Lakewood Gardens (goodbye)

Lakewold Gardens is set on beautiful Gravelly Lake in Lakewood, a suburb of Tacoma, Washington.  It's only a few acres, but this estate, run by a non-profit foundation, is packed with gorgeous scenery.  I love that it is so close to where I live and I visit quite often.  In fact, on a Mother's Day visit with my daughter this year, I sprang for the family membership (only $10 more for a year than the cost for two individuals for one visit - Mother's Day special).  

This garden is a mini-Butchart Gardens, in my opinion.  There are multiple garden rooms to explore here, too, including manicured and finely designed gardens around the house.  But, there are also pleasingly chaotic, British-style gardens and wild forest tumbling off to the edges of the property and down to the lake shore behind.

This is the back of the building that used to be a family home.  It is used for conferences, weddings, and other meetings now.  There is a covered patio at the back.  You can see the wisteria growing over the patio arbor, with room for many chairs and tables.

The swimming pool is a beautiful trefoil design; small, but it does not dominate the landscape and it serves as a lovely pond now.  (Although, I imagine some of the staff use it for swimming.  The water looks sparkling clean.)

There are some very impressive topiary sculptures at Lakewold Gardens, including this duck or swan and a lovely nesting hen behind it.

At the end of this wide walkway is a serene arbor with vines growing down the front of the structure.  It is built of beautiful wood and inside sits a statue and a small shade garden with comfortable benches all around the inside walls.  (The pool is to the left after the hedge.)

Plants for sale at gift shop

If you go to Lakewold Gardens, make sure you leave time to look through the gift shop.  There are some wonderfully eclectic gardening items, including used (many out-of-print, I imagine) gardening books that have been donated for sale.  And, as you can see in the photo, there are many (MANY) plants for sale; some appear to be very hard to find legacy-type plants from the Gardens. 

 Interested in going to Lakewold Gardens?  Here is their website: http://www.lakewoldgardens.org/    And, if you want to see all of my Lakewold Gardens photos, you can visit my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/donnielouise/

Statue inside the pergola