I had been admiring Tom and Judy Hornbuckle’s garden since 2010, even before I had met them.
At first, I just walked by and took photos of the outer gardens…the front yard and (right) the garden by their driveway. By the winter of 2010-11, I had moved to Lake Street and we had become acquainted.
By summer of 2011, I knew Judy well enough to get invited through the back gate to photograph the water feature in their private fenced courtyard.
So when Nancy, the garden tour organizer, asked Allan and I to put our garden on the 2012 tour, I suggested that the Hornbuckle garden would be the perfect accompaniment. There is nothing on a tour that I like better than having two gardens on the same block. The contrast between our large and tangled garden with the tiny, groomed perfection of Tom and Judy’s would be entertaining, and people with small city lots could get all kinds of ideas from theirs.
It was great fun to have neighbours down the block to plan the tour with. We had many back and forth messages about what sort of refreshments we would serve, how many people might come, how much more preparation we had to do….and in the course of those many conversations, we found that we had much more in common than gardening.
Tom spent every other week leading up to the garden tour having chemo. (He’s fine now!) I worried a lot that the tour would be too much, but in fact I think that gardening, and planning, proved to be a great distraction and healer. He was even able to keep up with his exacting regimen of mowing the perfect lawn every THREE days.
During and after tour day, many positive comments filtered back to us, including one we particularly liked: “Lake Street ruled the tour!” The four of us on Lake Street did feel pleased with ourselves that of all the tour gardens, ours were the only two that were pulled together with absolutely no help from paid staff or volunteer friends….even though Tom’s health and our full time work had made it a challenge.
So here we go, through Tom and Judy’s garden on tour day and the day after, when those of us who opened our gardens and thus could not go on the tour went around to enjoy each others’ gardens.
from the programme guide: “In this pocket sized Ilwaco city lot, Tom and Judy grow and sculpt perfectly pruned trees and shrubs including over 20 Japanese maples. Their tiny garden includes four distinct microclimates from drought to mossy shade and complements their house with its exterior restored to its appearance in 1890. A velvety curvaceous lawn leads to a private courtyard where each stone accent is thoughtfully placed. Spots of colour provided by perennials and annuals are the finishing touch to this exquisite garden, which will provide great inspiration to those who garden in small places.”
I particularly love the back porch, which Judy says is a wonderful place to sit on a rainy day. Anyone who knows the meticulous way this garden is maintained will not take seriously the “lazy hog” sign.
Tom fretted that the pouring rain on Friday had made it impossible for him to mow the lawn the day before the tour; however, having the grass just a touch longer (i.e four days between mowing!) made it better able to stand up to the approximately 1000 feet (500 people) who came through.
I could not get away to take photos of Judy’s garden on tour day, so I lack photos of the happy times in the courtyard with their musician, Barbara Bate (for whom we had once created a garden!). Judy told me that people danced…laughed….I would have loved to have seen the dancing in the tiny courtyard. I think I can somewhat recreate the feeling with a few photos taken on the 9th of August when a garden club from Vancouver came to see Tom and Judy’s sanctuary.
As the tour season came to a close it became clear that I had finally been given something that had long been a dream of mine, a good gardening neighbour. Ever since reading a chapter about gardening neighbours in a good book called People with Dirty Hands and a chapter on that subject in Gardening from the Heart: Why Gardeners Garden, I had longed for a gardening neighbour. Whenever I would run across friendly neighbouring gardens on garden tours, I would feel envious. At last, even though we did not have the ideal situation of being next door neighbours, I finally had a gardening neighbour and good friend just four doors down.
[…] We would be seeing Ann again in a couple of weeks when she brought her Vancouver garden club to visit our garden and the Hornbuckle garden. […]
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Love that back porch!
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It is very fun!!!
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[…] Tom and Judy and I agree that this new house has the wonderful look of the old historic homes of the Peninsula. Judy described it as a “warm and loving garden and home”. […]
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[…] there is usually space between each plant. My gardening bestie Judy says “Oh, yes!” Her own garden is just this […]
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[…] the lawn to photograph the beautiful lush grass for our friend Tom Hornbuckle…he who mows his own perfect lawn every third day. He wondered, upon seeing the photos, what kind of grass it was. This would be […]
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[…] took a close up lawn shot for lawn expert Tom Hornbuckle. And then we were off to the final garden of the […]
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[…] took a humourous lawn photo for our friend Tom Hornbuckle, the lawn […]
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[…] August 9th, Ann Skordahl’s garden club from Vancouver toured our garden and Tom and Judy Hornbuckle’s garden four houses down. Ann’s garden was also on the garden tour this year. Every year, her […]
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[…] Tom Hornbuckle took two photos of me and Judy; I had remembered them as being taken on post tour day (which is where I posted the other one), but now I realize that they were on this happy garden […]
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[…] close with a photo of the lawn for our lawn perfectionist friend Tom Hornbuckle. I hope this garden will be loved again. I would love to dive into it and bring it back. A […]
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[…] doors down to see Tom and Judy’s, where Fred and Nancy recognized every Basket Case plant in the Hornbuckle garden where the plants are not all jumbled together as they are in […]
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[…] October 3rd we began the fall project of helping our friend Nancy (organizer of the Peninsula garden tour) create an ornamental border with the newspaper and cardboard […]
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[…] doors down on our side of the street, our friends Tom and Judy Hornbuckle had a pretty scary front […]
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[…] across Pearl Avenue from our dear friends Tom and Judy, local antique store owners Larry and Robert live in a beautiful historic pale green house. There […]
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[…] I love the green paths (which would be just moss if I had my way), the mowing takes a long time. Tom Hornbuckle got me so obsessed with the look of a nice short lawn that late last summer, I started to follow […]
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[…] This has led to many questions over the years about the purpose of said handles, especially when their garden was on tour last summer! I love the look of tiny little spears of foliage emerging from the […]
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[…] Just down the street from us and across the street from Larry and Robert’s, we like to watch the season unfold in our friends’ garden. […]
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[…] to their tale, no other local gardens had anything remotely like the 500 visitors that ours and Judy’s had on garden tour day. Indeed, most definitely not. There’s nothing like a little […]
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[…] People do urge me to take my birthday off, but it falls at such a busy time of year that I do not get the day off unless nature cooperated with rain. Yesterday was the day off. Today, I would rather have worked in my own garden, and did linger a bit to admire my new garden present from my gardening near-neighbour, Judy: […]
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[…] Tom Hornbuckle: here is a photo of the lawn on the west side of the park, between the club house and the RV […]
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[…] could not get past the Hornbuckle garden without some […]
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[…] This satisfying project from last year, just half a block from our house and across Pearl from the Hornbuckle garden, is looking very nice indeed, and got some of my two favourite perennials, Eryngium and […]
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[…] is a lawn photo for Tom Hornbuckle. The lawn was surrounded by flower beds and lay to the south of the paver […]
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[…] repertoire is vast and she was perfect for this venue. Last year, she was the musician for the Hornbuckle garden, and later Tom and Judy told me people were dancing in their […]
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[…] went first to Tom and Judy’s garden just down the street. The day might have seemed grey to some, but to us it was perfect weather as […]
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[…] Allan also took a lawn photo for our friend and lawn connoisseur Tom Hornbuckle! […]
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[…] know why I am on such a mission to remove rampant ground covers. I think I must be influenced by Judy and Tom’s beautiful and tidy garden where the beds are not mucked about with violets and ajuga and so […]
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