The Berk/Kessler Garden, a Puget Sound Fling stop

My visit to the Berk/Kessler Garden in Seattle was on the "bonus" Monday of the Garden Fling weekend last July. I'd been wanting to tour this garden since I first saw it from across the street, while visiting the Bednarksi garden, during the 2022 NPA Study Weekend event. 

In the intervening years I learned the garden belonged to Bonnie Berk, whom I know as the president of the Hardy Fern Foundation, I was thrilled to finally visit Bonnie's garden...

From our Fling brochure: "Welcome to Casa Nirvana, a tapestry garden that brings together art, color, history, plants, and many passions. 

History and site: designed in 1916 by noted Seattle Architect Arthur Loveless, our house sits high above the street, in the historic Mt. Baker neighborhood. Layered terraces frame the stairway; these were carved into the hillside in 2000 to manage the steep slope, as part of a complete hardscape renovation project...The unusual, large side garden is defined by a towering, 20-foot hedge, original to the house, although much taller. 

Plants! This is a plant collector's garden, with an uncounted number of unusual specimens acquired from specialty nurseries on both coasts. The collection is broad and eclectic, from rare shrubs and ferns to aeoniums in profusion. The garden's development has been informed by visiting gardens in the US and Europe, by workshops in England and Great Dixter, and especially our region's great plant explorers. The underlying theme is foliage—bold, variegated, black, unusual."

Let's head up those steps and see what there is to see...

Oh hey, there's Bonnie, come to greet us.

It looks like Bonnie loves gardening with containers too, and she's got a succulent table! (the sunny answer to the popular fern table)

Glancing to the side of the staircase, that's some seriously dense planting...(dare I call it cramscaping?)

Hydrangea macrophylla Eclipse®

Succulent perfection!

Time to make my way up and see what's at house level, of course I had to stop and admire things along the way.

Wowsa, that's a green wall back drop!

Some of those "aeoniums in profusion" mentioned in the garden description.

Sinopanax formosanus

The meeting of the saxifrage.

Pyrrosia lingua ‘Hiryu’, I believe.

Blechnum spicant, aka Struthiopteris spicant

One of the painted ferns, Athyrium niponicum, I never can tell them apart.

Adiantum aleuticum var. subpumilim

A few of my fellow Flingers, taking it all in.

Bonnie is definitely not afraid of bold color, and I love the pot full of gardening tools.

Strobilanthes gossypinus

Leucadendron 'Ebony'

More of the plants up against the tall green wall hedge.

Hey, is that Red Fred? (Begonia 'Red Fred'), I need to ask Bonnie where she overwinters all of the not hardy plants, cause she has a lot of them.

Pyrrosia lingua 'Cristata'

Walking up to the deck/patio area at the front side of the home.

Marcia Donahue pottery mulch?

Our time here has drawn to a close...

Thanks for letting us wander around your beautiful garden Bonnie!

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