Drooling over Pacific Northwest Flowers

I just got back from a trip to Seattle. No, I didn't go to the Fling because I am lame and didn't sign up in time and I didn't want to pay 75 bucks a day to attend (not lame). Having said that, Seattle is my home town, I know my way around, and I took my own tour of Pacific Northwest gardens inbetween trips to the ocean and the mountains. Stay tuned for additional groovy posts on Northwest plant-y goodness.

The thing about the Northwest is that it is green and lush and a gardeners DREAM. One can throw seeds over their shoulder and up grows a garden. Gardens are everywhere in the pacific northwest. Even the dumpy houses have accidental gardens. Along with gardens, there are gorgeous hanging baskets and pots of flowers EVERYWHERE. I lament the loss of these gorgeous baskets living in Austin. I must suffer with baskets of succulents and the occasional geraniums.

So here, fellow Austin gardeners, is some flower basket/pot porn straight from the Great Northwest:

Potted flowers outside the famed Pike Place Market. Inside the market are all manner of gorgeous cut flowers you can purchase:



Hanging Baskets in the town of Long Beach, Washington right by the ocean. You will find hanging baskets like these everywhere you look in the Northwest from city streets to ratty little houses to houseboats:







A flower bed outside Marshes Museum in Long Beach *drool*:





Ginormous crocosmia and sedum was everywhere from Seattle to the little towns along the ocean beaches:



Baskets full of fuschia hang over lush greenery at the University of Washington Arboretum. When I lived in the NW, we had HUGE fuschia baskets hanging from every corner of the house. I could never have that here. *sheds a tear*:



Clematis twining up a post blooming crazy at the Arboretum:







Hanging baskets and pots of geraniums at Alexanders Country Inn at the base of Mt. Rainier:



Yeah, there was even a working waterwheel in the garden:



Flowers along path to inn grow effortlessly in the cool climate:



A veggie garden at the Inn is full of what else, but rhubarb! 90 percent of the harvested rhubarb in the United States is grown in the valleys of Mt. Rainier. They have high fences set up to keep out the deer: