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A Sunset Editor Still Shines

Living long, Nancy Davidson Short draws energy from nearly everything

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TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES "As an old lady, I'm interested in botanical art and garden history. I just have too many enthusiasms," says Nancy Davidson Short, Northwest editor of Sunset magazine for three decades.

"ANYONE INTERESTED in food should darn well grow some vegetables and herbs," declares Nancy Davidson Short. "I'm really awfully interested in vegetables."

It's hard to imagine what doesn't interest this longtime Northwest editor of Sunset magazine. Short turns 94 this month and remains full of opinions and enthusiasms, especially when it comes to plants and people.

Short recently faced up to the difficult move to Horizon House on First Hill from her home and garden on Hunt's Point, where she's lived off and on since the 1930s. "I needed to make a long-range decision while I was still the one to decide," she says. "I don't diddle around to make decisions — if I'm right 50 percent of the time, I figure that's pretty good."

Maybe it's this optimistic outlook that keeps Short going strong, or perhaps it's the fact that she's up on everything. When I arrived at her apartment recently, she was absorbed in reading "The World is Flat" by political commentator Thomas Friedman. "I want to read and talk about where we're going . . . the future could be so great," she exclaims.

Now In Bloom

The flowers on all hydrangeas change color through the season, but the mop-headed blooms of Hydrangea preziosa are especially glorious toward the end of summer. The flowers on this compact shrub start out pink-ish lavender, mature to shades of mauve and red, then deepen to rich burgundy as they age. The leaves of H. preziosa flush with purple as the flower color changes.

ILLUSTRATED BY JULIE NOTARIANNI

Short still tends her woodsy, waterfront Eastside garden several days a week, driving over the bridge to weed and water. "I can't say I'm really doing much gardening these days," she says. "I love to go to nurseries, I water plants, and I think about plants." The exercise of puttering around her own patch of dirt makes her feel like she's doing something good for herself. Besides, she's still studying and collecting native plants. Vine maples remain one of her favorites, along with epimediums, which she describes as fantastically drought-resistant. She also grows lettuces, tomatoes, carrots, herbs and string beans. Short has four people helping her with the garden. "They're my hands," she explains. "I don't try to do it all."

How did a housewife with two children become an editor at Sunset in its heyday? Short has loved writing since childhood, and began gardening when she and her husband bought a new house in Bellevue in the 1940s (her Hunt's Point property was just a summer cabin then). Her neighbors were writers and painters who inspired her to write about her own garden. She was paid $100 for her first published piece in a magazine called American Home.

It was the Washington Park Arboretum that launched Short's long career with Sunset. Sunset was only about California in those days, but that didn't stop Short. She traveled to San Francisco, armed with information about the new Arboretum in Seattle and convinced them they needed a story about it. For several years, she freelanced for House Beautiful and other magazines, as well as Sunset. Her children were in school by the time Sunset opened a Seattle office and asked her to join the staff. It wasn't long before Short suggested to Sunset owner Bill Lane that he give her a chance as Northwest editor, and thus began a successful career.

"They didn't know in California what exciting residential architects we had here, like Paul Kirk and Fred Bassetti," says Short, who met and worked with regional architects, landscape architects and designers over the next several decades.

Even after all these years, Short is still passionately interested in what is going on in gardening. "It's a field that's as complicated and rich as medicine. As an old lady, I'm interested in botanical art and garden history. I just have too many enthusiasms."

And for her own future? "Old age is kind of catching," she says. "I plan to consciously avoid it." She delights in repeating a compliment she received from her friend, garden writer George Schenk. "He said I could pass for 80!" says Short, roaring with laughter.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Tom Reese is a Seattle Times staff photographer.