Ohme Gardens

The nice person at the Enzian Inn who checked us in recommended some sites around the Leavenworth area. One of the things she recommended was the Ohme gardens. Never being ones to pass up a garden, we headed off on Thursday morning to Wentachee to tour the garden. I neglected to mention in my post on Leavenworth that it's quite HOT there - the temps were above 90 both days, so we decided that a morning garden ramble would be best.



Herman Ohme and his wife, Ruth, had 40 acres of land, which included a craggy, dry, desolate, rock-strewn bluff with a breath-taking view of the snow-capped Cascade Mountains and the Wentachee Valley. They decided to create a garden of florishing alpine meadows, pools, and shady evergreen pathways. They begain to create that garden. Small evergreens were transplanted, native stone was hauled to form paths and borders, low-growing ground cover was planted, and pools were created next to massive natural rock formations. It was hard work, done mostly by hand over a 42 year period, when Mr. Ohme died. His son maintained the gardens till 1991, at which time they were given to Chelan County.



These gardens are indeed built on craggy hillsides, and are not accessible for strollers or wheel chairs, which is too bad, but it would destroy the gardens to make them accessible. We walked up and down many, many stone steps, but it was absolutely worth it - beautiful and peaceful, as only gardens can be.

Starting off - you can see the stone steps leading up the hill.

There were lots of stone benches all throughout the gardens, for sitting and enjoying the scenery.

Here's a view from one of the lookout spots. Sadly, today you see lots of industry, but you can imagine what the Ohme's must have seen. From this spot, you are looking at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia rivers.

One of the many ponds, along the rocky walkway.

You can see a lookout to the right of the picture.

A cooling waterfall.

And a pond, with water falling into it.

Another beautiful shot

You can see the Alpine feel of this place

Another rock sitting place.

We had a great time here! We saw pictures of the gardens in springtime, when all of the spring flowers were in bloom, and we would love to see it then, as well.

On the way we passed through a little town called Cashmere - I could just visualize some pioneer naming the town that because his wife was pining for cashmere that she could no longer get! We decided to stop there on our way back through Leavenworth and back to Val and Daves.