Throughout history, the sun has been the source of natural light and heat to sustain life for all living beings. Humans, plants, flowers, and animals all depend on the sun for food, for warmth, for health, for energy, and also for creating beauty.

My current body of work uses this power of the sun to create beauty. I select and arrange botanical specimens and expose them to the sun by using different photographic processes. For example, the chlorophyll print process uses the sunlight to activate photosynthesis in the leaf to then “develop” the photographic image onto the leaf. This is a unique collaboration between the sun, the leaf, and the photographer. Another example is the lumen print process. The botanicals are placed on photographic paper and exposed to the sun for hours, which then produce a whole different set of colors of the specimen, not ordinarily seen.

The exhibit is open during library  hours July 2-30. Meet the artist at a reception Monday, July 8 from 5 to 7 pm.

Above, Carl English is greeted by Mayor Wes Uhlman and speaks at the 1974 dedication of the garden at the Ballard Locks, while Betty Miller looks on.

Question: Do you have any materials written by Elisabeth Miller? I work at the Carl S. English, Jr. Botanical Garden at the Ballard Locks, and I’m interested in comparing her approach to gardening with Carl English’s. Carl did not write much about his work, and I’m curious if I can learn more about him from other people’s work.

I want to learn more about Carl’s guiding ideas about horticulture so in the future we can continue to cultivate a garden that he could still recognize. I’m trying to pin down some concrete guidelines on what and how we add to the botanical collection here in the garden. The more information I have about and from Carl, the better I hope to answer this question.

It’s also interesting to juxtapose Betty and Carl’s careers and outputs. It helps me place his actions in the context of what was going on horticulturally during their working careers.

Answer: The two plant-lovers had very different approaches to gardening and life.

Betty (1914-1994) was an activist and advocate for public gardens and green space in the city, but her primary garden was and remains inside a gated community. As far as I know she never ran a business of any kind, although she worked with local nonprofit groups and believed in horticultural education. She was active in the Garden Club of America and the American Horticultural Society. One of her proud accomplishments was raising $40,000 for a comprehensive approach to planting the Lake Washington Ship Canal, a project that brought her into collaboration with the Army Corps of Engineers.

We have in our archives here several things Betty Miller wrote for publication:

• V. 53 issue 2, 1974, American Horticulturist article “Why Green Turns Brown.”
• Winter 1978 Arboretum Bulletin article “Challenge to Maintain the Green Scene.”
• 10/1979,  American Forests magazine issue with article “Seattle’s Freeway Park” by Betty Miller.
• Summer 1982, “The Roots of the N.O.H.S,” by Betty Miller, reprinted from Horticulture Northwest.
• 1982 Puget Soundings article “There is Always a Garden.”
• Her chapter from Rosemary Verey’s 1984 book, The American Woman’s Garden, where she writes about her garden.

There is also an interesting list of biographical data on Betty Miller that I would guess she wrote herself in the late 80s or early 90s.

A 1996 article by David Laskin in the Seattle Weekly gets into more detail about Betty’s personality. So does Ted Marston’s remembrance of her from the Autumn 1994 Garden Notes (a Northwest Horticultural Society publication). He spoke with Mareen Kruckeberg, Dick Brown, Steve Lorton, Michael Lynn and others about their memories of Betty.

Carl (1904-1976) moonlighted with his nursery business, and of course the gardens named for him at the Locks are a beloved public institution. He participated in plant exchanges with arboreta around the world and joined plant societies worldwide, including the American Horticultural Society, the Scottish Rock Garden Club, the Alpine Garden Society of England, and others. Native plants of this region were also of interest to him and his wife Edith; they botanized and contributed specimens to herbaria. On a personal level, he was said to be outdoorsy, friendly, and a valued member of groups. He gave lectures and led field trips to the mountains.

In our archives, you can read this article by Carl English:

• Summer 1972, “The Garden at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle,” American Horticulturist, 3 pp.

He may have written the promotional text from the 1962 and 1969 garden brochures we have, as well. Here is a piece about him during his lifetime:

• 9/1957, “Plantsmen in Profile, Carl S. English Jr.” by William J. Dress, rpt. from “Baileya,” 6 pp. (reprinted in Horticulture Northwest, vol. 11, no. 4, 1984 with a different picture of Carl)

We also have obituaries and remembrances of him.

HistoryLink has articles that may interest you. This is their perspective on Carl S. English, Jr. HistoryLink also hosts this article, where Art and Mareen Kruckeberg count both Betty and Carl among their friends.

This is an excerpt. Read the whole story in our Knowledgebase.

This summer, find inspiration for your food-growing projects in the city. Check out an array of Urban Farming resources, on display near the library's large reclaimed wood table.