A Garden Made for Wandering

Elk Rock Garden • Portland, Oregon

There are gardens that show themselves to you all at once.

And then there are gardens that make you come looking.

Elk Rock Garden is the latter.

From the moment I began walking its paths, I had the feeling that something else was always waiting just beyond what I could see- a stone stairway disappearing beneath leaves, an old wall softened by moss, a gate opening onto another path, water lilies floating quietly in the afternoon light.

So I kept wandering.

There was no particular direction I needed to go. That may have been my favorite thing about it.

The garden seemed to unfold in little rooms, each with its own atmosphere. Some felt cultivated and graceful. Others had been allowed to grow a little wild around the edges. Old stone and weathered wood appeared among ferns and flowers as though they had alway belonged there.

And everywhere, there were trees.

Magnificent old trees.

Towering conifers and old magnolias rose above the garden, their trunks carrying the unmistakable presence of having been there for a very long time. I found myself stopping beneath them again and again, looking upward and wondering how many seasons they had witnessed here.

Some places make you look ahead.

This garden kept making me look up.

I brought my journal with me, as I often do.

There is something about carrying a blank page into a beautiful place that changes the way I look at things. I notice textures. Sounds. Small details I might otherwise walk past.

A seedpod catching the light.

Moss growing between stones.

The shape of a leaf floating on dark water.

The way a path curves just enough that you cannot see where it ends.

Perhaps that is why I love gardens like this.

They preserve a little mystery.

They don't ask you to hurry toward the impressive thing at the end. The wandering is the thing.

Eventually, my phone died.

I laughed.

Apparently I had taken enough photographs.

So I slipped it away and continued without it.

No documenting. No deciding which view I wanted to remember later.

Just the garden in front of me.

And perhaps that was a small gift.

Because somewhere between the old stone steps and the enormous trees, I realized I was already thinking about returning.

Not tomorrow.

Not even next week.

I want to wait.

I want to come back when summer begins loosening its hold and the first leaves turn amber and rust. I want to walk the same paths and see what has changed.

Maybe that's one of the loveliest things about becoming attached to a garden.

You never really visit it only once.

You meet one version of it-

and then you wonder who it will become next season.

Field Notes • Elk Rock Garden

Wild Hawthorn