Chihuly Garden

Here in the Northwest where glass has really made its mark, as has gardening, what better marriage than a glass garden. I had the opportunity recently to tour the Chihuly Glass Garden with the garden designer Richard Hartlage. Everyone knows what a fabulous artist Dale Chihuly is and Richard brings a similar energy and creativity to garden design.

Ceiling

I had the chance to work with Richard at the Miller Garden for 5 years. He was the director and hired me just out of horticulture school. I learned something from him every day. Some of it was actually useful. Just kidding. We became good friends and I learned how to look at gardens differently. He would see the big picture of what could be not just what was there. The vision of what could be was usually only limited by imagination and budget (that little detail). 

Black Mondo Grass

Where many people think of group planting, like 3, 5 or 7 Richard prefers to think in the thousands. I saw one of his east coast designs where a thousand Hakonecloa, Japanese forest grass, were planted to cover a mound. The movement of that hillside was mesmerizing. In the Chihuly Garden he used bulbs to fill in between other plants, 50,000 of them.  You get the same kind of effect from these mass plantings as the bold glass sweeps give the same space. The glass and the plants don’t compete, they compliment each other. 

primroses from Old Goat Farm

A few year ago Richard asked if I would grow a few primroses for the garden. It was the Barnhaven polyanthus type which we had grown at the Miller Garden years ago. He wanted 9 colors to match the glass. It ended up being about 1000 which I can see wasn’t enough. Maybe a thousand of each color. The color match was good though. 

Sunburst with Black Mondo Grass

Sunburst at the needle

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