Crystal’s Rhododendrons

Looking down onto the beautiful bridge from the entrance of the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden.

Before May is out, I wanted to post some May scenes. My calendar has been packed and I have folders of unreviewed photos for y’all, and I’m planning multiple posts. The approach of the end of the month has me motivated to keep photos of blooming flowers at least somewhat in the right time frame.

Pedro, Andre, Liam, heading for the bridge in the photo above. You can tell the other people are locals by the purple and pink hair, ha ha!

Anyhow!! If you are in the Portland area, you may have heard of the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. It’s an outstanding day out with room for picknicking and opportunities to see ducks and nutrias as well as lots of city back yard birds and squirrels. It is a place where families go, and the vibe is always what you hope for. And the price is low enough to make you think they use the money just to take care of the garden, not to get wealthy.

The bridge that makes it into every promotional shot for the garden.

The down side to the Rhododendron Garden is not even that bad: the season for Rhodies is the rainy season. If you go in the rain, you’ll still see lovely flowers, and there will be less people. So maybe it’s a bonus!

Below the bridge is one of the first water features.

The view across the water that the people in the photo above are looking at.

Standing on the low hill looking directly back toward the entrace (you can barely pick out the bridge)

In my opinion, cloudy days can make colours show up better, so I was fine with the day we went. There had been a lot of rain, but that Saturday morning the rain was supposed to let up. The twins were with us, and after breakfast we drove through light rain and actually got a little rain on us in the first half an hour. We are from the Pacific Northwest, and this kind of rain doesn’t bother us, so we didn’t bring hats or umbrellas or anything.

The garden really does focus on rhododendrons and azaleas throughout.

The yellows and oranges are less common than pinks.

I particularly like them when the colour is less common.

There is a lot of water and quiet places to sit and take it in.

But you won’t find me disappointed in the pinks!

There are curated views that remind me of how intentionally a Japanese garden is arranged.

I enjoy most the winding paths to take visitors beneath and beside and behind the flowering shrubs.

A path near the largest lake, toward the far end of the park.

A second bridge allowed us to spot a lot of critters in the water.

It was fun to capture this scene of a nutria and some ducks passing each other.

The nutria captured the interest of many visitors, pleased to be able to tell their neighbors, “No, it’s not a beaver, it’s a nutria!”

I enjoyed spotting the unusual flowering displays too, like those above.

Farthest away from the entrance are the oldest plants, where rhododendrons grow like trees and the flowers tower into the sky. The gardeners here do a great job with keeping the scenes below inviting, by cultivating curving strong trunks.

My favourite section is in the oldest part of the garden.

A dedication marker explains in poetic prose the origin story of this place. Hopefully you can click on the image and enlarge the photo.

Pedro and me in front of one of the rhododendrons mentioned on the plaque. Beside it looks like a flowering dogwood tree.

Near the end of our exploration, I began taking zoomed in photos, to try and show how extraordinary the blossoms are up close.

I love that Pedro has made it into a family tradition that we always go for a walk when the boys are with us. They would both choose to be curled up at home with headphones and a screen, but their dad insists. It has been like this for so long now that they don’t even protest when he says, “It’s time to go!” They just sigh and start putting on their shoes.

I have roses like this, with a blend of orange, pink, and yellow.

When we were ready to leave, the sun came out, as promised. I asked the boys to wait for me while I tried another shot of the bridge in sunshine.

When I came back up the steps, this is the scene I saw. I thought it was hilarious. I guess everyone had their fill of flowers at this point.

That could be the end of the story, but we got home and I looked out the window and realized how lucky we are to have an extraordinary garden right in our back yard.

There in the very back are our own rhododendrons and azaleas.

Two of the four large rhododendrons in our back yard.

The following photos are from different times in May, so you will see different weather and different stages of growth. It’s all so beautiful and we are the luckiest people. All of these are from our very own garden:

There is a gorgeous coral-coloured azalea inside the chicken pen. The girls probably don’t appreciate it as much as I do.

I stood on my tippie toes and held my phone over my head to get this shot, because the azalea is 8 feet high. I am hoping that with years of natural fertilizer and consistent watering, this azalea will get healthier. It already looks much better than it did last year before we moved the chickens here.

The rhododendrons are behind our rose garden. You can see the chicken pen in the back.

The photo above shows our new rock path. Pedro built the path and I have been working on the steps. This is the view from the side window of my back yard office.

Now you see reasons why I call us lucky to live here.