you are outside. The sun is shining, illuminating the new growth on the western red cedars. It’s been a great growing season and the plants at Washington Park Arboretum are thriving. The backdrop of evergreen trees is a lovely frame to all of the native and non-native plants in the collection. Now, if they would just get here!
Just when you thought you couldn’t wait any longer, here comes the bus holding 60 scheduled school-aged children just bursting with energy and excitement to be out of school and outside on such a fine day as this. 

1)   Poliothyrsis sinensis

A rare and very attractive small flowering tree of upright, open habit.
Originally brought from China to the Arnold Arboretum by E.H. Wilson.
Big 6-8” mildly fragrant, creamy flower clusters (corymbose panicles) make a significant contribution to the August-September garden.
Located in grid 30-3E, near the south entrance to the Woodland Garden along Arboretum Drive.

2)   Daphniphyllum macropodum

This dioecious plant (translation = “of two houses”) needs plants of both sexes to seed. 

Does anyone reading this know where our arboretum’s “lost” Enkianthus grove is located? By “lost”, I mean extremely well-hidden under a dense canopy of western red cedars and other trees.
Enkianthus are shade-tolerant shrubs, but NOT “black-hole” shade tolerant. Like most living plants, they do need light to grow and thrive.  It’s a bit embarrassing, but I can honestly say, during my 30 plus year tenure on the UWBG horticulture staff, I don’t recall ever working in the area for longer than maybe a day cleaning up after a storm or pruning a few of the bigger trees. 

The first buildings to be added to the grounds of the Washington Park Arboretum were begun in 1985, as defined in the Jones and Jones Master Plan Update for the Washington Park Arboretum. It took almost ten years for the building plans to be finalized and the funds to be raised.

1)   Houpu Magnolia    (Magnolia officinalis var. biloba)

Unique bi-lobed leaf 8-12″ in length
4-8″ seed pods on display in late summer
Located in grid 27-1W in the Rhododendron hybrid bed

2)   Sargent Magnolia    (Magnolia sargentiana var. robusta)

Bears large pink flowers in spring
Large, pinkish-red fruit appear in late summer and fall
Located in grid 13-7E in Rhododendron Glen

3)   Rehder Tree    (Rehderodendron macrocarpum)

White flowers appear in spring
3-4″ seed pods weigh down branches in late summer
Located in grid 13-6E and elsewhere throughout the Washington Park Arboretum

4)   Himalayan Stachyurus    (Stachyurus himilaicus)

Deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub to height of 10’
Displays clusters of flowers in early spring
Located in grid 25-1W

5)   Yunnan Stachyurus    (Stachyurus yunnanensis)

Small evergreen shrub to height of 6’
Chains of white flowers appear in spring
Located in grid 25-1W 

This photo is of a native Thuja Plicata (common name; Western Red Cedar) and shows the great J-arm branches that these trees feature. Although the Puget Mill Company logged most trees on the site by 1900, this particular Thuja was perhaps overlooked by the loggers and is therefore one of the oldest and largest specimens in the arboretum. It is located between the Witt Winter Garden and Azalea Way. 

Seattle Parks and the Northwest
Artist Kathleen Wolfe celebrates her love of nature with oil paintings on canvas featuring poppies, water lilies and landscape with majestic trees. Her paintings will be on display in the Miller Library from August 5th to September 16th.
Meet the artist at a free reception at the Elisabeth C. Miller Library on Wednesday, August 13th from 5:00 to 7:00pm. 

“Sporting Wood”
1)    White Ash    (Fraxinus americana)

Tough, plentiful, and easily bent into curves, Ash is used in tennis racquets, billiard cues, skis, and baseball bats.
White Ash is native to eastern and central North America.
This cutting is from the cultivar ‘Rose Hill’, located in grid 47-3E near the Lagoons.

2)   Common Box    (Buxus sempervirens)

Used for crocquet balls because of its hardness. 

This photograph taken in April 1976, shows Joseph A. Witt inspecting seed flats and cuttings in the “pit houses” of the University of Washington Greenhouses at Washington Park Arboretum.

A strange, but beautifully bizarre climbing hydrangea is beginning to bloom at the Center for Urban Horticulture.