Saturday, 23 July 2022
Master Gardeners of Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties present:
On every garden tour I attend, I have a favorite. I don’t think there has ever even been a tie. This does not make the other gardens lesser, as it’s a matter of personal idiosyncratic taste. This garden was our favorite for this year. This means there are about a million photos, so I will arrange them in galleries which you can enlarge by clicking through them, if you like this sort of thing as much as we do. We did our best to get every item in the correct spot.
We arrived at a handsome house with an interesting array of signs and containers on the front porch. One of the docents checking us in was Wendy, whose garden we loved the first time we attended this tour.
We then walked down the side driveway and came upon a huge parking area between house a long garage and shed. Against the wall were appealing arrangements of automotive relics and plants. I said to Allan, “Wow, these people really know how to display their stuff.”
I noticed people up on the large porch and went up a convenient ramp to see what was to be seen. I love the way all the plants and objects were displayed. It is a talent to put vignettes together so well.
Through an arbor is a secluded back porch room with transparent ceiling. I said to Allan how very much I want a room like that.
A lower level one step down had more delightful displays.
I peeked inside the open shed to see the well set up potting area.
The L shaped garden was off to the side (and front) of the house, and in the middle of it was an outbuilding which houses more vintage items.
I wanted to but did not go inside because of my Covid protocols; it was small with other tour guests coming and going. However, Terri of Markham Farm sent me her photos of the interior, so you and I can peruse them together. Garden owner Glenna, whose husband Mike gives her full credit for all the great arranging of stuff, sat on the porch and regaled us with a story of how one day while working on restoring the house, which had been full of rats, cats, bats, and blackberry vines when they bought it, she found a piece of wood with a man’s name written on it and wondered what the story was about it. Within a few hours, a truck had pulled up in front of the house with a man driving, who turned out to be that man, and out of the back seat emerged a tiny 99 year old woman who had been an original homesteader in the neighborhood. “We were all in tears by the time the visit ended,” said Glenna. The man then mailed her a packet of photos of the house as it once was.
Glenna and Mike restored the house and added the dormer and porches.
I explored the back corner of the garden…
…and the long side garden past the vintage display shed…
…and discovered that the large side porch had even more impeccably curated displays.
Around to the front of the house, I admired the porch closer up but did not go out the gate. I liked the whole place so much that I walked around the whole thing in the other direction before we departed.
This sort of thing is exactly my cup of tea.
