Long Beach Peninsula Garden Tour:
Nahcotta Rhododendron Garden
When Robert and I first moved to the Peninsula on Christmas eve of 1992, we soon heard of a nursery called Hall’s Gardens, owned by Don and Marva Hall. Over the next few years we stopped by there a number of times, drawn by the walk around the large pond, the rock garden of interesting small plants, many new to me, and the nursery offerings. In my garden today grow two large ‘Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick’ contorted filberts originally purchased from Hall’s.
When Hall’s went up for sale, we heard that Dan Hinkley of Heronswood toured the property but decided too much of it was wetland without enough room for propagation houses. Would that Heronswood had moved to the Peninsula…I had already been mail ordering from them since their beginning…what a joy that would have been!
Then Hall’s disappeared into obscurity for me until a couple of years ago when I heard that it had been purchased and the garden renovated by Gary Ayers and Daniel Drinkard. So for it to be on the Music in the Garden tour caused me considerable excitement.
(Below) The gardens around the house are rich in detail…the decorative stepping stones inside the entry arch and a deep blue glossy urn backed with bamboo
…and a fountain pond on the way to the front door…..
The house, for sale again, was open for touring but I was pretty much drawn straight through from the front door to the veranda with its view of the pond. Now here’s a pond you could take a small boat out on.
the deck overlooking the pond
Maybe the metal sign saying “SIMPLIFY” is one reason the house and garden is for sale. I would imagine it requires considerable work, but if we were about $200,000 dollars richer it is work we would gladly take on. (Allan has two small boats, and there is that pond….)… As it is, our having no mortgage provides much freedom from financial stress…and yet, that pond!! Ours is a wee puddle in comparison, a mere muddy dewdrop.
(left) looking from the shady verandah out to the pond and (right) from the other side of the pond back to the house.
With over 8 acres there’s so much to see. The back end of the property is swamp which may be innaccessible, but the one half acre pond itself still has a soft mossy path wandering all around it.
views of the pond
The pond, the pond, sigh, the glorious pond. I am sure every gardener who toured the place dreamed of owning it. I suppose I would rather own my tiny bit of paradise than be in thrall to a mortgage on a bigger one, but I do hope an avid gardener buys the place. I’ll imagine myself there often!
Thanks to Patti Jacobsen for putting on a wonderful tour and to all the Peninsula residents who opened their gardens.
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