The Miller Botanical Garden in Autumn

What an honor to be able to visit the Elisabeth Miller Botanical Garden regularly with the Great Plant Picks group. We meet there twice annually for our selection committee meetings and we always make it a point to arrive early to take in the garden. This garden is difficult for the public to visit as there is limited access due to its private, residential location. They are allowed a (small) set number of visitors per year because of this and so tickets go quickly. They are sold out for the 2025 year already, so mark your calendars for autumn 2025 to buy tickets for 2026. Even if limited access didn't exist, visiting the Miller is a special treat I do not take for granted, especially when the weather cooperates and autumn foliage is on fire. Since I have the incredible opportunity to spend a few quality hours in this botanical garden it is my duty as a fellow gardener to share the beauty. Especially now more than ever. A bit of beauty to focus on the good things in life.

Join me on a look around this very special Seattle garden on a cool October day with my fellow Great Plant Picks friends.

A path leading towards a greenhouse and the propagation area. I wandered around by myself taking in as much as I could before our meetings began, thoroughly enjoying the foliage display and grateful we got to see it before a storm blows it away for the year.

I won't go into the details of the garden's history as I have written about that before, you can revisit those here or here, or do a search on the homepage. 

The back of the house and lawn area with the library terrace just visible on the right.

As we pulled into the parking area I was greeted by this scene. I immediately went uphill towards the upper woodland and cully garden.

The canopy made me feel as if I were standing in a stained glass forest.

Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium', one of many throughout the five-acre garden was a favorite of Elisabeth Miller.

Coming around towards the house and the dining room terrace ahead. Cordyline indivisa on the left.

A few of the trough containers on the dining room terrace with, of course, many fabulous ferns as Richie is vice president of the Hardy Fern Foundation and former president.

A wider view with a few more containers.

Acer and cryptomeria, what a combination right now.

The stairs leading up to the dining room terrace with more colorful canopy trees floating above it all.

At the base of the dry bank, yucca, hamamelis and Sciadopitys verticillata, Japanese umbrella pine among Nassella tenuissima.

So many textures at the Miller!

At the base of the dry bank that spills down from the back of the house to the parking area, the stone terrace opens up for a look across to the lower garden. Many incredible containers planted up by a talented team of gardeners can be seen all over this garden, there's a lot of creativity here.

To the right of the last image, more containers with great foliage color to spark imagination and give ideas to visitors, myself included.

A few of the GPP crew, left to right: Claude LeDoux, Canadian horticulturist; Alex LaVilla, former buyer for Swanson's Nursery in Seattle and current landscape designer; Del Brummet, head gardener at the Miller feverishly discussing plants.

More wonderful GPP folks - Randall Hitchin, Maurice Horn, my dear friend and former owner of Joy Creek Nursery, and Richie Steffen, executive director of the Miller Botanical Garden.

Deciduous color, ferns and shrubs spill down into the lower garden.

Stairs down from the stone terrace into the lower garden.

Whoa! A mossy path! My favorite. Also Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola' filling in underneath a Stewartia pseudocamellia.

Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola' in a lovely setting of ferns and groundcovers.

The building is likely an outbuilding for the garden and the little area here is used as a greenhouse.

One of many fabulous rhododendrons. No surprise as Rick and Richie both worked for the Rhododendron Species Botanical Gardens.

Across from the building just pictured, more containers and closer view of the gorgeous Stewartia pseudocamellia.

A little walk down the path brings you to the greenhouse and propagation area.

More of the lower garden and probably the flattest part of the five acres.

The lookout deck that was closed for renovation the last time I visited. Puget Sound can just be seen in the background.

Taxus baccata and a new and very elegant railing made of metal.

The lower garden with a lovely Dicksonia antarctica (that they protect in really cold weather). It was time to head to the house for our meeting, I had to wrap it up.

An incredible arctostaphylos, though I don't know which, on the staircase down to the lower garden.

More Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium' foliage

A look back to the stairs by the dining room terrace.

Detail of the autumn decorations, Miller style.

I thought about throwing in the towel for the week and skipping a post, but no. Gardening is what we're about, it's what makes so many of us happy so I will keep writing and photographing gardens as long as I can. While I mourn for our country right now I will still fight the good fight. Maybe while hiding under the covers with a box of cookies but I'll do my best.

Over the Fence Landscape Tours released part 2 of their visit to Chickadee Gardens last month, you can see that video here. Donna and co. do a lovely job and it was especially fun to see the drone footage of the garden, it really puts a new perspective on it all. Thank you Donna for a lovely visit! We look forward to seeing you next spring to see the garden in a different season.

That's a wrap for this week at Chickadee Gardens. As always thank you so much for reading and commenting, we do dearly love hearing from you all and let's face it, sticking together with a shared passion for the natural world will do us all a lot of good. Happy gardening.