The Toepfler garden in Klipsan Beach neighbourhood. Large. Gardened by CPNs (Certified Plant Nuts.) Seems to me to be planted for drought tolerance. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I toured it twice, one on June 6th with Patti, and again on the Music in the Gardens tour day. It is one of my favourite gardens, not only of the Peninsula tour but of the many garden tours I’ve attended over the years.
Ok, enough tantalizing peeks through the fence (which is in itself enough to make this a favourite garden of all time); let’s go inside.
Now, supposing we had entered the driveway gate, we would turn left and see this path:
Walking down the path, we find a wooden sculpture. I never would have guessed what this is: A deconstructed whiskey barrel planter!
And past that…Oh! a purple horse!
While art created by the garden owners creates a buzz throughout the garden, it also abounds in good plants.
Turning right from the driveway entrance, we find another horse sculpture.
This garden is not about lush plantings covering all of the soil. Each plant tends to be featured on its own and set off with found objects and, in this case, a mulch of small stone. It’s a style different from what usually makes me swoon, but swoon I did throughout this fascinating landscape.
Coming around the house into the back we found, indeed, music in the garden.
It was magical.
The north side of the garden is backed with a neighbour’s woods, creating a peaceful borrowed view. To the west side of the house stands the pièce de résistance of the garden’s sculptures, this one created by the owners from big spools that are used to lay cable. I think the spools were acquired from a cable tv installing storage facility…or something like that. They were not easy to transport. With some bicycle wheels, they have become a one of a kind…arbour? gazebo?
Here is one of those gardens that keeps one going around and around to check everything out for a second or third time. And one that stays clearly in my mind as one of the ideal landscapes. A good lesson: Not every vertical object needs to have a plant clambering over it. And look at every found object with an artist’s eye, and, more to the point, use it. The garden did not feel at all cluttered with things, nor was there anywhere to be seen a pile of rusted unused ingredients.
Oh, love it! I want to visit this someday!
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[…] pleased to find Kent and Betsy Toepfer there, along with Jan Richardson of Windy Meadows Pottery. The Toepfer garden was one of my favourites on a past Music in the Gardens […]
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