Whenever we want a perennial fix, we make a trip to the Bellevue Botanical Garden . This is a relatively new garden which opened 1992. The Northwest Perennial Alliance worked with the Bellevue Parks Department to create the garden.

The highlight of the garden is the 17,000 square feet perennial border. It is broken out in to sections by color; gold, pink, variegated, hot, blue, black lavender and more. Along the top of the border, a filbert-shell covered path winds through old apple trees and climber roses. Everywhere you turn there is a delight for the plants person. South of the main border, under several large conifers, is a shade border.

There are several other areas for exploring. Near the entrance is the alpine garden. We loved the Centaurea fischeri related to bachelor buttons. The bees loved it also. Next is a waterwise garden showing how to use evergreen ground covers. This leads into a small herb garden lined with interesting mediterranean plants.

One of the new areas is a tumbling stream area focusing on ground cover plants. Next to it is the Yao garden, a Japanese inspired garden which has potential but always seemed lacking to us. And the newest garden is a northwest native plant garden with a lovely pond-bog. It has recently been planted and it should be nice in a year or so.

Here is a slide show of some photos from our recent visit.