Tuesday, 2 September 2014 (part one)
Steve and John’s most amazing bayside garden deserves its own separate post, so I’m dividing today into two parts.
After dining with them last Thursday night at the Cove, we were invited for a garden tour and lunch at Steve and John’s bayside home, where all is soothing and uncluttered.
We took some tomatoes and a bouquet of flowers and foliage from our garden; the bouquet went into the most perfect vase of wood (with a water holding insert).
Plant lovers that our hosts are, we spent quite some time discussing the various plants (including one I had to look up later, Clematis heracleifolia ‘New Love’ to the right, and Rubus lineatus, a few types of boxleaf honeysuckle, Hypericum (maybe ‘Albury Purple’), sanguisorbas, etc etc. Just the sort of conversation I love to have, although of course my mind went blank on some plant names till later.
The window reflection above shows the bay and a good architectural feature: the opening into the lower level of the house has cross pieces like a window frame; Steve and/or John’s idea to enhance local architect Eric Fagerland’s design.
I wish I had taken a photo of the luncheon table, a few steps down from the kitchen. Sometimes it seems intrusive to take photos showing the inside of friends’ houses, so I tend to avoid it even at moments when it would be appropriate.
I hope I am counting and not pointing. (On an earlier visit, I did point at the drawer and cupboard handles, whose shape is the shape of a wave, so perfect for a home by the water.) The book is Eden on Their Minds, which I took to show them.
I did (of course) photograph Chef Steve’s delicious food.
After lingering over coffee, we went out to tour the garden. To Allan’s and my surprise, a very light mist had begun to descend. Before we went to see the new green roof on the pumphouse, John showed us the diagram he had made on his computer.
The dahlias came from Old House Dahlias (Mark Harvey) in Portland (purchased at the Portland Home and Garden Show).
We turned to a close examination of the newly planted green roof of the pumphouse with its collection of succulents generously sent by Garden Tour Nancy’s friend Mary from Pasadena. Mary had been here for Music in the Gardens and clearly appreciated Steve and John’s garden.
Now began our walk through all the borders.
On the other side of the entry drive, we took a close look at Hydrangea ‘Plum Passion’.
On the left of the driveway is a new bed, created with painstaking effort to get the native meianthemum (false lily of the valley) out, at least for awhile. The exposed root reminds me of the stone crevice garden at the John Kuzma garden in Portland.
Steve and John’s ladies in waiting section is admirably small. They had just been to Whitney Gardens and Nursery and returned with a few treasures (limited by plant hauling in a Prius).
With the rain coming down in earnest now, we prepared to leave, although we were not sure if we were going to be able to work or not.
Steve says “The huggable tree is:
Xanthocyparis Nootkatensis ‘Green Arrow’ (Green Arrow Weeping Cedar)
The foreground shrub in the same shot (to the left) is:
Ulmus x Hollandica ‘Jacqueline Hillier’ (Dwarf Elm ‘Jacqueline Hillier’)”
I was still taking photos after we got in our van to drive away.
This spectacular garden will be on a Water Music Festival rhododendron garden tour next spring; I will let you know as soon as the date is set.
For our previous visits to the garden, see:
our first visit, Sept. 26 last year
the garden on tour day, July 20
I want to live a long life to see young parts of this garden mature over the years.
I’ve come to get my morning fix of pretty plants in pretty places. Thank you very much. Love your term ‘Ladies in Waiting’. This is not Salvia clevelandii ‘Winnifred Gilman’ which I have. Suggest it is Salvia guarantica like the others. A light mist sound and looks wonderful. Anxiously awaiting the effects of Hurricane, now Tropical Cyclone, Norbert down here is SoCal. Some showers would be welcomed.
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I will change the name on that plant as I believe I wrote it down wrong. Thanks!
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Theirs is such a fabulous garden, thanks for showing it in detail. I did see it at the Music in the Gardens tour this year, but I really appreciated seeing it again through your lens. There were not as many Dahlias blooming then. I can commiserate on the problem of hauling plants in a Prius.
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Thanks, Alison.
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Lovely dahlias. We don’t have any this year.
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Noooo. So sorry for your lack of them.
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