The Bonsai Incident (with rhododendrons, too)

Warning: Anyone with aversions to bonsai trees should skip this post. Don't say we didn't warn you. That said, on with the story.

It all started with Mom's incessant googling for economical destinations to add to her "Seattle bucket list" of stuff to do during our vacation. The vacation part was mostly for Mom and the Muffins, since Dad was actually there to do official stuff related to his grad program. And so it was that we began to discover the crazy adventures open to an unsupervised Mom with a minivan. One of the places Mom googled was the Weyerhauser Bonsai and Rhododendron Gardens in Federal Way. The Bonsai section was free, and the Rhododendron section only charged for kids over 12. On our way there, Amanda asked about whether we could go into the woods sometime. Little did she know how close she was to getting her wish. Here are the Muffins standing in the midst of forest and big trees . . .

. . . on their way to go see some very small trees:

There were dozens of trees in the bonsai section, and Mom took pictures of nearly all of them, which she will gladly show to anyone who so much as starts to say "bonsai." However, for the sake of the blog, we'll limit the photo collection to an example of Mom's favorites, the ones with flowers on them:

While there were indeed dozens of bonsai trees, it nevertheless didn't take that long to see them all. Mom asked the Muffins if they were interested in checking out the rhododendron section, and they responded enthusiastically. We saw this nice little waterfall in the indoor conservatory:

Amanda found lots of fallen flowers on the outside paths that she wanted pictures with:

Really, it was a very nice woodland garden with plenty of photo ops:

But it was a little lighter on actual rhododendrons than Mom had expected for her admission fee. We did see these, but not many more. There were plenty of plants, to be sure, just not a lot of flowers. Whether this was the result of latitude-related growing season differences or zealous gardeners remains to be determined.

However, we were there in time for blue poppy season, which was definitely something new to us:

All in all, a fun outing, but with a few lessons learned. 1) Lydia is allergic to something Pacific Northwest. Not sure what, but apparently something in those woods, since she spent the next couple of days in hives. 2) Older Muffins make good stroller helpers, but they do have their limits. 3) If rhododendrons are what one desires in Seattle, one should check one's own neighborhood first. Consider this find right by our library just a couple of days after the outing:

(And that doesn't even begin to cover Mom's digital rhododendron collection from all sorts of places not officially labeled rhododendron gardens!)