WRITTEN BY VALERIE EASTON

	COURTESY OF THE E.B. DUNN GARDENS
	Mature fir trees shade the woodland garden at the E.B. Dunn Gardens in North Seattle. Spiny-leaved mahonia add texture to the mix of spring bloomers, including little narcissus, hellebores and snowdrops.

So you can see why I love the Dunn Gardens, and it turns out that HGTV is equally impressed. The gardens are among 12 Restore America sites for 2004-05, chosen through the Save America's Treasures program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. So the nearly 90-year-old gardens will celebrate the centennial of Ed Dunn's birth (July 31, 1904) with a star turn on HGTV.
 

Now In Bloom From mid-spring through late May, the Australian vine Billardiera longiflora is smothered in pale-yellow tubular flowers. This is a near-perfect vine because it doesn't grow too quickly or large, tolerates some shade and keeps its delicate, shiny leaves year-round. It needs well-drained soil in winter as well as a sheltered spot, for it's borderline tender. This plant's finest hour comes in autumn when its pink fruits turn dark purple, looking like glossy little eggplants dangling from the vine.

Created for the Dunn family in 1915, the famed Olmsted firm's original design of naturalistic plantings and angled view corridors is clearly discernible in the mature garden, altered over the years as trees and shrubs grew. Much of the fascination and frustration of gardens lies in their mutability, but even one this good needs updating. "There's no easy or quick fix," says Withey. "The wheel turns slowly in gardens, and we have to think long term here. We have a small budget and a large property." Besides the 2.7-acre gardens, the property includes four acres of lawn and landscaped grounds.

Part of Withey and Price's work is to bring back neglected areas, replacing aged plants and getting rid of invasives like English ivy, holly and laurel. They've removed a few trees to let in more light and added smaller evergreens around the perimeter. Evergreen viburnums and camellias now provide privacy while allowing in more light than the large trees did. Withey praises Camellia japonica 'Tama Ikoi' for being self-cleaning; they've also planted Camellia x williamsii 'J.C. Williams,' 'Mary Christian' and 'Donation,' all of which flower well in shade. Still, the mature trees that are the garden's glory cast so much shade that many of the plants on the historical plant list can no longer be grown.

The Dunn Gardens are perhaps at their most beautiful in spring, carpeted in a succession of bulbs and perennials that thrive beneath the mix of firs and deciduous trees. This year, the gardens are looking their springtime best, because HGTV will be in town May 4 to film.

Withey paused long enough in his tidying to explain how spring unfolds in the woodlands developed by Ed Dunn, a rhododendron fancier who tended the gardens for years. The earliest bloom comes from Mahonia x media, soon followed by snowdrops, Cyclamen coum and hellebores. "I've never met an ugly trillium," says Withey of the next wave of flowers. "If you search out the best ones, you can have three months of trillium bloom." Plenty of little narcissus (the taller ones flop over in a shady garden), epimedium, fritillarias and dependable primroses are blooming by March.

Erythroniums are delicate lily-relatives that flower in showy sheets of color, then go dormant in summer. Various Japanese maple cultivars, including 'Orange Dream,' 'Katsura' and 'Peaches and Cream,' have been chosen for the intense color of their new leaves, which come on in tones of orange, pink and apricot. By April and May, deciduous azaleas are beginning to bloom, maidenhair ferns unfurl their filigreed foliage, and Solomon's seal (Polygonatum odoratum) is dripping tiny white bells from arches of green leaves. A rainbow of Pacific Coast iris carry the garden through May.

The Dunn Gardens are open for public tours April through October. On June 13, as a fund-raiser and part of the centennial celebration, the gardens are offering a first-ever, five-garden tour that includes other Olmsted-designed properties and two Highlands gardens. For information about this special tour, or to book a regular tour, call 206-362-0933 or visit the Web site at www.dunngardens.org. The Web site will have information on the HGTV program as soon as the dates and times are determined.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle free-lance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is vjeaston@aol.com.

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