June Kroft’s garden
From the program: “The Kroft home and gardens have been featured in national publications. Kroft’s gardens were featured in Village of Flowers, a photo journal of Cannon Beach gardens. Her gardens are well known by landscape architects, gardeners, and flower enthusiasts around the Pacific Northwest.”
To see this garden again, one I had not seen since a memorable tour led years ago by Ann Lovejoy and Lucy Hardiman… I don’t think a day went by all summer when I did not look forward to it. I had hoped fervently that her cottage would also be part of the tour…because I am inquisitive that way… It wasn’t. Some of the cottages on the Tenth Anniversary Cottage Tour were cottage only with no garden, and June’s was garden only. (I could tell from the outside that the cottage interior is just adorable and in a perfect world I would somehow have become friends with June, not just a fan from afar, and had tea with her there!) I treasure her picture book “A Village of Flowers” and was thrilled to get a series of photos in her garden today.
I think that last time I was here, the little building above was covered with a pink climbing rose.
You can see how intriguing the cottage itself is!
June’s garden was every bit as magical as I remembered.
I never did converse with June during this time in her garden. Allan listened to her telling guests how the garden was originally swamped with blackberries and how over the years she has created this tiny paradise. I tend to be shy on tours and not engage much with people, but when I tour a garden like this I feel that the garden IS the person and it communicates to me a great deal about the gardener.
On the south side of the house is the most enchanting deck I have ever seen, with an area enclosed by wings of the cottage. On the south side of the deck sits a garden shed..
It is genius to include the garden shed as part of the deck, giving shelter from south wind and a wonderful sense of enclosure.
Could this garden be where I got the idea to hang old windows on a wall?
The old window with the caption on it is to the right, and I now realize I did not find out (despite all my inquisitiveness) what was behind that wall!
Doors to left and to right lead into wings of the fascinating cottage.
I failed to get a photo of what it would be like to sit in those chairs and look back at the garden shed… Can I go back?
On the east side of the deck, just past some rustic boxes of flowers…
… a couple of steps lead down to a narrow area with lawn and clothesline.
I think there was a gate that could close to provide even more shelter.
The brick edges are raised in areas quite near the cottages and become softer in the shady areas toward the back of the tiny garden.
I appreciate that Allan got photos of June herself; I was awestruck to be there again and kept circling around and around the garden itself.
Ah. now I understand how the shed works; it is also accessible from the back!
I heard June say she plants her sweet peas later at the beach than she would in Portland because we do not get too much summer heat for them here.
It was a special experience to walk round and round in this garden and if we had not had twelve other places to see on the tour, we would have stayed even longer.
As we left, I took a telephoto view to the west, because that is how I see things…looking to the garden views that lay between June’s garden and the beach.
Around the corner, before we left the Tolovana neighbourhood for the rest of the tour, we saw four cute little cottages called Carefree, Comfy, Cozy and…? Allan tells me there was a fourth one but I missed it till the moment there was a car behind us and we had t drive on.
I am left with the usual pondering of how I can make the area around a manufactured home look as nook-like and charming as June’s garden, the archetypical and ideal cottage garden.
What a charming, cozy cottage and garden. I agree, it is genius to have the shed close enough to make it feel like it is part of the house and deck. The tree-pruned Santolina is clever too.
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This garden haunts me with its charm…
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