Seattle, quick

I recently made the trip up north, first for a Garden Bloggers meet-up and plant exchange at Allison’s in Bonney Lake, WA, and then on up to Seattle to spend a couple of days with friends. It was a quick trip but naturally there are photos, first of Alison's garden. This is the only one I managed to take in her big, open, back garden.

But I snapped many more in the front garden. What I found most interesting (and I should have realized from the photos I've seen) is the containers and decorative touches I know from her blog are in the front garden. The opposite of what most people would consider the norm. Usually those things end up in the back (a more private) space and the front garden is a little less "personal." Maybe Alison is just more of a sharer! Her color scheme was right in line with what one expects to see in October (yes Alison, I spotted the mouse ears)...

An excellent use of tall castor bean plants, they provide a screen separating the drive from the front garden.

And I covet her culvert planters.

As well as this beautiful aloe.

Which was blooming a gorgeous bloom...

With another in the making. When Alison placed a small pup from this aloe in the plants up for grabs during the swap I wasted no time in grabbing it. (Alison do you know which aloe this is?)

I loved her solution to flopping Chasmanthium latifolium, tie it up with a bow!

She has high hopes for the Yucca aloifolia 'Purpurea' in such a big pot, and so far they look to be paying off. That's a very happy plant.

I couldn't help but snap a photo of these glasses perched on a leaf of Agave bovicornuta. The eyes were delightfully creepy (they sort of followed me)...

I was pathetic when it came to snapping photos of my fellow bloggers at the swap (Peter did a better job) but was happy I captured this moment between Jane and Matthew. Jane looks so suspicious and Matthew looks quietly confident that he's going to convince her to take that cutting home...

Onward! Now we're up in Seattle at University Village, a mall (I know, the horror, but I wanted to visit Ravenna Gardens and Fireworks). I don't think I've ever been here at the right time of the year to see the tall grass in bloom, I love how it divides an ordinary parking lot and makes it interesting.

Yep, it's a good thing.

At Ravenna Gardens, maybe because I was just a Flora Grubb a couple of weeks ago, but I had to wonder, who did the Fermob wall first?

Elsewhere I appreciated the planted up containers all around the outdoor mall. I wonder if Ravenna Gardens has a contract to do them all? They're better than average, in fact look...Stachys 'Bella Grigio'!

And there were more...

Finally...my friends Steve and Ken were game for a trip to the UW Arboretum...

and the Pacific Connections Garden.

This was my primary reason for visiting the garden. I discovered this patch of Grevillea x gaudichaudii last year, 2013 and was horribly curious to see if it made it through last winter. It did!