Photos by Susan Mertz.
In the Garden at Jewell Gardens
Susan Mertz
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ext stop: Gold Mining My husband arrived in Skagway with thoughts of a gold rush reality show. Quickly into a tourist stop in Skagway, Alaska, he realized the allure of gold mining as portrayed in the brochure on the cruise ship wasn’t going to pan out in real life. We told the driver that we were going to skip rest of the bus tour and we headed to town on foot to explore on our own. The road took us to Jewell Gardens. Obviously, I hadn’t done my homework prior to boarding the
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March 2015 | kcgmag.com
cruise ship. I thought an Alaskan cruise was going to be all about seeing glaciers and mountains. We did and the views were extraordinary! However, there is so much more to see, including some beautiful gardens. Jewell Gardens was one of my favorites. The setting with the backdrop of a mountain may be part of the reason. The bright and bold colors in the garden are probably the main reason. A combination garden and glassblowing studio, Jewell Gardens shares many plants in common with our Midwest gardens. Jewell Gardens has daisies, columbine, roses, lady’s mantle, petunias, snapdragons, nasturtiums, junipers and spruce. Better than that, they also have Hungarian blue poppies, forget me nots, and delphiniums that actually thrive. I fell in love with orange globeflowers and their combination in the garden with blue delphiniums. I’ll
never be able to grow either one successfully since they both require rich, moist soil. My gardening style is more about neglect. Giving visitors a garden to table experience, production gardens are also on the property and provide some of the ingredients for items served in the Jewell Gardens’ restaurant. Herbed cream cheese with edible flowers. Yum! Unlike any produce garden I have seen in my ‘former spinach capital of the world’ hometown, their gardens have beautiful blown glass adorning the ceiling of a hoop house. On our walk back to town, we passed a charming log cabin with a pretty flower garden. For a fleeting moment, I thought about how wonderful it would be to live there and grow things I can’t grow in Kansas. And, to take pictures of flowers in light that isn’t as harsh as ours. However, the snowcapped mountains in the background brought
me back to reality. I would love the long days but would hate the short season. Final stop: Skagway Brewing Company, Spruce Tip Blonde Ale With the temperatures in the upper 80’s, we were parched from our journey and wanted to try a pint of Spruce Tip Blonde Ale. Unfortunately, too many others off the cruise ship had the same idea and got there ahead of us. They were sold out of the spruce tip ale but had Boulevard Wheat on tap. We discovered our bars have something in common too. Jewell Gardens, Klondike Highway, Skagway, Alaska Open daily May 5 through September 29 Susan Mertz, Garden Writer and Director of Marketing at Loma Vista Nursery. Join her for tours and photographs of gardens at inthegarden.buzz