Saturday, 20 July 2019
Gardens, Sea and Art tour
presented by the WSU Master Gardeners of Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties
Ocean Shores
Garden 7: Beauty and the Bay
I had reasons to look forward to this garden. Diane is the aunt of Terri of Markham Farm, and Terri would be co-hosting. I am not playing favourites when I say I liked this garden best.
Note those cool rocks with holes in them. I found some like that in 1991 on Kalaloch Beach.
To our left was the memory garden with mementos including the hard hat and boots worn by Uncle Neil when he helped build the road to Paradise on Mount Rainer.
On to the back garden. I was already smitten.
To our right, a sunroom/greenhouse.
To our left, vegetables in barrels….
Roses and driftwood…
roses and agapanthus…
In the corner, a garden boat.
Then a mossy burbling rock…
..and a driftwood gate.
Outside the gate, a view of North Bay:
Looking back at the house:
On the deck:
Leaving the deck…
…we explored the rest of the bayside garden, a separate-feeling area to the right of the driftwood gate.
Twin frogs instead of lions flank the doorway.
We still had not seen it all; we next found the enclosed garden at the front of the house.
You might recognize this from the garden tour poster.
We had found Terri in the front garden courtyard and had a good chat. Because her aunt was out touring other gardens, we did not get to meet her, but I know Terri will tell her how much we loved her garden.
Kilyn and Peter had arranged a tailgate teatime for four with homemade scones (Peter’s) and cookies and small sandwiches. What a delight. We were joined by Evan and Ann.
We loaded up plants that Ann had brought for me to purchase from two nurseries she works for (propagating plants): Secret Garden Growers and Cistus Nursery.
While Kilyn and Peter went on ahead to the next (and last) garden, I just had to have one more walk through the Lemke garden because I loved it so much. When we finally were about to tear ourselves away, Teresa from the Planter Box arrived, much to our surprise and pleasure.
She had manage to wrangle two days off from her garden center, so of course we all extended an invitation to her to come tour Markham Farm garden with us on Sunday. We left her chatting with Terri and departed for the final tour garden.
The Lemke garden was my favorite on the tour, too. There were so many interesting details. I could tell the owner, Diane, loved her garden. The beautiful view out to the bay was soothing. I loved the street side garden’s plants and driftwood, too, The grouping of containers with ornamental grass caught my eye. Thank you for all the photos!
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It was wonderful. The kind of garden that I think about for a long time.
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I love the cement and glass fish in the gravel.
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Yes!
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My favourite on the tour as well. This is not an insta-garden that could ever be re-created with a few trips to a garden centre. It is a lifetime of memories, collected artifacts, gifts, stones, driftwood, rocks and lovely plantings in a kaleidoscope that perfectly reflected and complemented living on the water in a beach cottage.
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Yes!!
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Beautifully said.
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Wow, this garden has so much to comment on–all of the hard landscaping, the driftwood pieces, the artfully arranged potted plants and art, the sunroom/greenhouse and more. When one sees a garden like this, you know why beautiful gardens with depth and personality take more than a year or two to put together.
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Yes!!!
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. . . . and even more (New Zealand flax and dracaena palm)
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