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The Mighty Gunnera

By Bellevue Botanical Garden, Botany, Gardening, History, Nature One Comment

The Mighty Gunnera By Cecilia Ayres   The Bellevue Botanical Garden is home to several Gunnera tinctoria plants. With their giant, serrated green leaves, thick, spiky stalks, and vibrant red flower spikes, they are easy to spot. The leaves can grow to be four feet across and stand at eight feet tall in the right conditions. These unique features are not only stunning, but characteristics that date back to the Cretaceous Period—yes, gunneras were around in the time of dinosaurs!…

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The Oldest Tree in My Neighborhood

By Bellevue Botanical Garden, History, Nature One Comment

By guest writer McKenzie Toomey I sat down in the shade of the towering White Oak, and I watched the branches sway above me. The leaves rustled against each other in the wind, almost whispering to me. I rested my hands on the outcropping roots that grew nearly six feet out from the tree’s base, and I felt the energy that flowed through the tree, the energy that had created this mammoth of nature, the energy that sustained this ancient…

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One Corner: Past and Present

By Bellevue Botanical Garden, Gardening, History, Nature No Comments

One Corner: Past and Present By Cynthia Welte Cal and Harriet Shorts’ home was built in 1957. As avid gardeners, they planted many trees and shrubs all around their home, including a Pacific silver fir (Abies amabilis) on the southwest corner of the patio. Sadly, this tree struggled as it aged, and had to be removed in 2002. The tree we planted in its place, Sorbus aria ‘Lutescens’, is a deciduous tree with large silvery leaves. It bears little resemblance…

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