How Caroline Jensen’s Arboretum is Related to the Sealaska Plaza Gardens

Oct 27, 2010 | Honoring Others, North Tide | 2 comments

Pearl Harbor view from Caroline Jensen's Arboretum

In 1981, I began a landscape gardening company called “Kahtahah Landscape Gardeners.”  A local block-print artist, the late Dale DeArmand, had written and illustrated a book called “Kahtahah” – she said in the Tlingit language it means “she who plants” or “planting time” depending on the context of the sentence.  My main garden “showcase” was the Sealaska Corporation’s Plaza garden grounds.  Up until 1981, Sealaska contracted out to a Seattle-based landscape company.  Many of us noticed that every year the company would come to town in the Spring to plant shrubs, a few flowering annuals, and spread the chunks of cedar mulch to help keep down the weeds.  A year later in the following Spring, the shrubs were lifeless and the cedar mulch had blown around town during the Winter’s Taku winds into the door ways of the local downtown businesses – the joke about the cedar mulch was:  “…oh yeah, that’s the Sealaska distribution (dividend)…for the year!”   Mayor Bill Overstreet had received too many complaints about the Sealaska Plaza garden’s yearly “distribution” that he suggested to Sealaska to hire someone locally who knew what worked in this climate.  Just a month before his complaint, I had presented Sealaska with a proposal to do their landscaping.  The timing of his complaint letter was the thing that secured my new career as a local gardener/landscaper.

The vegetable garden portion of the Arboretum

30 years ago, the only public gardens in Juneau were the garden beds around the State Capital building, the downtown public library and the Governor’s mansion.  Several people around town (especially the 12th street area) had beautiful flower beds, but generally, Juneau’s local color was limited.  There were no full-blown garden nurseries either; we sure didn’t have all the venues we have nowadays!  I consulted with a few of the 12th Street gardeners; they were elderly, retired folk who puttered around in their white picket fenced gardens.  When asked where to purchase local perennials and gather plant recommendations, they gave me two names:  Emily Cherry and Caroline Jensen.

Rock steps graced with crushed mussel and clam shells

Emily Cherry had a small nursery she had created around her modest trailer up on a little hill to the right just past Waydelich Creek  when heading out to Auke Bay’s ferry terminal.  Now that I think of it, she was the only plant nursey in Juneau (unless someone corrects me!)  I spent many hours and days chit-chatting with her; she shared her knowledge of gardening, what plants worked in the Southeastern climate, and I purchased many plants and shrubs from her for the Sealaska garden and other homes in Juneau.  She also recommended I go visit Caroline.

Yarrow and Suzi visit the arboretum too.

My father and I visited Caroline together because I was too shy to go visit a place “way out the road” by myself.  (Hey folks, gotta remember back then, driving 20 miles out the road to visit someone I had never met was a very long way!)  I remember the two of us walking up towards what is now the vegetable garden.  My father and I laughed out loud at Caroline’s rhubarb; it stood almost 5 feet tall – I remember quite well because I am a little over 5 feet and I could just about stand under the gigantic rhubarb leaves!  Caroline heard our laughter and was pleased to discover visitors in her paradise she openly shared with others.

The Himalayan blue poppy

She gave me a clump of the beautiful, exotic Himalayan blue poppies and I planted it on the Main Street side of the Plaza garden.  It flourished for a couple of years until one day, it had disappeared – someone had stolen the entire plant!  Huh, can you believe it?   Oh, the woes of planting a public garden – the stories I could tell!

Seaweed mulch: the best!

All the local gardeners in Juneau used seaweed as mulch.  Emily and Caroline encouraged me to use the cheapest, easily accessible mulch around.  It not only kept out the slugs (because of the salt water), and kept down the weeds, but the mineral content nourished the soil to no end.    Every year I gathered bags and bags of seaweed and spread it about the garden.  Folks would joke with me “Hey, looks like high tide made its way all the way up here…!”  Ravens would peck about the seaweed and toss it about in the air.

Himalayan purple primrose

Caroline was generous with sharing her knowledge and generous with gifting us with one of her favorite plants:  the various kinds of primroses.  Like Caroline’s garden, the Sealaska Plaza’s garden and my father’s garden too eventually became clustered with primrose blossoms.   In the Spring of 1985, while laying new sewer pipes and burying the new telephone lines underground on Seward Street and Main Street, the City and Borough of Juneau had destroyed the once full Sealaska gardens.  With the destruction, most of the perennials and original primroses provided by Caroline Jensen were buried forever under the newly-paved streets.  The City did not destroy the garden intentionally; the backhoe operator was just not paying attention to the fact there was a blooming garden about the Plaza!

Primrose

The above photo are the species of primroses that were once planted at Sealaska.  My father’s garden, now pretty much overgrown since he passed away in 2008, still has a few of these plants surviving the strangulation of weeds.  These primroses are the hardy type!  Now that I have moved back to Juneau, I may have the luxury of time to take care of my father’s garden, and maybe I’ll take a few clumps from these original Caroline Jensen primroses and plant them at Sealaska.  Judy Sherbourne is the latest caretaker of the Sealaska garden the past four years.  She is doing a fine job – I know she wouldn’t mind me sneaking in a few plantings here and there.  Watch out! – Eventually, we might knickname the place Primrose Lane!

What the heck is this plant's name; I used to know and it slipped my mind!

Last weekend Yarrow, Suzi and I visited Caroline’s place.  I looked for the rhubarb; it had been moved.  The house and garden shed are still there – the same exact colors as 30 years ago.  The stillness and beauty of the place is still in tact.  There are no high-rises to be seen, no lodges nearby, no sounds of helicopters, tour ships and small planes.  Caroline had willed her home and property to the City and Borough of Juneau.  In her words:  “The vision of the Arboretum is to provide the people of Juneau a place that both teaches and inspires learning in horticulture, natural sciences and landscaping — to preserve the beauty of the landscape for pure aesthetic enjoyment – to maintain the historical and cultural context of the place and its people.”

Another rocky path with patches of "snow-in-the-Summer"

"Snow-in-the-Summer" ground cover blooms white clusters of flowers in Spring/Summer

Saxifrage is a ground cover that is very easy to grow; it has delicate, single-petal flowers atop a thin, 5″ stem – the only maintenance is pulling a few weeds from between its spongy texture and making sure the brown areas of the plant are continually patted with soil to keep the plant from drying out.  Folks, this plant enjoys moisture.  The Sealaska Plaza once had saxifrage all about it’s rock walls (the present-day rock wall replaced the rock wall I had built – and I am assuming that when they replaced the wall, they had no regard for the flowering ground cover).  By 1985, after working about 4 years building up the plant/tree life at the Sealaska gardens, I began to carry plastic “Baggies” in my back pocket.  Tourists were enthralled to discover domestic flowering plants in Juneau right down town amongst the indigenous plants such as Devil’s Club, Alder trees, ferns, chocolate lilies, shooting stars and wild iris; and when they saw the saxifrage, the visiting, avid gardener would exclaim they hadn’t ever seen anything like it – so I’d whip out a baggie and slip a few sprigs in with a handful of soil, and by golly, I think those particular tourists took home the best souvenir ever!~

My favorite ground cover: saxifrage

I will always remember Emily Cherry and Caroline Jensen; I can still see their soil-weathered hands and smiling faces enjoying the feast of the land and sky no matter the weather – it’s just how it is with the rugged Southeast Alaskan gardeners – like, what rain?

A Japanese maple

The long-range vision for the Arboretum includes the establishment of the Southeast Alaska Horticultural Education Center.  This will consist of a multi-purpose classroom and library as well as a greenhouse/conservatory to be utilized as a living laboratory for botanical, horticultural and cultural education.

The Jensen-Olson Arboretum is located 23 miles north of downtown Juneau in an area known locally, as I mentioned earlier, as “Out the Road.”  The Arboretum is on the seaside  just past Mile 23 on Glacier Highway.  Visitor Hours are:  Wednesday through Sundays, 9am – 5pm Year round.  Important Note:  Dogs are not allowed at the Arboretum.  Contact info:    907-789-0139  and www.juneau.org/parkrec