Holly in Seward Park

In 1922 Edgar Blair, former Seattle Public School architect and editor of the Washington State Architect, wrote “…we are losing the wonderful beauty for which our Western Washington has become so famous…” (WSA August 1922) Edgar was lamenting the “wanton destruction” of fern and huckleberry stripped for holiday foliage. Similarly, the Evergreen Club wrote a letter to Governor Roland Hartley asking that the “…native huckleberry…be protected against wholesale cutting.” (The Seattle Times October 30, 1930)

A solution to the destruction was to plant holly.

By all means the holly should be given a good start for reproducing itself in our woods. This climate is the natural one for the holly. It will grow and spread luxuriantly if given a chance. There is no reason why our woods should not be thickly studded with holly trees, which could be made the source of a very considerable income in this section. (WSA April 1924)

And along came an organization, the Washington State Society for the Preservation of Wildflowers and Native Trees, whose purpose seemed to be the spread of holly – never mind that holly is not native to the Pacific Northwest. The Society urged that “berries from wreaths and decoration and tree be saved and planted.” The Seattle Times (Dec 14, 1930) encouraged a project by “Juniors of the (Society)…to design and plant a conservation garden…hedged about with holly.” The newspaper sponsored a contest “seeking the most perfect of all the many holly trees in this, the Christmas state,” all to further the “…end that as this state’s own natural shrubs inevitably disappear, the holly may take their place and Washington may still be known as the Christmas State.” (TST February 1, 1931) In the same year the Seattle Times was pleased to note that “holly, consigned by the ton…will leave by express…(to) supply the growing market for Northwest-produced Christmas decorations.” (December 13, 1931)

One of the few words of caution over the “effort to fill the forests with holly,” (WSA April 1929) likely penned by Mary A. Blair, Managing Editor of the WSA after Edgar’s death, warned that “in the south where holly has taken over all else is destroyed, besides which a trip through the woods is impossible.” (op cit) Mary Blair ventures that her editorial con holly would not have appeared but for the warning of Director Eric J. Barnes of the Department of Agriculture that the “…beautification of highways with Scotch Broom…is destructive of land for other purposes.” (op cit)

Jacob Umlauff, Head Gardener from l914-1941 and de facto Park Superintendent for many of those years was reported by the Times happily planting holly in Seward Park in 1930 in keeping with the “ideas and accomplishments” of the Washington State Society for the Conservation of Wildflowers and Native Trees.

He recalled the holly berries which Seattle children saved at Christmas time and which he planted in a special spot in Seward Park. “There is a regular holly berry kindergarten out there now where those berries have sprouted into little trees,” he chuckled. (TST March 9, 1930)

By 1936 the Washington Sate Society for the Preservation of Wildflowers and Native Trees seems to have embraced the idea that its name would indicate more than a passing interest in flora other than holly. Mrs. Alexander McEwan, President of the Society, wrote a letter to the Park Board desiring to “express the Conservationist’s viewpoint” relative to the controversy brought about by the efforts of the Park Department and the WPA both in removing trees for the second grouping of ten ponds for the fish hatchery and in the restoration of an adjacent area subject to windthrow from the 1934 storm:

Seward Park was originally purchased as a Woodland Park…well covered with a growth of virgin forest, shrubs and flowers as an example of our native forest…Step by step…its natural beauty has been encroached upon and only now, with the recent clearing of trees, this fact abruptly brings us to the realization that Seward as a Woodland Park is gone forever. (Letter April 1, 1936)

Written on April Fools Day, McEwans’ claim to the Conservationist viewpoint begs the question of why the Society was nowhere to be found in opposing the proposed bridge from Seward park to Mercer Island, and how the Society provided a rationale to Jacob Umlauff for planting holly at Seward Park. Although the opposition Umlauff faced in the tree cutting controversy was mainly, if not only, united around the need to protect the “trees of any size” (Ben Paris, letter to the Park Board April 17, 1936) Paris, the former State Game Commissioner who helped lay out the first ten fish rearing ponds, “censured the grubbing up of the native underbrush and the planting of ‘nature-faking’ perennials not native to this country.” (TST April 15, 1936) But the contretemps soon blew over and Umlauff is remembered by C. T. Conover as having “transformed and improved vastly” (TST July 31, 1952) Seward Park. Which is a view at least partially framed by rows of Lombardy Poplars and infested with thickets of holly.