{"id":804,"date":"2010-10-27T07:30:47","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T03:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blogblog\/?p=804"},"modified":"2010-10-31T07:42:04","modified_gmt":"2010-10-31T03:42:04","slug":"how-caroline-jensens-arboretum-is-related-to-the-sealaska-plaza-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/how-caroline-jensens-arboretum-is-related-to-the-sealaska-plaza-gardens\/","title":{"rendered":"How Caroline Jensen’s Arboretum is Related to the Sealaska Plaza Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pearl Harbor view from Caroline Jensen's Arboretum<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1981, I began a landscape gardening company called “Kahtahah Landscape Gardeners.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 My main garden “showcase” was the Sealaska Corporation’s Plaza garden grounds.\u00a0 Up until 1981, Sealaska contracted out to a Seattle-based landscape company.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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:\u00a0 “…oh yeah, that’s the Sealaska distribution (dividend)…for the year!” \u00a0 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.\u00a0 Just a month before his complaint, I had presented Sealaska with a proposal to do their landscaping.\u00a0 The timing of his complaint letter was the thing that secured my new career as a local gardener\/landscaper.<\/p>\n

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The vegetable garden portion of the Arboretum<\/p><\/div>\n

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.\u00a0 Several people around town (especially the 12th street area) had beautiful flower beds, but generally, Juneau’s local color was limited.\u00a0 There were no full-blown garden nurseries either; we sure didn’t have all the venues we have nowadays!\u00a0 I consulted with a few of the 12th Street gardeners; they were elderly, retired folk who puttered around in their white picket fenced gardens.\u00a0 When asked where to purchase local perennials and gather plant recommendations, they gave me two names:\u00a0 Emily Cherry and Caroline Jensen.<\/p>\n

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Rock steps graced with crushed mussel and clam shells<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u00a0 when heading out to Auke Bay’s ferry terminal.\u00a0 Now that I think of it, she was the only plant nursey in Juneau (unless someone corrects me!)\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She also recommended I go visit Caroline.<\/p>\n

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Yarrow and Suzi visit the arboretum too.<\/p><\/div>\n

My father and I visited Caroline together because I was too shy to go visit a place “way out the road” by myself.\u00a0 (Hey folks, gotta remember back then, driving 20 miles out the road to visit someone I had never met was a very long way!)\u00a0 I remember the two of us walking up towards what is now the vegetable garden.\u00a0 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!\u00a0 Caroline heard our laughter and was pleased to discover visitors in her paradise she openly shared with others.<\/p>\n

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The Himalayan blue poppy<\/p><\/div>\n

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.\u00a0 It flourished for a couple of years until one day, it had disappeared – someone had stolen the entire plant!\u00a0 Huh, can you believe it? \u00a0 Oh, the woes of planting a public garden – the stories I could tell!<\/p>\n

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Seaweed mulch: the best!<\/p><\/div>\n

All the local gardeners in Juneau used seaweed as mulch.\u00a0 Emily and Caroline encouraged me to use the cheapest, easily accessible mulch around.\u00a0 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. \u00a0\u00a0 Every year I gathered bags and bags of seaweed and spread it about the garden.\u00a0 Folks would joke with me “Hey, looks like high tide made its way all the way up here…!”\u00a0 Ravens would peck about the seaweed and toss it about in the air.<\/p>\n

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Himalayan purple primrose<\/p><\/div>\n

Caroline was generous with sharing her knowledge and generous with gifting us with one of her favorite plants:\u00a0 the various kinds of primroses.\u00a0 Like Caroline’s garden, the Sealaska Plaza’s garden and my father’s garden too eventually became clustered with primrose blossoms. \u00a0 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.\u00a0 With the destruction, most of the perennials and original primroses provided by Caroline Jensen were buried forever under the newly-paved streets.\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n

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Primrose<\/p><\/div>\n

The above photo are the species of primroses that were once planted at Sealaska.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 These primroses are the hardy type!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Judy Sherbourne is the latest caretaker of the Sealaska garden the past four years.\u00a0 She is doing a fine job – I know she wouldn’t mind me sneaking in a few plantings here and there.\u00a0 Watch out! – Eventually, we might knickname the place Primrose Lane!<\/p>\n

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What the heck is this plant's name; I used to know and it slipped my mind!<\/p><\/div>\n

Last weekend Yarrow, Suzi and I visited Caroline’s place.\u00a0 I looked for the rhubarb; it had been moved.\u00a0 The house and garden shed are still there – the same exact colors as 30 years ago.\u00a0 The stillness and beauty of the place is still in tact.\u00a0 There are no high-rises to be seen, no lodges nearby, no sounds of helicopters, tour ships and small planes.\u00a0 Caroline had willed her home and property to the City and Borough of Juneau.\u00a0 In her words:\u00a0 “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.”<\/p>\n

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Another rocky path with patches of "snow-in-the-Summer"<\/p><\/div>\n

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"Snow-in-the-Summer" ground cover blooms white clusters of flowers in Spring\/Summer<\/p><\/div>\n

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.\u00a0 Folks, this plant enjoys moisture.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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!~<\/p>\n

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My favorite ground cover: saxifrage<\/p><\/div>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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A Japanese maple<\/p><\/div>\n

The long-range vision for the Arboretum includes the establishment of the Southeast Alaska Horticultural Education Center.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.”\u00a0 The Arboretum is on the seaside\u00a0 just past Mile 23 on Glacier Highway.\u00a0 Visitor Hours are:\u00a0 Wednesday through Sundays, 9am – 5pm Year round.\u00a0 Important Note:\u00a0 Dogs are not allowed at the Arboretum.\u00a0 Contact info: \u00a0\u00a0 907-789-0139\u00a0 and www.juneau.org\/parkrec<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1981, I began a landscape gardening company called “Kahtahah Landscape Gardeners.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 My main garden “showcase” was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23],"tags":[93,25,94,26,95],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-honoring-others","category-photo-essays-of-alaska","tag-city-borough-of-juneau","tag-juneau-chamber-of-commerce","tag-juneau-parks-recreation","tag-photos-of-alaska","tag-sealaska-corporation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":820,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}