Two leaders of Seattle Chinese Garden’s horticultural committee swept top honors at the 2013 Northwest Flower and Garden Show. Designers for 23 gardens took inspiration from the show theme of “The Silver Screen Takes Root … Gardens Go Hollywood.” Our golden guys looked far across the Pacific for their film and floral inspiration.
Phil Wood co-designed “A Hobbit’s New Zealand Garden” for the Arboretum Foundation in association with the Washington Park Arboretum. Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novels and the movie adaptations, The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit, the arboretum design team created a garden any Hobbit would love. The Hobbit house is tucked into a hill covered with sedges and ferns, a hedgehog resting on a window sill. Phil laid all the stone snuggling in the moss. The pebble-faced planters are from Indonesia.
A foggy bog near the Hobbit house infuses more wild mystery in a profusion of colorful New Zealand flax (Phormium) and Cordyline australis. The Hobbit’s Garden pays homage to the two-acre New Zealand forest being planted in the Arboretum this summer as part of the new Pacific Connections Garden.
The Arboretum team won a gold medal for design, the Sunset Western Living Award, the Pacific Horticulture Magazine Award, and the Eastside’s 425 Magazine award for best garden.
To no one’s surprise, this magical landscape also won the hearts and votes of show visitors and the “People’s Choice” award. Co-designers included Bob Lilly, Roger Williams, and Rhonda Bush. Other partners were Seattle Parks and Recreation and the University of Washington Botanic Gardens.
Phil Wood has helped design 13 gardens over the 25 years of the Northwest Flower and Garden Show and has won numerous gold and silver medals. He designs residential gardens in the greater Seattle and Eastside area through his firm Phil Wood Garden Design (www.philwoodgardens.com). Phil has been a volunteer for the Chinese Garden for 17 years and chairs the Horticulture Committee and serves on the Board of Directors.
“The Lost Gardener” embedded themes from Jurassic Park, King Kong, and Raiders of the Lost Ark amidst extraordinary plants from around the world, including New Zealand and China. This journey from the wild to the cultivated showcases a diverse palette that symbolizes a gardener’s quest for the most unusual rare plants. The landscape transitions from a lushly vegetated forest to the iconic “Skull Island.”
A first-time entrant, Riz Reyes emerged a winner, with a gold medal for design, the Golden Palette Award, and the prestigious Founders Cup Award for best garden. “It was so amazing to win top honors,” Riz said. “This is my first display garden entry and I was so anxious about creating a garden that would meet the show’s high standards.”
From Skull Island, the garden slopes down to a highly regimented space where plants are confined and protected. The dramatic focal point— an enormous “dinosaur egg”—evokes the remnants of the ancient world. Riz is a long-time Seattle Chinese Garden volunteer and member of the horticulture committee. He is playing a major role in helping design our new peony garden, as he is a big fan of tree peonies and other plants native to China. A horticulturist and plant explorer who has done research in Sichuan province, Riz founded RHR Horticulture to provide landscape consultation, garden/container design, and maintenance services (www.rhrhorticulture.com).
Riz’s name will be inscribed on the Founder’s Trophy, along with those of the region’s most well-known garden designers and landscape firms.
The major contributors to “The Lost Gardener” are Carter Evans Wood Concepts, CEM Design, Greencliff Landscape, Lake Washington Institute of Technology, Marenakos, Moon Shadow Landscape Lighting, Orion Rockscapes, Rock Mountain Products, Terry Huang, Jade Waples, and Sawdust Supply Co. The incredible plant palette on display represented Riz's personal plant collection along with contributions from various small specialty nurseries in the Pacific northwest including Bouquet Banque, Chimacum Woods, Far Reaches Farm, Dragonfly Nursery, Desert Northwest, Cultus Bay Nursery and Earlington Greenhouses.