Bob Lilly - Plantsman of Tenas Chuck

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Tenas Chuck, 2331 Fairview bursts into bloom each spring, and the extravaganza lasts until autumn. Bob Lilly is responsible for the lush collection of unusual plants. Many in the Floating Homes Community know Bob Lilly as the author of, Lilly Pad a regular column in the FHA newsletter. But few know the real man behind the potted plants on Tenas Chuck.

Bob Lilly Photo by Marilyn Robertson

Bob Lilly is a Seattle native. Born at Swedish Hospital, he grew up in Laurelhurst, went to local schools and left to attend Washington State University to study Botany. At the end of the first year Bob switched to Fine Arts. He specialized in painting, primarily abstract landscapes. He doesn’t paint much today, but still does pen and ink drawings. During high school and college, he worked summers at Anhalt’s nursery in the University Village. After graduation, he joined the nursery staff full time. “Most people who paint have to work at something else to make a living. For me the something else became all consuming.”

Ned Wells, who Bob met at Anhalt’s, opened Wells Medina Nursery. A year later Bob joined the staff. His training was on the job. “When I was at Wells Medina the average stay was nine years. We all knew our stuff really, really well because we had to answer every possible question people could come up with. I had been doing that for two years before I joined Wells. Ned had been answering questions for seven years at Anhalt’s.”

Bob remained at Wells Medina for 17 years. He was a sales person and grew perennials. When he started they produced 5 to 6 thousand perennials per year on site for sales there. It was pretty common for nurseries to produce on site but urban sprawl changed everything. Property prices skyrocketed and it became impossible for independent nurseries to remain big producers. Today most retail nurseries buy plants from small specialty nurseries. “At Wells, I began cultivating growers because the change was coming.” When he started at Wells there weren’t any grasses, hostas or many perennials we now consider commonplace. Bob began growing these unavailable plants but as soon as he found a grower, he would go on to more obscure, unusual plants.

In 1989, he left Wells to work for The Herb Farm. Bob was the nursery manager and grew herbs and perennials for sale and he installed their perennial border. He remained for two years, leaving to join a plant wholesale business. Today, Bob is a plant broker and sales representative. He sells bare root perennial plugs. “I’m no different from the broker and sales rep who sells office supplies except, I sell live goods.” Everything is ‘drop shipped’ meaning it is shipped directly from grower to customer. Bob also does design work, landscape and consulting. He is an Arboretum volunteer and one of the crew leaders for the Northwest Perennial Alliance caring for the Bellevue Botanical Garden Perennial Border, a project he was involved in from the beginning. After two years preparation, the Border was installed in 1990 and opened in 1991.

Why does a man so interested in gardening live in a houseboat? “I needed a place to live! When I started working at Wells Medina I wanted a place easy to care for. I didn’t want a garden because I knew I’d be exhausted at the end of each day.” One October in the early 1970s he found his houseboat. “My house was just a little fisherman’s cabin. Built in 1927.” It was a houseboat with several very small additions. Bob’s only addition is a porch. The house had stringers replaced in the 80s but, “I think I’m on my third deck!”

Bob laughs when he recalls how he almost sold the houseboat in that first month. “It was a stormy October. I was working every day at Wells. I remember being dizzy all the time. It was excruciating. I was dizzy for three weeks. On the 21st day the dizziness stopped and has never returned.”

“How did I get garden tenancy of several houseboats? It all started with Alpha McClung. She lived in the houseboat next to me.” She was getting older so he began helping with watering but gradually took over. With Tom and Peggy Stockley’s house Bob would water while they were away and added a pot or two. Several houseboats were rentals so Bob watered those planters and added more planters. Some houseboaters, like Jan Knutson asked Bob to grow plants for them. “One thing led to another. It just grew like Topsy!”

But Bob is not confined to houseboat gardens. He has access to a friend’s garden at a small Green Lake house. “That garden has a sprinkler system so I visit it one day a month to give it my attention. It’s a typical nightmare Seattle yard with morning glory growing from two neighboring yards!”

Bob isn’t interested in a land house because “there is a tremendous amount of light on the water. I produce plants here I can’t grow elsewhere. It’s milder on the water, so tender plants survive. When you walk down our dock you see things you’ve never seen anywhere. That’s because I’m growing plants that are marginally hardy.” His involvement with NW Perennial Alliance Seed Exchange, dedicated to conserving rare plants, allows Bob to grow any number of unusual plants.

He developed a liking for travel through Florence Yerxa. Florence taught a ‘Summer in Greece’ program at Bellevue Community College. One year, she wanted to take a group of Tenas Chuck houseboaters to Greece. So Bob, Cynthia Moffitt, Tom and Peggy Stockley, Florence and several other Tenas Chuck residents, a total of eight people, ended up in a van on a tour of Athens, the Peloponnese and the island of Skiros. Florence had been drawn to Skiros because the British poet, Rupert Brooke is buried there. Bob, Tom and Peggy continued to visit Skiros after Florence was no longer able to travel. Bob takes ‘busman’s holidays’, visiting British gardens on two-week bus tours. He made an agriculture-focused trip to India and in 2000 he attended seed trials in Holland and visited a giant garden show the Dutch put on every 10 years.

As if he doesn’t have enough to keep him busy, Bob has co-authored a book on Perennials titled Perennials: A Gardeners Reference by Kerry Becker, Susan Carter and Bob Lilly. Look for it in the first half of 2007.