BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. — It’s a garden oasis in our own backyard.
"We call this place a sort of a secret gem. We are one of the ten best and most renowned public gardens in the United States," said Etta Lilienthal from Bloedel Reserve.
"Bloedel Reserve open to the public in the late 80s. It was a private residence, a private estate and Prentice and Virginia Bloedel lived here with their children for 30 years," said Lilienthal. “He (Prentice) hired different landscape architects and landscape designers to help him and his wife sculpt this land, which is 140 acres of native forest here on Bainbridge Island, into a curated series of gardens that flow through the property."
"When you visit the reserve, you'll experience an incredible layering of native forest and cultivated gardens. The beauty of that is you’re able to more deeply understand the Pacific Northwest and its plantings as well as see some extremely exotic species," Lilienthal said.
"The Moss Garden is one of very few completely devoted to the species of mosses," Lilienthal said. "Our moss garden was cultivated from scratch out of the native forest by planting thousands of Irish Moss plugs. We have hundreds of other species of moss there and we carefully weed and cultivate that area to remove any other types of plantings that might interfere with the moss, so you're left with this very, almost a Jurassic quality of passing through very, very aged woods and moss-covered stones and logs. It's a very peaceful area."
"The Japanese Garden is modeled after a traditional Japanese strolling garden, there's a pond, there's a sand and stone garden," Lilienthal said. "The structure there, which we call the Japanese guesthouse, was originally the Bloedel guesthouse for their friends when they came to visit. And the sand and stone garden was originally a swimming pool."
"The Reflection Pool is probably the most formal of our gardens here at the reserve," said Lilienthal. "It was designed to feel like you're in a room. So it's a long rectangular space. It's surrounded by a very formal U-shaped hedge. And then the pool itself reflects the sky."
Whether it’s your first time or your tenth, Bloedel Reserve always has something new to take in.
"Visitors are completely awed by Bloedel Reserve, something happens between the time where they arrive and pass through all these beautiful landscapes," adds Lilienthal. "It's a rarity to have this amount of land, 140 acres, reserved and set aside for anybody to come visit."
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