Perhaps I should have titled this “How I Lost My Mind Writing Garden Descriptions.”
My fault, not the Bloom committee’s, I hasten to add. It turns out that to reduce large and lovely gardens to 250 words or less is a herculean task. If you are under the impression that a writer’s biggest challenge is to meet word count, you are only partly right; The real challenge is to not exceed it.
It all started when I was asked to pen the online and brochure teasers for this year’s Bainbridge in Bloom Garden Tour.
I was delighted; It seemed like such fun. But ever since I accepted I’ve been in an agony of superlatives. Does “herbaceous welcome” or “bountiful mélange” better fit the mood? Shall I call it “playful” or “lighthearted”?
You see the difficulty. It brings to mind my favorite definition of a professional writer: Someone who owns a thesaurus and is not afraid to use it.
The problem is compounded by the fact that this year’s Bloom has seven gardens – two more than last year. One is called a “bonus” garden, but whatever they call it, it still adds up to seven. On the plus side, the gardens are quite distinct from each other and highlight much of the best of Pacific Northwest landscaping. For instance, the “bonus” garden is a community P-Patch.
There’s composting and bee keeping and crop interplanting, and lots of other good ideas for home vegetable gardens.
There’s a collector’s garden — erudite? A professional landscape designer’s beach home — littoral? A working farm — bucolic? An artist’s garden —virtuosic? A talented amateur’s residential lot — sagacious? And a garden that relies not only on plants, but on a semi-wild pond and a zen garden of rock and raked sand — contemplative?
Of course, I got to preview all of the gardens, so I can attest that this year’s Bloom looks like a winner.
General admission tickets for Saturday, July 10 and Sunday, July 11 cost $27 before Tuesday, June 15, and $35 after. The price includes a specialty plant sale, juried garden art, live music, and great speakers, including Ciscoe Morris and Linda Chalker-Scott, author of The Informed Gardner.
Food costs extra, but is available at many of the gardens and is always island-epicurean. Three other things you should know: access is by shuttle bus only; Port-a-Potties are available at each venue; and general admission tickets are good for either or both Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and for information on all the cool Patron Day offerings on Friday, July 9 — including a garden party at Bloedel Reserve — go to www.gardentour.com.
You, and the Bloom committee, will be relieved to hear that I have only two descriptions left.
As tough as this job is, it still beats the volunteer position I had with the Bloom two years ago — that of tour guide. Let me just say, it wasn’t all my fault.
The group that signed up did so only because they were heading back to Albuquerque on Saturday, so buying Patron Day Friday private tour tickets was the only way they could visit the gardens. They weren’t really interested the identity of the plants or the history of the gardens.
The minute the bus stopped and the doors opened, they scattered like dandelion fluff in a high wind. Whenever I approached, they would scatter. At last I resorted to sneaking up behind small groups and blurting out “Trachycarpus fortunei,” or whatever they happened to be admiring, at which point they would jump several inches and scuttle off.
It was downright contumacious.
Wendy Tweten is a lifelong Kingston resident. Aside from writing garden tour descriptions and bimonthly KCN columns, she contributes to various home and garden publications and posts regularly at the Muck About gardening blog at http://muckabout.typepad.com. Contact her at wendy@wendytweten.com.
