Friday, 5 June 2020
At last we managed to visit Steve and John’s garden by Willapa Bay. Although (due to the second spring clean up at work after our non-essential weeks and to the emergency building of our coyote-proof catio and then the time-consuming plant sale prep) we had missed the peak rhododendron bloom time, this garden has much to offer at any season.
When we arrived a few minutes early, Steve was tidying the garden with bucket and picker-upper.
Let’s walk through through the garden with Steve and John, enjoy the vistas, and give the plants some individual attention…social distancing, of course.
In the upper beds near the house:
I tried to take good notes, but had forgotten a clipboard, so many rhododendron names were illegible.
As always, Steve and John helped via email with the identifications.
A few more rhododendrons had kindly waited for our visit.
Many in this collection had leaves that, to me, are as good as any bloom. Visits to this garden have been a revelation from the standard rather boring rhododendrons that I had been familiar with before.
We now cross the driveway to the shady south beds under limbed up trees.
In the ferny beds…
We crossed over there, but I got too busy chatting about plants and only took one photo.
John had left us to prepare some tea and cake. We walked up the driveway…
…around the south side of the house…
…to …to the sheltered sit spot at the southeast corner of the house, where this was our view:
We had walked here to start our tour and to admire a little rhododendron growing in a stump on the north side of the lawn.
We sat for tea and cake with this backdrop.
We had tea from Beach House Teas...
…and observed proper social distancing.
John had baked a dessert of Dutch Spice Bread (Ontbijtkoek, aka Breakfast Cake). Delicious.
It was our first social outing since the stay at home order expired.
We were serenaded by birds…
…and visited by Mr. Towhee, a special friend of the family.
As we departed, we further admired the entry garden.
If you would like to visit this garden in other seasons and earlier years, just put “bayside garden” into our search box, and you will get a wealth of posts.
You can see a drone video of the garden (which also shows inside the house) on this realty listing…which also means you could dream of living here yourself.
Steven and John were organizing the big 2020 conference for the American Rhododendron Society, when the coronavirus reared up and postponed it till 2022. If you live in the US and all these amazing rhododendrons inspire you to become a collector, joining that organization would be a good place to begin.
The unidentified maple in the fourth pictures looks like a variegated box elder known as ‘Flamingo’. If so, it would have trifoliate leaves like any other box elder. We grew a few, as well as two other cultivars, but did not sell enough to continue growing them. Box elder seemed like an odd species to plant intentionally into a garden.
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Wow. Your photos of their beautiful garden and the view of the bay made me want to be there. They have certainly put a lot of love and care into their gardens. Your bouquet is stunning, too!
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Oh how easy to lose yourself in the majesty of that garden, from sea to towering trees that canopy over groves of plantings. You know the gardener’s hand is at work here, this is no wild and wooly garden, and yet it is as if nature has agreed to that hand. It is no small feat to achieve that harmony, to have a collection garden that moves you eagerly from plant to plant, yet also has you looking upwards, gazing into distances, then wanting to close your eyes and breathe deep the serenity and perfection of vistas and placements.
Pictures, including mine, do not do it justice.
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We talked about it being for sale and how hard it would be to leave.
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Beautiful garden! I’ll have to remember the term “enviable hosta” as I gaze at all the hostas around my home in the woods.
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I gave up on hostas because cannot keep the slugs and snails off. They ended up laceleaf. Sluggo is even getting a bad rap these days, although I am skeptical. I think maybe the other slug bait companies are behind a disinformation campaign. Steve and John use Corrie’s heavily, but I can’t because of cats and frogs etc. My grandma used Corrie’s and also had a huge perfect hosta. I gave all of mine away except for Blue Mouse Ears. Even the large ones with “heavy substance” got chomped.
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Quite a good outing for a first go!
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