From Our Backyard to Yours
7/17/2020 — Welcome to this week’s “virtual visit” to Bloedel Reserve.
Bloedel Reserve Makes the 2020 List!
10 Best Botanical Gardens in the U.S.
Thank you! Your votes have earned us a spot in USA Today’s 2020 list of the 10 Best Botanical Gardens in the U.S. It’s an honor just to be nominated. So we’re thrilled to make this year’s list of winners. You can see the full list of winners here.
Nature & Well Being:
Stroll at Home for Your Health
Our Strolls for Well-Being program is an onsite series of themed walks around the Reserve designed to promote personal growth and good health. Because COVID-19 has limited our ability to offer this popular program onsite, we took those themes and developed Strolls at Home — 12 walks that you can do wherever you are, at your own pace.
Rediscover the healing energy of time spent out of doors. To see all twelve of the weekly themes for Strolls at Home, click here.
Horticulture & Design:
Menzies’ Tree Moss
With more than 50 specific of moss and liverworts in the Moss Garden, it takes a sharp eye to accurately identify them all. Moss Garden Specialist Darren Strenge introduces us to one of the more common, and easiest to spot, varieties — Menzies’ Tree Moss.
Creativity & Inspiration:
Composer Andrea Clearfield
While our 2020 Creative Residency program is undergoing changes due to travel restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, we are taking this time to reacquaint you with some of our past Creative Residents. This week, please meet Andrea Clearfield, an award-winning composer and one of our 2019 Residents. Andrea worked on her cantata Transformed by Fire when she was in residency at Bloedel Reserve. That work — celebrating ecologist, scholar, and philosopher Aldo Leopold and his land ethics — is still in progress.
The New York Times calls Andrea’s work “lively, rhythmically vital writing,” and the LA Times praises her “fluid and glistening orchestration.” She is 2020-22 Composer-in-Residence with National Concerts at Carnegie Hall. Please enjoy this video of her cantata, Tse Go La, for double chorus, electronics and chamber orchestra. This composition was inspired by her music fieldwork documenting Tibetan melodies in the Himalayas. Learn more about Andrea Clearfield here.
Missed a Week? Want to See More?
You’ll find links to all of our Backyard “back issues” here.
Ask Us
Is there something about Bloedel Reserve you’d like us to highlight here? Some burning question you’ve always wanted to ask our horticultural team? Let us know. Send us an email at in**@bl************.org.
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