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WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM Snoqualmie Valley Record • April 23, 2014 • 11
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A MAGICAL GARDEN
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Your Local Garden Center Since 1999
42328 SE 108th St. North Bend WA 98045Ph: 425-831-2274 • www.thenurseryatmountsi.com
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‘The earth laughs in fl owers’ ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Take $5.00 off
a $25.00 PurchaseMust present coupon
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613536
A MAGICAL GARDEN
DESTINATION
Your Local Garden Center Since 1999
42328 SE 108th St. North Bend WA 98045Ph: 425-831-2274 • www.thenurseryatmountsi.com
Join our online
newsletter!
‘The earth laughs in fl owers’ ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson‘The earth laughs in fl owers’ ‘The earth laughs in fl owers’ ~ Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson
Your Local Garden Center Since 1999Your Local Garden Center Since 1999
Take $5.00 off
a $25.00 PurchaseMust present coupon
Cannot be combined with other offers
Expires 05/31/14
613536
A MAGICAL GARDEN
DESTINATION
Your Local Garden Center Since 1999
42328 SE 108th St. North Bend WA 98045Ph: 425-831-2274 • www.thenurseryatmountsi.com
Join our online
newsletter!
‘The earth laughs in fl owers’ ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Snoqualmie Valley
HOME & GARDENBY SETH TRUSCOTT
Editor
It takes a lot of people and a lot of focus to build a stone church in just five days.
OK, the church may be in miniature—the sanc-tuary can fit perhaps one small visitor—but it’s still real local granite, done much the way its models were built in Ireland 1,000 years ago.
“We laugh about it being a church for a congregation of one,” said Alexandra Morosco, founding co-director of StoneFest, the instruc-tional seminar hosted by Preston’s Marenakos Rock Center for the past decade. “But the design will be true to a style seen in that period.”
Ten years ago, Morosco found-ed StoneFest with co-director and Marenakos owner Scott Hackney as a way to bring stone-workers together. StoneFest annually brings between 75 and 125 craftspeople and enthusiasts to Preston.
For the 10th anniversary, May 12 to 16, the festival brings leaders from many different organizations—non-profits, educational communities and clubs from Scotland,
Ireland, Canada and the United States—all linked to stone. It’s a summit of stoneworkers from many walks of life—builders, carvers, landscapers and instructors in the trade.
The festival “is for anyone who works with stone or has a passion for stone,” Morosco said. “They might be custom-ers who say, ‘I just love putting rocks in my garden. I want
to handle them (better). A lot are in the trade and do this professionally.”
For a week, visitors work and share knowledge. One night, there’s a Stone FEAST, in which work-ers (hopefully) drop their tools for a moment and enjoy food, drink and entertainment together on the grounds at Marenako’s. The cost for a full week is $495, but scholarships or daily passes are available for those on a budget.
Passing on knowledgeToday, stone is thought of as a green material. There’s
less processing and handling of stone than other building materials.
Courtesy Photo
Learning ages-old techniques for building in stone, beehive workers put together a “clochan,” or dry-stacked stone hut for protection from the elements used by monks and herdsmen, at the 2010 StoneFest. The finished clochan, inset, used about 70 tons of stone. StoneFest returns to Preston in May.
Summit of stonePreston’s StoneFest passes on living language of stone workers
SEE STONEFEST, 12
WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM12 • April 23, 2014 • Snoqualmie Valley Record
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But stone isn’t used as widely as it was hundreds of years ago.
“There was a time when lots of people were in the stone trade,” said Morosco. “It was a given that you would work for years as an apprentice before you learned your trade.”
Today, the skills aren’t as prevalent, and they aren’t always something you can learn on YouTube or through books. Stone skills must be handed on in-person before they disappear forever. StoneFest’s mentor and apprenticeship programs help that happen.
Some of the older stoneworkers, men in their 90s, “are amazing, Morosco said. “They know things no one knows about. If we lose these guys before they share the knowledge, it goes with them.”
“These are people that work with their hands and learn with their hands,” she said. “That’s why this is hands-on.”
So, through classroom time, design workshops, and hard work with bare hands and tools, skills are renewed.
“We hope the real results are when they go back home to work,” Morosco said. “If nothing gets built at this event, what’s important is that they learn.
The two major projects happening at this year’s StoneFest include both the miniature church and a castle rampart, to be built up between six and ten feet high.
The festival requires up to 70 tons of stone. Stone blocks fetch between $300 to $600 a ton, so it’s a sizeable investment from the festival’s sponsors. All the visi-tors, the projects and activity show off that stone to strong effect.
“It does put Marenako’s on the map (as) one of the most extraordinary stone-yards in the country,” said Morosco.
Some of the best StoneFest creations become permanent attractions, such as the 2010 clochan, or monk’s stone cell, or the portrait arch. Stone craftspeople can come back with clients and show them
their finished projects anytime.Besides construction, another big
aspect of the festival is carving. There is an emphasis on hand tools, but power tools are allowed for those who work harder stone
Some of the craftspeople at StoneFest work on their own projects, and end up bringing their worked block of stone home with them. Others put their effort into a group project—a carved portrait arch from a past StoneFest permanently memorializes that team task.
“We connect people to stone,” Morosco said. “We also connect people
to people. StoneFest creates a network that helps people gather knowledge and experience, so they have the confidence to do work.”
“We’ve always had a connection to stone,” she said. “We’ve had this long, deep resonance.... That’s why we walk on a beach and pick up pebbles.”
The festival helps make stone more user-friendly for beginners, and deepens experts’ relationship with this age-old material.
“By being around it, and sharing ideas, it brings people the confidence to work with stone,” Morosco said.
Spring clean-up with safety in mind
As spring approaches thoughts turn to cleaning up our yards from the long winter months, making repairs around the home, and enjoying the outdoors. Keeping a few safety thoughts in mind will help make your spring experience more enjoyable.Eastside Fire and Rescue offers the following tips to ensure your home is made safer as well as spic and span this spring.
Visible home addressingCan emergency personnel find your home in the dark of the night? Is your driveway clearly marked? If you are like many people in rural King County, your address may be on a group mailbox, but your driveway may not have any address marking. This can cause a delay when emer-gency responders are trying to locate your home. Properly posting your address sign will help responders locate your home more quickly when minutes count during an emergency situation.
Keeping the hydrant visibleAre hanging tree branches and shrubs blocking the view of the hydrant in front from your home? Fire hydrants are a critical element in providing fire protection to a community. It is important for emer-gency responders to be able to see the hydrant easily from the street. Eastside Fire & Rescue requires a three-foot clear space be maintained around the circumference of the fire hydrant. Do not customize the fire hydrant in your lawn. Fire personnel need working space around the hydrant.
Road accessIn an emergency, a few minutes or even seconds can make a difference to your safety. Can fire equipment such as an engine or aid car access your road or driveway to your home? Parked cars blocking driveways, large trees, shrubs and other vegetation hampering access needs to be maintained. Road widths cannot be less than 20 feet, and vertical clearance not less than 13 feet, six inches.Put yourself in the place of an emergency responder and safely step out onto the curb in front of your home. Is your address marked and clearly visible? If not, it may affect the time it takes for emergency personnel to locate your home in the event of an emergency situa-tion. This spring clean-up should include a safety minded approach by checking the visibility of your home address.• Learn more about safety at eastsidefire-rescue.org.
STONEFEST FROM 11
StoneFest seminarsStoneFest shares skill and knowledge of the stone trade. Visitors work as a community for five intense days. This year’s projects include:• Elements of Sacred Space: An Early Irish Church: Visitors build a small-scale church • Every Man’s Home is His Castle: Participants build a scaled down castle rampart with dry stone talus, small towers or turrets and a pyramid spur. This will be an advanced project involving setting out geometry and merging shapes to challenge the experienced mason.• Richard Rhodes, of Rhodesworks Design Studio and Rhodes Architectural Stone will be offering two workshops, a Design Charrette and Presentation workshopTo learn more, visit stonefest.org/stonefest2014/stonefest-2014-catalog/.
Courtesy photo
At StoneFest, Nicholas Fairplay demonstrates carving on a memorial a participant designed for her beloved lost pets
WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM Snoqualmie Valley Record • April 23, 2014 • 13
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Snoqualmie ValleyBEST OF 2014
Voted “Best in the Valley”
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BY SETH TRUSCOTTEditor
With spring in full swing, color comes quickly
to the grounds of North Bend’s Nursery at Mount Si.
So staff are hard at work to keep the plants, and the knowl-edge, growing and spreading to customers.
“It’s showtime in the garden business,” says owner Nels Melgaard, who’s at the cen-ter of the activity.
This month, their pro-duction greenhouses become retail houses, where shoppers can browse among the hundreds of plants, ground covers, grasses, hos-tas, sages, peonies, sedums, choosing form and color.
Meanwhile, at center stage—the nursery’s retail barn—trays of veggies and edibles mix with colorful annuals—petunias, pan-sies— that have been popu-lar with the arrival of spring. Soil and amendments, fer-tilizers and organic pest control await to help ready the ground, and a selection of bird feeders, birdhouses and hummingbird feeders sit nearby to tempt feath-ered visitors.
Outside, an aisle of trees are sheltered from the last of winter’s winds. Flowering shrubs are coming into their glory. As spring progresses, roses enter the mix.
Veggie gardensFood that you can grow is the big
thing right now, says Melgaard, who nurtures clients’ interest in home orchards and vegetable gardens.
“There are a lot of people just grow-ing food,” he said, “gardening, pro-ducing and involving their children. People are concerned about their food. They want to grow their own.”
At the same time, the moment
is right to start composting and building your soil.
“There’s definitely planting going in, but there’s a lot of soil preparation, a lot of additions or organic amend-ments,” Melgaard said. “It’s like the foundation you build a house on. You have to invest, and put energy into the ground, so that it will reward you throughout the season.”
Seth Truscott/Staff Photo
Helping grow your garden: Nursery at Mount Si staff Nels Melgaard, Carlos Gomez, Jose Larios and Kate Herlihy pack colored baskets and annuals in the retail barn. Below, spring blooms and colorful pots on the grounds.Showtime in the garden
Season’s changes on display at North Bend’s Nursery at Mount Si
SEE SHOWTIME, 14
WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM14 • April 23, 2014 • Snoqualmie Valley Record
The nursery started out years ago as an organic farm, so it takes the healthy approach very seriously, starting with the soil.
“We evolved from a certi-fied organic farm. We didn’t know a lot about chemicals, and we tried to learn as little as possible,” Melgaard said.
All soils at The Nursery at Mount Si are inoculated with life-giving or living materials, such as organic bonemeal, worm castings or old-fash-ioned manure. Melgaard said every measurement shows that beneficial soils mean healthier plants.
Making it easyA big, particolored koi
ambles past a shoal of gold-fish and up to nursery staff member Kate Herlihy, look-ing for a handout.
The pond is one of the centerpieces of the Nursery, and is surrounded by rock-ery, statues, and hundreds of colorful pots, all meant to inspire creativity in your own garden.
The Nursery gets new life every spring. The pond, sheds and grounds here all have a new look and differ-ent products for 2014.
“Lots of new products,” said Herlihy.
Greeting customers is
a new and popular item: Raised cedar planters that bring beds off the ground to table height. For gardeners who don’t need all the bend-ing down, deer, slugs and pests, they can bring plants up to your level.
“These are very well built,” Melgaard said. “We’ve sold through one batch already.”
Christine’s creationsChristine Earl, the nurs-
ery’s manager and head
buyer, readies hanging bas-kets and containers at the rear of one of the green-
houses. Her creations are custom-made to the needs of clients, and are an easy way to bring a professional touch to your deck or patio.
Customers, who often turn into repeat customers, simply bring her their con-tainers, and she brings them to life.
Earl helps complement the plants with a hand-picked selection of garden art and furniture, water features, planters, trees and shrubs, all with an eye for helping people enjoy the outdoors and green, grow-ing things.
“We can help you set up a living garden space,” Earl said. “Every bit of it—all the furniture you will need, earth-friendly pesticides, soils.”
• The Nursery at Mount Si is located at 42328 N.E. 12th St., North Bend; call the nursery at (425) 831-2274 or visit www.thenurs-eryatmountsi.com.
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Don’t let summer droughts stop you from gardeningBY MELINDA MYERS
Contributing Writer
No matter where you live, being a waterwise gardener makes environ-mental and economic sense. And it’s really easier than you think.Here are just a few of the easy and affordable ways to conserve water while growing a beautiful garden.Grow plants suited to your climate, and this includes the average rainfall for your area. Select drought tolerant plants that, once established, require less on-going care. Consider native plants like coneflower, yucca and penstemon as well as native and non-invasive ornamental grasses.Be sure to group moisture-loving plants together and near a source of water. You’ll save time and water by concentrating your efforts on fewer plants. Move containers to the shade or provide additional shade during hot dry weather to reduce the plant’s water needs.Use organic nitrogen fertilizers like Milorganite (milorganite.com). This slow release fertilizer encourages slow steady growth that requires less water. Plus, it will not burn plants during hot dry weather. It simply stays in the soil until the growing conditions, moisture and temperature are right for the plants.Install a rain barrel or two to capture rain for watering in-ground and container gardens. Or place a rain barrel near your garden and collect rain directly from the sky. Use this water to supplement your garden’s mois-ture needs during drought. Decorate or mask the barrels with vines, decorative fencing, containers, or nearby plantings. And check with your local municipality as several states and communities have banned rain harvesting on private prop-erty.Use soaker hoses and drip irrigation to save water by applying the water directly to the soil where it is needed. Consider connecting your rain bar-rel to a soaker hose in a nearby garden. Just open the spigot and allow gravity to slowly empty the water throughout the day. Check to make sure water is evenly distributed throughout the garden.And always water thoroughly and less frequently to encourage deep, drought-tolerant roots. Add a layer of organic mulch like shredded leaves, evergreen needles or herbicide-free grass clippings to conserve moisture and keep roots cool. As these break down, they add organic matter to the soil improving the water holding ability of sandy and rocky soils.Allow lawns to go dormant during droughts. Apply ¼ inch of water every three to four weeks during extended droughts. This keeps the crown of the plant alive while the grass remains dormant. Do not apply weed kill-ers and minimize foot and equipment traffic on dormant lawns.Incorporate one or more of these techniques to your garden care this season. You’ll conserve water while creating healthier and more attrac-tive gardens.
SHOWTIME FROM 13
Seth Truscott/Staff Photo
Mount Si overlooks the nursery’s water feature and stage.
