Steve Snedeker’s Landscaping and Gardening Blog

Not all boulders are alike.

The Asian Section

Some even have titles of their own – “Shibumi Rocks” dot Japanese landscapes like these impressive doyens of timelessness who corner the market on Time itself. Many times, these gorgeous billions-of-years-old guys actually are the landscaping. These are the understated attention-getters who supply some peaceful perspective on those who pass and which abide in their Eternal reliability. Unless they fall over, of course.

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Other ‘rocks’ also fill this bill but in a far more bio-morphic – almost human way. Maybe even more to the point – in somewhat monstrous and unusual ways. The Chinese have perfected the art of placing boulders which are amazingly evocative. These things gather impressions for the more active parts of our imaginations as we get riveted by their near supernatural shapes. They probably most resemble those wild forms in the clouds we so often imagine resemble something we relate to. One can see shapes and guises for all sorts of imagined creatures and things in these amazing stones. That they fit so well into landscapes makes it even weirder somehow. The picture below is a “softened effect” as we see where the balance of plant and rock makes a fine compromise.

Somewhere else inside the Portland Chinese Garden, we get a different take or two. These suckers are plain bizarre:

These incredible stones and their distinctly unusual messages come naturally for them. There are formations which feature these sorts of stones and which occur in Nature there. The Chinese who send for these are the exporters for very specific and limited environments like these gardens which they themselves construct.

I could look at these all day:

But that is China and Japan. In both cases, they are able to work with what they have in their natural geologic environment. I recall, having worked on this garden, the stockpiles of these stones as they arrived and as they were put into storage. I was eager to see how they expected to use them in the garden. I now think their placement was perfect.

Through a hole they look sweet – not the first hole, either!:

The North American Section

Over here, we deal with a range of rocks and boulders which are really every bit as diverse, if not quite as weird in the same ways. We do have remarkable Shales and Limestones in the Eastern US which give us innumerable creative outlets. The stratified nature of limestone lends it to stacking and to flat planes. These are particularly impressive when used for water features, as these pictures from the corporate headquarters of Papa John’s Pizza illustrates – one of our favorite local Louisville walks.

Stacked, they make wonderful rockeries and informal walls for the surrounding foliage to fill out magnificently:

Here is a fabulous example of tasteful placement:

I’ve always loved this perspective of the sets of waterfalls at Papa Johns’:

Moving towards Jeruselum………………….we encounter another perspective………as the sounds of thousands of gallons of water plummet over rocks and fall……

Until we come to that place where we see what the ruccus is all about:

It’s way well worth the walk:

I’ll have to dedicate an entire post to this place soon.

Meanwhile…………..this guy is trouble with a Capital T:

Hopefully, it will be a while until he gets the key to my boat:

My brother Tom would be mad:  

I have no idea who she is and I hope she doesn’t mind terribly but her head sure did fit real nice into the hole in that rock. If you enlarge it, you’ll see what I mean. That rock and many others are among many features abounding at Portland’s Chinese garden – a small urban Wonderland of lushness, quiet natural and man made beauty, set right smack downtown in the midst of it all.

Well-maintained and elegant, some phenonomenally gorgeous plantings adorn the garden, from this well-trained Pine to the Weeping Willow behind it whose Spring and Summer look adds dramatic softness – if such a thing can be said – to the ambiance. The building we see in the picture above is “The Boat Shaped Pavilion” or “Painted Boat in Misty Rain” – an altogether appropriate title for a city that gets the Winter rainfall of Portland. I got lucky this day on mid February, catching some good solid sunlight and thoroughly enjoying every second of it.

I was able to get close pictures of some of the things I like best about the garden, especially including this roof line of the “Waterside Pavilion”, with another gorgeous Pine framing it. Because of the protecting nature of the walled Garden and the closeness of the buildings, Palm Trees are allowed some growth inside. They barely eke out an existence – if at all – in Portland, proper, but they make a fabulous and very rich addition to this landscape. In Summer, the Banana Trees also show up, spreading proudly and looking every bit as lush. At this time of year in the garden, they are pretty much just stumps.

Here is yet another look at “The Boat”, featuring more water this time. I will now commence to including more pictures of water, the essential completing element to this Garden, especially inasmuch as it occupies a full one third of the grounds. Prior to this – in my other posts – I stuck to some details, but the pictures to come will illustrate a more total picture of this charming place and the role water plays in it over all.

Here’s where the water “begins”, cascading down this very recessed waterfall and into the large pond below. I love the inset provisions of the falls, especially since I know, as a maker of these sorts of waterfalls and creek, the incredible amount of piercing noise running water can make. By recessing the falls, it serves a couple of functions:

1. It does keep the noise down, protected as it is by those protruding sets of columns on either side.

2. It does not overwhelm in any sense – aural or visual – from the natural peacefulness of the Garden itself.

In itself, it is not particularly striking, although it has its own gorgeousness by virtue of the surrounding rocks. In the picture below, the waterfall is recessed, to the left, barely discernible.

In the next picture, we are standing mere feet away from the falls but toward the other side, Westward. As you can see, there are essentially large columns surrounding the recessed falls, allowing huge gaps or holes to vent some of the sound and fury of the rushing water.

Naturally, the falls serves to purify and aerate the recirculating water nicely, as well as to provide a very legitimate, yet not overwhelming point of interest. It was exceedingly well-designed in my opinion, for the reasons listed. Everything in this garden most definitely works as a whole. While outstanding in its own right, any feature here blends with the others to simply give one an uplifting sense of elegance and congruity. It is organic and full of vibrancy, resonating before you catch your own handfuls of wonder. This is the work of the professional’s professional – and it stands as a virtual teaching aid for the intention and meaning of Feng Shui.

Looking back now at “The Hall Of Brocade Clouds” – the main “meeting hall” – we see the pine once again framing the building and surrounded by water. Another look below at the Hall, some water and seen above the hand-carved granite railings and bridge, constructed in China and sent over for assembly by the artisans who actually made them:

Those granite railings and that bridge lead to pretty much my favorite spot in the Garden, “The Moon-Locking Pavilion”, a wonderfully-named gazebo-like structure set in the middle of the lake and offering a spot to see the moon’s reflection in the water around it. There are always people there when I visit and kids flock to it. Notice as well, we have blooms! The very early Citisus plants are popping open some early yellow. In fact, there was a bold and adventurous Forsythia I somehow missed getting a picture of, dangit, but now that I think of it, I do have a gorgeous Camelia to look at following the Moon-Locking Pavilion. Let’s hurry now.

Camelias! OK, I’ll grant you they are not overwhelming or magnificent on their own. What they DO represent for this Winter-weary soul is the obvious – flowers and the coming Spring.

A closer look a desperate man can love:

So, I was excited about the whole darn thing, you betcha. After all, I helped make the place. It is quite an event any time I go, reminiscing about small items of construction, seeing the development of plants, and sometimes answering questions because people are curious about small items of interest. Once engaged, people tend to hang on a while, asking a few more and enduring my own distinct loquaciousness which plagues me owing to my love of people. It’s a true fault.

As the American Indians liked to say: “It was a good day.”

The Pathways

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Once inside the Garden, the unfolding commences – it is truly amazing that there are so many little vistas packed inside of what is in reality just a city block’s worth of a Chinese Garden. From the original “wince” at the new price of admission (it went up to $8) and the newer economic realities, it is still fine enough to set reluctance’s aside and to perhaps concentrate even more on what the garden offers. Complex and entertaining from a strictly architectural perspective, what has been built here is quite remarkable by any standards. The purity of concept and design has imported the principles of the classic Chinese Garden virtually intact. Whereas a Japanese Garden informs us within the spaces between events and invites the imagination to struggling heights, the Chinese gardens are better able to assault the senses in tasteful yet plentiful method. There are little “miracles” abounding. Let’s use walkways as an example:

Complex patterns composed of a wide variety of stones are inset with a very specific depth in mind, better able to “massage the feet” during the walk – a humorous but apt statement (and intention!) made by the designer of this Garden in conversation with me during the construction of it. Ironically, the City, in its wisdom, declared a rather large swath of the pathways to be “failures” in terms of building code, requiring them to be destroyed, then replaced. The problem was handicapped access and the 1/4″ depth the small stones were set at – they were deemed “too deep” by their reckonings. They required them reset to 1/8″ deep, so as to allow smoother passage by wheelchairs. Interestingly, while a setback, this was done post-haste with most of the grumbling coming from those of us who watched the men work with our own version of intense respect and admiration. The dudes laying the stones smiled and moved along, unperturbed. Then they asked me for more cigarettes. I was The Man.

Their constant jabbering was a memory of pure pleasure.

The smiles of the workers were my most lingering image of these crews and of the overall Zeitgeist of the entire project. Good-natured to a fault and well aware of their roles and of what they were constructing, they were hard-working and pleasant – true professionals at their extremely unique craft. As you can see from these pathway pictures, they were also very, very good at what they did.

These sinuous ribbons for traffic are like these magical transports, easy to follow and containing their very own integral element of whimsy and delight in and of themselves. The remainder of the garden looks as sleek as a thoroughbred race horse and maybe more interesting. But it is here – at the most very basic level of what propels one around the park – that the intensity of interest serves as a motivating engine for the more whole body and soul experience. When you are walking on Heaven, the rest of it all just falls into place and your expectations rise. Here’s the deal – you never get disappointed.

I adore the detail, myself.

Always surprising, the paths change in pattern without your own attention even considering where it took place. It is some mysteriously-designed process of inserted surprise, tucked away in detail so remote you have to go back to try and locate the pattern transitions. I swear, a pathway fanatic such as myself could spend hours here just inspecting the path itself – no, wait! I did that. For days, during construction, in fact. I did learn something extremely worthwhile, by the way: Yes, you can do this at home. I’m being serious, actually. Granted, while the labor is such that any bids I made for installing something similar were too rich for the clients I plied with the idea, I may have just found the wrong folks to try it out on or possibly chosen the wrong materials. But I can guarantee this: I would do this in a New York Minute for anyone who would pay for this enduring and fascinating surface. Sigh, maybe when I get rich, I’ll do it for myself.

It truly never ends here. It is one constantly absorbing and totally relaxing venture into one of Man’s greatest conceptual achievements, modest yet complex and amazingly abundant. And this post has dealt merely with the walkways!

Next, we’ll visit the buildings and plantings and see what the 33% of the place composed of water itself provides a viewer. Here – below – is a small hint of what a building and it’s cozy and intimate views can provide – and bear in mind, another angle of viewing is just as remarkable, from the same vantage point:

You would think those seemingly ubiquitous huge buildings surrounding this Chinese Garden would affect your travels inside it. From the pictures here and elsewhere, it is so hard to ignore the substantial urban effects of the neighboring towers. Yet, until you have seen it yourself, take it from me that one of the true marvels of this place is how what is outside the walls of this incredibly intimate and sensuous garden has so little – if any – effect on its interior.

(click on all pictures to enlarge)

When you see the buildings in pictures later, you go “Oh yeah, buildings.”

This is a still-involving masterpiece of design, concept and installation. I happen to have a special attachment to the “installation” part owing to the fact that I was involved during its construction. I remember every support under all that dirt and I recall boring holes in the concrete framework under every one of those buildings and walls. I recall the digging of the trees that populate it now. I even recall finding those elusive and perfect trees in some of the weirdest places – from the highways to nursery “back 40’s”. I post about that, in fact, in this blog right here - where I give more detail on some of the construction aspects. But today is about the garden, not me.

From its unprepossessing facade outside on the street -

To it’s entryway and gate -

One is not quite prepared for the marvelous enchantment once one passes these portals and goes inside -

The floor of the first “room” alone assaults the senses with its spectacular complexity. It’s hard to look up. Maybe it’s just me, but I could look at this paving for literal hours – wait – it is just me. Nevertheless, walking surfaces such as this are repeated throughout the entire project, none of them repetitive in pattern, all with a different inlay, including differing stones themselves. We’ll see more as we walk together.

Looking up, we behold the most amazing sort of aperture, set as it is as a feast for the eye in a remarkable, deep and stunning depiction of the meaning of “Feng Shui” itself. Carried by design, we stumble into yet another wonder, led by our senses alone to the next unfolding of some of the genius in Chinese Garden design.

“Qi rides the wind and scatters, but is retained when encountering water.”

Across the stone patio, we see this hole in the wall inviting exploration. There are many places like this in the garden. Some are major vistas within the garden itself, offering hidden promise for the explorer -

Others are these wild and crazy small apertures, leading the mind to yet another utterly involving destination – close but still distant – like the promise of hope, or love – cradled by mankind’s most heartfelt perspectives – cut in simple yet supple, sensuous shapes and seemingly sculpted for no apparent reason – right into the walls themselves. It’s like a gift.

Oh there is something on the other side – but what is it? How large? How meaningful? Honestly, I don’t think I have ever encountered a more pleasant mystery.

And not all apertures are alike. Some are just windows -

But interesting windows. Fascinating windows, made for humans to enjoy not only Nature but his own artifice -

This is a very cool garden. Obviously, waxing as poetic as I am, I adore it. Next post, we’ll discover what all this “Qi” thing and the water alludes to. Maybe see some plants. I’m pretty big on Mahonia.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Like it?

I reviewed these posts and realized how much more there is to say about the place and its construction. There were so many fascinating aspects to it all.  I often refer in this blog to John Stone and I even have his website mentioned often in this blog. Working as closely with him as I did acquainted me with his various tasks during the initial and then middle phases of the project.  As mentioned, I relocated to Reno, Nevada at about the halfway mark of the construction but I still got some interesting updates and conclusions from John, telephonic ally.

Among the most interesting facets of the project involved the researching and the discovery of appropriate plants for the project.  What this involves is nothing short of weird and not the standard mode of acquiring plant materials at all. With a tight budget, mixed with the stated desire to have mature plantings gracing the project, some creativity was required.  Thus, many days were spent with John and the Chinese engineers and Project Supervisor, a female, tramping out into the wilds of nurseries’ “back 40’s”, looking for previously-ignored trees and plants. It actually paid off handsomely, now and then, with these surprisingly gorgeous trees once considered ‘unsellable’, and virtually ignored, suddenly becoming something more. Talks went on, sales made, designers pleased as some semblance of possibility and completion reared its head.

As well, we cast an eye to highways and highway landscaping.  The Oregon DOT had plants which had nearly outgrown their usefulness and were fascinating in their size and shapes.  They gratefully and generously acquiesced in their relocation.  Work commenced, excavating these big suckers by hand, as were so very many of the others. John and a raft of willing workers became more than well-versed in the removal and sustaining of these large trees, all of which began to be staged at a lot nearby the new Gardens in a growing lump.  We supplied irrigation for them and protected the root balls until the time for planting came.

I always found the process fascinating, myself. I also always figured as far as resourcefulness and opportunity were concerned, I have seen few – if any – projects whose savings and whose resourcefulnesses were so fully utilized. I stand impressed to this very day.

Watching the fellows from Suzhou go at their work was the single most fascinating thing about the entire project.  There was one fellow whose job title had to have been “Wood Carver”.  He would be up on a ladder, literally carving faces and figurines in wood, after the wood was in place!  In other words, carving one time, error-free, right where they would always be. Other aspects included guys hauling large pieces of granite, using those humongous ropes similar to circus workers, to say nothing of the wood mallets which really DID resemble the old circus tools of my youth. The granite had all been carved overseas and was imported here to match up with plans dealing with the buildings, grounds and the bridges. More impressive than I have words for, in short.

The City Of Portland had also arranged for “Cross Cultural” seminars especially-tailored for working with Chinese. These went on for a few days and they even included the group of Chinese who had their own version of training. Having lived in Korea and spending time in Japan had prepared me for what must have been some shocks amongst our locals, although, to be honest, the entire affair seemed to run remarkably smoothly.  The competence of the Chinese was unquestionable. Their work ethic was every bit as good as our own and they were consistently chattering and cheery people.

Confession time:  I left before the project was completed.  I fielded calls from Reno relative to the hopeful sighting of a few wires and pipes which, as mentioned, got somewhat “losted” in all the hubub.  I also had to hear secondhand as to how the placement of soil and the planting went on. In a way, it broke my heart and, in another, it was just another landscaping job.  Such is our life.

So John had the chain designed for our needs – we needed something that could handle the weight without snapping, obviously. But we also needed something we could uncouple quickly, especially difficult considering the expanse involved: many of the root balls were up to ten feet across! Anyway, this was accomplished well.  I pointed this small element out merely to indicate the unique problems besetting an enterprise like this. Imagine an entire city block and the numbers alone of mature trees needed to complete the look. Imagine as well a stationary crane grabbing these big suckers and then delivering them to the “holes”.  The word is, the crane nearly toppled handling this huge Magnolia for a really far spot.

When we got there and actually commenced the work, it was early in the process. There was this massive hole in the ground with pockets of formed concrete piers and foundations for things such as the buildings as well as support structures for bridges and walkways.  Irrigating this mess was intense.  We spent nearly a week just coring holes through all the foundations walls with a diamond drill to poke pipe through and deliver water throughout the entirety. Fortunately, the service was to be completely drip irrigation so the pipes required tended to be in the 2 inch range. We complete a complete enclosed circle, which was always the goal, and then fed off that to supply the valves and the nearly above ground piping. I hasten to add, we also had the unenviable and often nearly fruitless task of running the electrical wiring for these remote vales to tie into a central control clock. Why “nearly fruitless”?  Because of the insane amount of construction yet to perform and those nasty things like boots of the workers, shovels and machinery is why.  Indeed, it turned out we did lose a couple of wires by having them cut somewhere.

The most fascinating part of the project for me was when the Chinese workers showed up. There was supposedly 150 involved, but I think that included a substantial corps of engineers and architects s well. The workers were fun and very easy to get along with.  The fact that I smoked cigarettes turned me into a popular figure, lol. I swear, I believe they all smoked. Very James Bondish of them! But they were all easy to get along with, talented as heck, focused and extremely hard-working.  It was a pure pleasure working next to them.

So many elements of this Garden were brought from China, it’s mind-blowing.  Indeed, the bridges themselves were made of granite, hand-crafted back in China, many by the same guys who installed them here. Needless to say, the awesome rocks featured here were all delivered straight from China as well, including those composing the entire water feature and small mountain.

Set solidly right in the very depths of downtown Portland, Oregon, the Chinese Garden is serene and mind-boggling at the same time. The fact that the locals understand it is basically placed smack in the middle of the Chinese District, it has a congruity in the city itself. Leaving the Garden, you can go shop at stores specializing in Chinese items or eat at any number of bordering restaurants.

But of course, that is not the entire story, and especially as it relates to this blog. That the Garden is a gorgeous feast for the eyes and senses is pretty much a no brainer. I will address that pictorially. How it relates here is my own small involvement with it and it may take a post or two to finish.

At the time, I was living in Portland and working for Teufel’s Landscaping, a very large and successful nursery and landscaping firm who counted their clients among those they have worked for or supplied for over 100 years. Among their clients were the Nike and Microsoft Campuses, golf courses, Intel’s booming Portland base and countless others. In residential landscaping, I have myself worked for some notable people. When the mayor of Portland decided she wanted this Garden in conjunction with Portland’s sister city, they tried and eventually found the approximately $12 million it took to make it work. I salute Vera Katz here and now for her wonderful addition to the city and her bulldog-like tenacity in seeing it come to pass. You da gal, Vera.

Well, Teufel’s got a contract to do a number of things under the project. Once again, my good friend John Stone was instrumental in all this and was my supervisor. John’s rather bizarre mandate was to provide the local landscaping expertise dealing with irrigating the grounds, locating all of the plant materials, installing the soils and planting the plants for a project no one wanted to look “brand new”. Naturally, what this meant was that fully mature plants were to be supplied which matched the specifications and artistic needs supplied by the Chinese portion of the engineering and landscape architect class who basically designed it. It implied some stuff you just couldn’t make up, it was so far fetched. For one example, I accompanied John in an expedition down to a plant who specialized in fabricating chains. Why? Because as we found and excavated the trees, we began seeing some intimidating issues with their weight. The root balls on some of these behemoths were in the tens of tons. We already knew we would be using a 180 ton crane for placement – at the time the largest vehicle made for street travel.