From Our Backyard to Yours

4/15/2020 — Watch What Happens

Though we are all still abiding by Washington State’s Stay Safe, Stay Home initiative, the Bloedel team is staying busy, working remotely and keeping in touch. This week, we’re introducing our new Strolls at Home program, highlighting the Moss Garden (a truly unique feature of Bloedel Reserve), and sharing a variety of new videos. Click the highlighted links below to see and read more.

Horticulture & Design:  The Moss Garden

The Moss Garden is one of our most unusual features. Very few public gardens anywhere in the world have space dedicated to the cultivation of mosses. In fact, National Geographic recently cited it as one of the best moss gardens in the world.

See how Moss Garden Specialist Darren Strenge is bringing a new variety of moss to the Bloedel garden, and read more about this remarkable collection.

Nature & Well-Being:  Strolls at Home

Our Strolls for Well-Being program is a free series of self-guided walks that take place on the Bloedel Reserve grounds. Because we are closed to the public, we are offering you a way to bring the Strolls program to your own backyard — Strolls at Home.

Each week, the stroll will focus on a particular theme and you’ll find a set of instructions and prompts to guide you. The theme for this week’s walk is Awareness. Be well and enjoy.

Visual artist Nathan DiPietro at work in his studio.

Creativity & Inspiration: Virtual Reality Painting

Painter and visual artist Nathan DiPietro uses virtual reality tools to make extraordinary art. He had to cut his March residency at Bloedel Reserve short due to the COVID-19 outbreak. But he has sent us three stunning examples of what happens when you combine a drone, VR tools, and a painter’s eye.

We promise you’ve never seen Bloedel Reserve like this before:

• Birds-eye fly-over
• Mid-pond
• Pond with Residence

The drone photography for these videos was shot by Randy Allbritton. Nathan used those drone scans to create the video models and did the painting and rendering.

Joe uses branches from big leaf maple and native hazelnut trees to build the wattle fencing at Bloedel Reserve..

Conservation & Stewardship:  How to Make a Wattle Fence

Many of you have requested more instruction on how to make a wattle fence. This week, Joe DeMaio demonstrates building a wattle fence in his own backyard.

And if you don’t have time to watch the entire build, check out this time-lapsed version, filmed on the Bloedel grounds earlier this year.

Bloedel Reserve Wattle Fence Build (time-lapse) from Bloedel Reserve on Vimeo.

Arborist Ken Little.

Conservation & Stewardship:  Preparing to Prune

As every gardener knows, the arrival of spring brings many garden chores. Making sure your tools are in good shape before you begin makes the work easier and safer.

Here Arborist Ken Little (with his sidekick Casper, the Blue Heeler) demonstrates how to ready your chainsaw for spring pruning.