My background is graphic design. I live in West Seattle, a peninsula that juts out into Puget Sound just south and west of downtown Seattle, Washington. BackyardNotes began as an attempt to chronicle my garden throughout the year.
Since 1994 I have kept detailed notes of nearly every plant that has gone into this garden, where and when it was planted and the inevitable failures. Ten years ago, armed with a new, digital, Sony Mavica (that has an awesome macro lens) I started chronicling my garden’s best moments throughout the year with photos. I photographed each bloom and bit of green as it emerged from the earth. I also have a need-to-know-what-it-is curiosity when it comes to plants wherever we travel, so I photograph them too and then attempt to identify what I’ve seen. (Until February I had using a five year old Canon Powershot S2IS that I grudingly learned to live with; now it is kaput! Now temporarily using a Nikon Coolpix S9100 point-and-shoot.)
The intent of this blog was to act as a reference for one of my sisters who is trying to plan her own garden on the Long Beach peninsula. I consider a large part of my garden to be a legacy garden, as many of the plants in my garden have come from our grandmother’s garden, so this is a nice a way to visually share what’s happening here with my sisters and other family members and friends.
In addition to ornamental gardening, I enjoy vegetable gardening, and I love to eat and preserve what I grow. I love to paint, travel and work on personal design projects (as well as paying ones).
If you have stumbled upon this journal, I hope you, too, will enjoy my notes and photos.
—gretchen
I am the photographer and owner of all images on this site. Images on this site may not be used without permission. All photographs and images G.Flickinger ©2011. All rights reserved and may not be used without permission. If you are interested in licensing one of the photographs for commercial purposes contact me at: inkplusinc@gmail.com
