My one-of-a-kind bench returns home after more than a decade away
In the early 2000s, I was quite involved in the Seattle gardening scene. I was a design columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a very active garden writer for national magazines, a board member of Northwest Horticultural Society, and board member of Pacific Horticulture Foundation.
In 2001, I learned about a custom garden bench design competition that had been planned in conjunction with the Northwest Flower & Garden Show (now “Festival”) to benefit the Washington Park Arboretum. I shared the call for submissions with my friend Jean Zaputil, who (in my opinion) was the most talented landscape designer in our area. Of course, I was biased because we were longtime friends and Jean had designed a number of features of our Seward Park garden. But I knew she would come up with something gorgeous.
And the resulting design was both gorgeous and charming! Jean designed a garden bench inspired by a vintage flower cart, complete with a scrolled frame, beautiful hand-turned handles, and a set of wheels on one side.
For the subsequent auction, I had the winning bid. I brought the beautiful bench home to our garden. Later, the piece moved to Southern California with our family where it lived in that garden between 2006-2010.
In 2010, we returned to Seattle and lived in a rental house for one year while waiting for the Southern California home to sell, which meant we left a lot of our possessions in storage. I’m a little vague on the circumstances, but at some point, I asked a mutual friend of Jean’s and mine whether she would like to enjoy the bench in her garden for a while. Since she loved Jean’s work as much me, she said “yes.”
Fast-forward to early 2024, and that friend put her home on the market. Since she wasn’t sure if her next place would have a garden, I asked if I could “repatriate” Jean’s bench to our garden.
This unexpected change in venue for Jean’s elegant bench has brought me so much delight! The original weathered steel frame was in good shape, originally fabricated by a local metal shop to Jean’s specifications. The solid cedar handles, also fabricated by an artisan, just needed some sanding, but they looked great.
Unfortunately, the wood seat, which Jean had designed with slats spaced about 1-inch apart, was beginning to fall apart. It’s no surprise, since the piece has been sitting outside in the PNW elements for more than two decades! Enter my brother, Mark Prinzing. I had asked him to help me transport the bench, since he has a pickup truck. Once Mark saw the piece, he suggested that it needed some restoration TLC. In the end, Mark powerwashed the entire bench, and re-built the seat with new lumber. He sanded, stained, and sealed the final project and delivered it to me earlier this spring.
It’s a gem. It’s a family heirloom. I’m so happy to have it back in the Slow Flowers Cutting garden! (and P.S., I will be covering it this winter to keep it dry!)
