Our garden on tour: front garden

Walk with me from one end to the other of our garden (in two or three parts) on Music in the Gardens tour day, July 21, 2012.  (The 2013 tour of Peninsula gardens will be on July 20th.)  In my previous post, I said we had about 300 people touring it, but I was wrong (and will correct it); we had more like 500!  While we took some photos during the tour, these were taken in the morning and evening of tour day.

looking east from my neighbour’s driveway

(above) From our neighbour’s driveway, the garden looked perfectly inviting.

(below) the corner by our garage with garbage can as water collection barrel

in our driveway

in front of the house

east corner of house with detail of Allan’s sign

(Allegedly there WAS a battle in the city council when the previous owner of our property wanted to install a double wide manufactured home among the historic houses.  Clearly, she prevailed.)

Some folks entered from our neighbour’s side and some through the front gate.

by the front gate

Those who entered by the front could look west down the other entry path.  The ones who walked to our house from Tom and Judy’s tour garden,  just down the block, followed the green grass path you see below.

looking west

part of the east side front garden

Passing through another gate by the sun porch, we come to Allan’s fern and shade plant garden.  (It ended up being in way more sun that we expected, but a newly planted pear tree will eventuall provide more shade.)

Allan’s garden

On the window of the sun porch (which would be to your right as you stand looking at Allan’s garden), I had two poems, which any one knows how much I am not a morning person might enjoy, and the other which speaks to me strongly of being a working class, jobbing gardener, especially the line about “broken kitchen knives”.  That is the tool my grandmother always used to weed her sidewalk crevices.

Poems in Sunporch Window

Below the sunporch were two gnome doors that I had bought from  The Wood Elf booth in the Ilwaco Saturday Market.  I have no gnomes in the garden (that I know of), but I’m ready.

gnome doors

On the east side fence by Allan’s garden, an old chair and another favourite quotation:

The house shelters dreaming….

At the corner of Allan’s workshop (a large outbuilding that was one an electrical repair shop), you can see where the path closes to an arbour and a squeeze effect into back yard. People said “Oh my GOD!” when they reached that arbour and saw the size of the back garden.

by the shed

The grassy path through to the back garden had interesting vignettes on both sides.

shed wall of china

side of shed

side of house

On the other side of the path between shed and house, we had a sink (piped in with a hose, theoretically as a functioning out door sink but mostly decorative) and an old potting bench (broken but repaired by Allan) that I had got for free from behind Olde Towne Trading Post Antiques.  On it I put a photo of my grandma in her garden.  The little birdhouses were also from Olde Towne and one of the women on the tour recognized them (with pleasure) as formerly hers!  You cannot “PUNCTURE THE SEAL” by hanging things on a manufactured home, or woe betide, so I painted right on the house. “As I gaze upon the garden, my heart grows peaceful, still. From its colour comes my being, from its spirit comes my will. (Ryan Gainey)

outdoor sink; mustard flowers in mustard tin

I like to put out lots of pictures for a tour, including before pictures (and my Beverly Nichols “Garden Open Today” sign which I forgot to photograph for this tour).  Clipped to a rose bush just before we get to the patio and the squeeze effect arbour (and the mellifluous guitar playing of our musician, Randy Brown), was this before photo showing how the back yard was blank in Nov 2010 (except for some sod dumped from the front yard).

before photo

Now comes the moment when people start to say “Oh my god!!” because many did not realize how far back this garden goes.   As soon as I get the next entry written, we will step through the arbour and explore the back garden (and later, I will make an entry featuring close ups of some of my favourite plants).