2024 Garden Fling: Froggsong

 

Fabulous Lilies

Another beautiful Puget Sound area garden.  I regret my photos can't do it justice.  Our visit coincided with the hottest, brightest part of the hottest day of the Fling.

As with a few fabulous gardens, Froggsong has become an "event space" for weddings and the like, mostly to help the creators with the water bill, plant purchases, and maintenance, but also to share the wonder of a fabulous garden.

The plants, lovely.  The light, harsh. 

I visited and photographed only a small area of what is an extensive garden.  It was our lunch site that day, offering a comfortable, well-shaded, beauty-surrounded  place to sit and truly relax.  Lingering, enjoying the food and Flingers conversations seemed so right.  Suddenly, there was just 20 minutes left for a vast garden.  Uh-oh. 

Something in the Hydrangea paniculata line:

Hurry.  The tour bus awaits.  This next plant is Actaea (Cimicifuga).  I saw it in several gardens during the fling and loved the textured, purple-black foliage.  

 Grrr, the lighting!  Stopping down wasn't all that effective and time was short.

Another fabulous Lily:

  So much beauty, too little time.   

Now what was this? 

Another fabulous lily.  Hurry!  Hurry! Only a few minutes left!

I like people in my garden pictures for scale:  a person admiring the scenery always works.   

A photo admiring the scene of a person admiring the scenery:

Here's Geum 'Totally Tangerine', blooming away.  Mine bloomed a little better this year, but nothing like this one:

Running out of time.  Yep, another fabulous lily:

And this is...something I've not seen growing in Southern California:  Veronica?

There it is in context, with another fabulous lily  I like grass paths but not so much I need them in my garden.  Wrong climate. 

Here it is in a different location...or is it something else?

 Garden variety (literally) Rudbeckias, but they seemed at the time to resemble a dozen Gene Kellys swinging themselves around the lamp post in 'Singing in the Rain'.  It was a hot day.

This...the one thing that bugged me.  Reddish Cercis leaves are way cool, but paired with the hydrangea--for my particular brain, a clash.  Individually delicious, but not together. 

 Here it is from the other direction:

In autumn when both the Cercis and the Hydrangea foliage turns fabulous gold or orange or red--they will make a wonderful pair. 

More serene--moss-textured tree limbs and snowy Hydrangea flowers with inky stems.  (Is there time left?)

Like I said, humans in the garden photo give you a sense of the scale of it:

See?  All kinds of plants, vistas, vignettes to admire--no wonder I missed so much else of this garden:

Sanguisorba there on the left, the flowers that look like lavender squirrel tails.  Another plant I don't see in my area, so naturally I'm fascinated.  It's easy to be taken, fascinated by an unknown plant.  Usually if you know them you know the annoying things they do, not just their beauty.  Complete unfamiliarity is so often captivation.

 And of course a fabulous lily here and there:

 

Out of time.   

The last shot as I hobbled back to the tour bus:

 Wish I'd seen more, and gotten better photos.    But I saw enough to leave it linger in memory.