corten steel section with a large window looking out onto the garden.

The corten continues into the house to beautiful effect.

On the back porch, the house has great concrete detailing, plantings and a view of the water.

The concrete stairs have a wonderful rhythm, as do the rusty sculptures sprinkled through the plantings.

At the bottom of the stairs a colorful meadow spreads out.

At the edge of the meadow a wide creek was running. I assumed it was a recirculating water feature but was told that it is spring-fed. Quite a bit of water!

The plantings were lovely.

A cool bench.

I like the cute warning and the silly rabbit.

A lower seating area.

A very cool idea for edging a bed.

The secret garden, which I didn't find until the second time around the garden.

According to what I was told, the architect of the house was enlisted to design the chicken coop. It certainly looked to be architect designed. The chickens seemed to enjoy the freedom of the garden though, popping into photos on occasion.

Steel pergola and outdoor seating.

Looking back up at the house from the garden.

I love the metal mesh curtain and stair perfection.

Seattle - Retail Fun

A lot of the fun of going to Seattle was seeing great gardens and talking to all those wonderful fellow bloggers, but I also wanted to SHOP! Here are a few of my favorite places I was introduced to while visiting Seattle.

I got there early on the first day and met up with Andrea Fox, who suggested we go check out Theo Chocolate. We didn't get a tour of the factory but we got to taste LOTS of chocolate. They are very generous with their samples. My fav was the curry-coconut chocolate bar. It's got so much curry, the inside of the wrapper turns yellow.

Down the street, we got a delicious lunch at Homegrown and did some shopping at bitters co, where I got an amazingly-scented container made out of cinnamon bark that I keep the sugar for my coffee in. They had some really cool cork products too.

Later that night we enjoyed a meal at Oddfellows with Katie Elzer-Peters. It was yummy. Afterwards, I managed to settle on a couple of books from Elliot Bay Books. I could've spent a small fortune in this excellently stocked bookstore. The art section was amazing. And then we topped it all off with some to-die-for ice cream at Molly Moon's. Evenings don't get much better than that.

The night of our first tour day we were wined and dined at Ravenna Gardens, a beautifully done nursery and gift shop. They've got an awesome merchandiser, everything looked wonderful.

I believe they also design the plantings at the mall where the store is located. People, you don't see mall plantings like this everyday. I was blown away. Kudos to the mall management for stepping out of the box and going beyond horrible old mall plantings.

Andrea and I were taken with this gigantic Heuchera. One leaf was larger than both of Andrea's hands!

Next up is Dragonfly Farms Nursery on Bainbridge Island, who hosted our last-evening party. I hate to put them at the end of the post. I feel like they deserve a post of their own. The nursery is certainly worth the trip alone out to the island. They have great plants. I found one plant that I had been looking for for years. And the demonstration gardens! Oh my goodness! Well, have a look for yourself:

Somebody please tell me what this plant is!

I unfortunately had to leave early to catch a plane. It was torture having to run through this nursery quickly and not get to investigate every little detail! I'm so glad I got to visit though and I can't wait to get back!