PNW Gardens: Lakewold Gardens

Lakewood, WA | $10, general admission (discounts available) | Non-profit, historic site

Feb 25, 2023

12317 Gravelly Lake Drive Southwest,
Lakewood, WA 98499

253-584-4106

Lakewold Gardens is in Lakewood on the west side of Gravelly Lake between DuPont and Tacoma. The grounds that now comprise the garden were once the private gardens belonging to the sister of the couple that owned Bloedel Reserve. A Georgian-style home still sits on the site built to replace a country retreat from the previous owners when the area was still rural. The property and grounds are popular as a rental space for events and weddings. There is a gift shop and small plant shop next to the main guest parking area. I’ve never been able to visit without buying something.

You might call Lakewold the sister estate of Bloedel Reserve, for Eulalie Merrill Wagner, Lakewold’s owner, was the sister of Virgina Merrill Bloedel.
— The Pacific Northwest Garden Tour, Donald Olsen, Page 202

Blooming rhododendrons in whites, pinks, and lavender cream. — Early blooming rhododendrons.

Spring is an especially beautiful time to visit the gardens as they have many mature stands of rhododendrons, including some ~900 lining the main Circle Drive from the entrance, and other spring-flowering perennials and annuals tended to by a landscape crew and volunteers. The endowment fund behind The Friends of Lakewold non-profit stipulates continued care for the garden.

“As we become more and more city creatures,” [Eulalie Merrill Wagner] wrote at the time, “living in man-made surroundings, perhaps gardens will become even more precious to us, letting us remember that we began in the garden.”
— The Pacific Northwest Garden Tour, Donald Olsen, Page 205

View of a very large rhododendron blooming with proflific trusses of creamy lavender. — One of the larger early blooming rhodoendrons in the garden.

Much of the groundcover and undergrowth is a lovely blend of sought after spring bulbs and favorites like shooting star, pink dogtooth violet, and checkered lily (fritillaria). Many swaths of groundcover are lovely stands of dogtooth violets and avalanche lilies, in both white and pink.

Closeup and overview series of shooting stars, pink dogtooth violet, fritallaria, primrose...perfection! — Shooting stars, pink dogtooth violet, fritallaria, primrose...perfection!

Giant rhododendrons with red bloom trusses along a red brick path, evergreen trees tower behind against a cloud and blue sky. — Along the perimeter of the formal garden near the house was a giant stand of bright red blooming rhododendrons.

An understory plant, a flowering current shrub covered in clusters of rosey pink blooms underneath evergreen trees. — Flowering currant flowering its head off!

After leaving the formal area near the house on the way to the lake is a woodland garden with flowing creek and pond. This area has my “spark tree,” a Japanese maple called Deshojo, that puts out fresh leaves in spring the color of crimson blooms, before turning green during the summer, and back to a rainbow display in fall. I bought one for my own garden not long after visiting Lakewold for the first time.

A canopy of trees with large deciduous and evergreen in the background with a bright crimson leaved Japanese maple in the front, hanging over a low pond surrounded by rocks covered in moss. — The small woodland garden in the larger garden has one of my favorite Japanese maples, Deshojo.

Several shots of the Deshojo Japanese maple crimson colored foliage with dark wiry branches and trunk layered over the green of the rest of the garden. — The Deshojo maple canopy against the surrounding garden, I couldn’t get enough!

Looking down on the surface of the pond water, a mirror reflection of the cloudy blue sky with many tree branches covered in foliage and lichen, a rock in the very center sticks out above the water. — Reflection in the pond in the woodland garden.

A naturalistic creek tumbling through rocks and boulders down an incline, through trees and moss covered rocks. — The creek to the pond tumbles slowly down a gravity fed series of rock falls to the pond in the woodland garden.

Several pictures near the edge of the lake with paths through rhododendrons and docks visible on the water. — Views on the edge of Gravelly Lake.

A tree trunk spit in half and laid round side down so that the cut side faces up like a table, now covered in moss, with two additional logs similarly cut and placed on either side like benches. Garden shrubs and trees surround, with a bench and lake in the background. — An old split tree (or two) made into a table with benches, now consumed with moss.

Magnolia in bloom and a giant multi-trunk Douglas Fir

Groundcovers of avalanch lilies and anemone.

I have not visited Lakewold in the summer but I suspect the roses, and annual and perennial show is probably pretty spectacular. But I’m a sucker for the spring garden. I can’t get enough of towering rhododendrons, magnolias, Japanese maples is fresh foliage, and all the small flowering bulbs and ground covers. Spring at Lakewold gives you all of that and more!

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Apple Annie

PNW Gardens, a Series

This is not a complete list of gardens in the PNW that I’ve visited, just ones that I know that I have photos of to include in a post. I may find more. I also have a hard-drive of photos from a DSLR that I used almost exclusively for about four years that I have yet to get into post-Firewire collapse, so that could alter this as well. But I won’t know u…

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