Winter Magic Indoors & Out at the Toronto Botanical Garden

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I needed a few stocking stuffers today, so I headed to the gift shop at the Toronto Botanical Garden, my favourite spot for last minute treasures of all kinds. But I treated myself to a little garden therapy as well — and this year, the TBG has outdone itself with a special project indoors. Come along with me, but bundle up, it’s snowing out there! Let’s start at the west end of the Piet Oudolf-designed Entry border. I always love looking at those paperbark maples (Acer griseum)…..

…. with their peeling, coppery bark.

On the other side of the walkway is a little garden featuring Astilbe chinensis var. tacquetii ‘Purpurlanz’ – now handsome mahogany seedheads. Four season interest, of course, is what Piet Oudolf intended when he designed this garden – his aim for all his gardens around the world.

Dense blazing star (Liatris spicata) shows off its fuzzy cylindrical seedheads along the path.

Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Cassian’ is a handsome grass with lovely winter presence.

The button-like seedheads of beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) hold up well in winter. Beyond is Korean feathergrass (Calamagrostis brachytricha).

The tawny foliage of willowleaf bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana var. salicifolia) is a third act, after the ice-blue June flowers and the brilliant yellow-gold fall colour.

Foxglove penstemon (P. digitalis) seized a little territory this year, as it does (in my meadows, too). The bees don’t mind – and those dark-brown seedheads are so beautiful.

Even on a snowy December day, the tall, airy stems of ‘Transparent’ purple moor grass (Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea) screen the border in an artful way.

I love the fluffy seedheads of autumn asters, topped with a dusting of snow.

Probably the tallest, most statuesque perennial in the Entry Border, ‘Gateway’ Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum Atropurpureum Group) is popular with bees and butterflies in summer.

The bristly, spherical seedheads of rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) stand out at the east end of the Entry Border.

I take a walk along Lawrence Avenue. This is the face that Toronto Botanical Garden presents to drivers passing by.

Grasses and hydrangeas provide interest for a long time in winter.

Around the corner heading back into the gardens, I enjoy the snow-white trunks of the Himalayan birches.

I could have spent a while watching the wind whip the seedheads of the maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis) – but the snow was blowing at me too!

I remember way back in 2008 when the beech frames still showed their inner metal infrastructure.

Now it’s all beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Cuprea’).

Winter snow shows off the swirling patterns of the clipped Korean boxwood hedges in the Beryl Ivey Knot Garden.

This one is kept clipped as a spiral.

How gorgeous is this? Dwarf papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) and dusty Miller strutting their winter stuff in the raised windowbox planters near the Spiral Garden.

Walking west, I come upon some of the colourful conifers that add a little pizazz to winter – like this ‘Vintage Gold’ false cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera).

And winter is when visitors notice the bright stems of ‘Midwinter Fire’ dogwood (Cornus sanguinea).

The perennial garden, intended as a Sunken Garden when originally designed, is a quiet expanse of lawn.

As I circle towards the Terrace Garden, I can’t resist peeking through the pendulous boughs of weeping larch (Larix decidua), still holding onto their autumn-gold needled leaves.

With its irises, roses, coreopsis and lavender, the sunny Terrace Garden is full of colour in summer. Now it shows off its curving metal retaining walls. In the background is the George & Kathy Dembroski Centre for Horticulture.

I circle around to the northern entrance to what was once the Edibles Garden, now a garden used to showcase new varieties of annuals.

The evergreen leaves of Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) turn red in winter.

The copper beech hedge at the base of the Spiral Garden shows off a dainty skirt of Japanese forest grass (Hakone macra ‘Aureola’). Grasses and persistent leaves (botanically, they’re known as “marcescent” leaves) are important elements in a winter garden.

A birch arbour! What a wonderful way to celebrate winter stems! Now all we need is a winter bride & groom! (My daughter and son-in-law were married at the TBG in 2012 and I love looking at their photos made in this part of the garden.)

And it wouldn’t be winter without some attractive pots filled with colourful branches, conifers and berries.

THE FLOATING GARDEN!

But all the magic isn’t outdoors at the TBG this winter. Beginning at the door to the TBG’s wonderful library and extending all the way down the hall to the Floral Hall is an installation designed and made by the horticultural team and volunteers called The Floating Garden. Using hanging, dried flowers, it celebrates summer’s harvest from the gardens.

How much fun is this?

Roses, hydrangeas, gomphrena – little bouquets that banish the cold winds of winter and recall warm days of July and August.

I’ve made bouquets from my golden yarrow – but this takes “dried flowers” to a new level!

It’s wonderful to contemplate the delicate bracts of a hydrangea….

… or the shiny, seedpod of honey locust (with a fresh coat of blue paint?).

Gomphrena globosa ‘Fireworks’ with hydrangea.

The distinctive fuzzy inflorence of amaranthus.

A little bit of indoor garden fantasy for our long Toronto winter.

I asked dad if I could photograph him walking through the floral gauntlet.

Then it was time to take my stocking stuffers home. One last look along the Entry Border – here showing a big drift of the Perennial Plant Association’s (PPA) 2024 ‘Plant of the Year’, clustered mountain mint, Pycnanthemum muticum.

Here’s what it looked like on August 22nd.

But now it’s making its presence known in the snow. And, as Piet Oudolf has always said, “brown is a colour too.”

I have spent a few decades chronicling the plants, bees and brilliant designs of the Toronto Botanical Garden. What a joy it has been.

My best wishes for a brilliant holiday season – however you celebrate it!

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Are you curious about how the Entry Border was designed? Read my 2-part blog titled ‘Piet Oudolf – Meadow Maker’.

Richard Hartlage – Designer, Collector, Gardener

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Even before visiting Richard Hartlage’s luscious, eclectic garden in Seattle, I felt I’d known him for years. In fact, every time I turned a corner at the Toronto Botanical Garden in June, he was there in the beautiful flowers of the shrub that greeted me, Calycanthus x raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine’.  

That plant was the result of a cross made by Richard Hartlage in 1991, while an undergrad student at North Carolina State University, between white-flowered Chinese sweetshrub Calycanthus chinensis with its large tepals and camellia-like blooms and the American native Carolina allspice C. floridus, with its strap-like tepals and strawberry-grapefruit scent. (At one time, it was considered a bigeneric cross, since the Chinese species, originally named Calycanthus chinensis in 1963 was renamed Sinocalycanthus in 1964, but in 1979 it was moved back into Calycanthus.) The hybrid name honours the late J.C. Raulston (1940-1996) who was then director of the NCSU Arboretum, later named the JC Raulston Arboretum.  (I photographed C. chinensis at the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia and C. floridus at the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario.)

A beautifully-rounded shrub, the flowers are sterile, so new plants must be made through layering or softwood cuttings. Though not as perfumed as Carolina allspice, ‘Hartlage Wine’ has a slight fragrance. The leathery leaves turn yellow in fall.

More than 30 years later, Richard Hartlage is still in love with plants of all kinds. That much was clear, arriving at his house, below, in the Montake area of Seattle as I did this July with my fellow gardeners on our annual Garden Fling. He calls his house colour ‘vermilion’ and I love it; there is much-too-much conformity and conservatism in the world of exterior colour choices. (I read in a Seattle Times story by Lorene Edwards Forkner that the hue is echoed in a massive spring tulip display.) An indigo-purple portico with a bold street number frames the front door. And those steps? Chunky granite slabs, then aluminum tread!

Who’s heard of using aluminum in a residential setting? So it’s clear that there’s an innovative hardscaping mind at work here, even as the diverse plant palette suggests someone who is enamored with flora, fragrance… and fun.

And, of course, as the CEO and President of the 12-person design firm (not counting his 4 schanuzers) Land Morphology, Hartlage’s home garden is his experimental laboratory. His history in gardening and design is deep. In the late 80s, he was plant propagator at North Carolina’s famous Montrose Garden, followed by stints at other NC gardens. He was Morris County Parks Commissioner in Morristown New Jersey in charge of two arboretums before moving to Seattle in 1996 to become Director/Curator of the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden, where he introduced the Great Plant Picks program during his 7-year tenure there. Beginning in 2003, he spent 10 years with the large design/engineering firm AHBL as an associate principle managing the landscape architecture group before launching Land Morphology in 2013. Projects include numerous residential designs (including Stephen Colbert and other New Jersey clients like the Mountsier Estate); Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle; the new Herb Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; and a new Castle Garden at Yew Dell Botanical Garden down the street from Hartlage’s Crestwood, Kentucky childhood home. Just completed is the impressive planting design for Seattle’s new 26-block Waterfront Park, in collaboration with architect Field Operations (High Line-NY, Navy Pier-Chicago), featuring more than 124,000 plants representing over 500 varieties of natives and ornamentals.

A few months after our visit, there were railings on those aluminum stairs above and an airy, iron arbor over the upper walkway (more vertical gardening opportunity) – topped by heraldic schnauzers in the place of lions!

Design by Richard Hartlage, Land Morphology – photo courtesy Land Morphology

Richard’s beloved schnauzers have been worked into the back garden’s design as well!

Design by Richard Hartlage, Land Morphology – Photo courtesy Land Morphology

Back to my July visit now, on either side of the steps that lead to the house on the steeply-sloped property is a serpentine hedge of Korean boxwood (Buxus sinica var. insularis ‘Wintergreen’). Suffice to say I’ve photographed countless boxwood hedges over the decades – including the spectacular potager at France’s Villandry – but this is the only one I’ve seen that meanders like an undulating green paintbrush across a slope. In its midst are lilies, alliums, ornamental grasses, persicaria and perennial geranium.

Small matching trees emerge from the serpentine hedge.

Spent allium seedheads are left to create texture and interest, along with deep-purple drumstick alliums (A. sphaerocephalon).

Scented lilies, alstroemeria and hydrangeas are part of the summer plant palette, along with perfumed Gladiolus murielae in the clay pot.

A spectacular lily that might be the Orienpet (Oriental x Trumpet) hybrid ‘Debby’.

A massive terracotta pot serves as focal point on the slope terrace.

Spears of gladiolus pop up here and there. These ones look like direct descendants of G. dalenii.

Luscious, light-blue mophead hydrangeas (H. macrophylla) partner with Taiwanese schefflera (Heptapleurum taiwanianum) and lilies in front of the house.

The bracts on this dogwood were still beautiful.

The back garden, though small, was filled to the gills with interesting and textural plants, myriad containers, whimsical furnishings…. and loads of people! So if my photos tend to be vignettes, be assured that the overall view was fabulous. I noticed that metal grid screens and hanging basket frames seemed to be occuping an aerial dimension – in part, perhaps, to screen out the view of neighbours.

As someone who has painted her neighbour’s property-line garage wall (with permission) to become her own garden backdrop, I liked that the same arrangement seems to have happened here, with interesting materials. And amidst myriad containers, an attractive rectangular trough brings the reflective magic of water to the garden, including waterlilies and….

…. a retro spring-rider playground duck configured as a fountain peeking out of the sedges and rushes!

Nearby is a spring rider seahorse, its platinum finish reminding me of the silvery Adonis mannequin in Andrew Bunting’s Swarthmore garden which I wrote about last year. The hardscape in the Hartlage back garden is a mixture of rectangular granite pavers and grit forming walkways amidst planting beds and containers crammed with plants of all kinds.

And a crevice garden! I’ve photographed the crevice garden in the back of Carol Shinn’s Fort Collins,  Colorado garden and Zdeněk Zvolánek’s masterpiece for the Montreal Botanical Garden but a Corten container crevice garden was new to me, and quite wonderful.

Yuccas mix with sedums and an interesting campanula, possibly C. incurva?

A very happy moon carrot (Seseli gummiferum) was in full bloom in another crevice container.

Erigeron, irises and phlox grew in a glazed blue container.

Comfy saucer chairs provide seating amidst the plantings.

And what is the unconquered, unplanted frontier in almost every garden? That’s right: the driveway. So leave it to Richard Hartlage to boldly go where few have ventured – right down the middle of his concrete driveway. I love this idea.

As usual, I could have spent hours in this garden capturing the small nuances and plant combinations. My friend Pam Penick did a great job on her blog, so give it a read. And Seattle photographer Miranda Estes has a beautiful gallery from 2019 of the garden as it was then. Thank you, Richard Hartlage, for sharing your lovely, eclectic, leafy home sanctuary with us.

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Read more of my blogs on beautiful summer gardens of the Puget Sound and Seattle:

Camille Paulsen

Daniel Sparler & Jeff Schouten

Meagan Foley & Mac Gray

Whit & Mary Carhart

A Return to Heronswood

The Wonders of Windcliff

Bonnie Berk & Larry Kessler

Nancy Heckler

High on Hydrangeas – Nancy Heckler’s Indianola Garden

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If you’ve been writing about gardening for almost 40 years, like me, the name “Nancy Heckler” rings all kinds of bells. In the early 2000s she was a west coast garden maven whose massive edibles garden on the Hood Canal in Washington State was featured in a cover story of Martha Stewart Living magazine and on her television show, as well as in other magazines.  Old columns in the Seattle Times list her favourite cultivars of the 140 kinds of vegetables and fruit she grew in her 5000-square-foot (!!) vegetable garden. In 2008, when she moved to this 1/3-acre forested property in Indianola on the Kitsap Peninsula (where she was garden manager of the resurrected Heronswood for a few years in 2013-14), vegetables would not be part of the equation, though she tried for a while in raised beds. “But there wasn’t enough sun, it was a bust”, she told Times writer Valerie Easton. Enter woodland gardening and hydrangeas, like the one bursting with frilly-pink flowers, below….

….. against the wall of Heckler’s lovely, soft-gray-green, 1940s house. 

The wall is lined with containers of choice shrubs in that same gray-green palette and adorned with a raven plaque, keepsake art from the much-loved former studio of Bainbridge Island sculptors George and David Lewis.

My visit to the Little & Lewis Garden Gallery – on a misty September day in 2005 – is one of my fondest memories of the Pacific Northwest.  (Their exquisite chanterelle fountain for Heronswood is featured in my blog on that famous garden, link below.) But I digress…

The side porch, flanked by a gorgeous Cryptomeria japonica and flowering Schizophragma, has a little tableau that will be familiar to all real gardeners – boots left on an angle to dry all the coated mud!

A deck at the back of the house is a leafy sanctuary and features a few of the 100-plus hydrangeas Nancy grows in the garden.

I could imagine sitting in this chair, surrounded by textural, verdant plants. As Nancy wrote in the text of our guide:  “I planted every shade tolerant woodland plant I could get my hands on, anything with TEXTURE. That is what my garden is to me—form, texture, layers and all shades of green with very few flowers. Perhaps not enough color for many folks, but it’s a very relaxing palette.”

 A gate leading into the garden passes what was originally an old out-building that Nancy turned into her lamp design studio.

In front is a container with Japanese umbrella pine (Sciadopitys verticillata), one of many conifers planted in pots in the garden. When the outgrow their container, Nancy digs them up and gives them away.

I was allowed a peek inside Nancy’s lamp-making studio, Luminola, to see her exquisite, one-of-a-kind, vintage creations. She finds old lamps at antique malls, estate sales, flea markets and garage sales, then rebuilds them completely. There is something so wonderful about unusual lighting (says this woman who’s painted lots of lampshades in her time!)

Then it was into the garden itself, down a path past a rhododendron with silvery new foliage underplanted with ferns, hostas and other woodland treasures….

…. and more hydrangeas, including this beautiful lacecap.

If someone said, I’d like a ‘quiet green garden with touches of brown’, most people would furrow their brow and wonder how that could be artfully done. Voilà…. (And now I want a brown glass garden lamp!)

Paths wind through Nancy’s garden – and I confess I was using both camera and cellphone to capture it, and going back and forth myself – so if I’m travelling in the wrong direction on occasion, forgive me.  That fabulous blue-flowered lacecap hydrangea is….

…. Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Izu-No-Hana’, underplanted with ‘All Gold’ Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ).

Nancy’s path though the plantings illustrates a simple bit of geometry: turn boring square flagstones on the diagonal and you have diamonds! Much more interesting!

In the centre of the big trees and dense understory of choice woodlanders is a patch of lawn, creating a welcome bit of negative space.

I liked the simple artfulness of the twig spheres.

And I loved the two-tone speckled lilies, adding just a touch of colour to this green setting.

Nancy herself was graciously answering questions here.

Perhaps the most charming and surprising features of the garden were colourful, cotton-and-bamboo parasols poised above hydrangeas to serve as temporary shade structures during extreme summer heat.  I believe this double-flowered variety is ‘Miss Saori’.

The parasols seem to have done their job well.

Bigleaf hydrangeas, of course, are native to cool, mountainous regions of Japan, and the parasols, rather than looking out of place, seemed to be an integral part of the theme.

Or perhaps I’ve just seen too many Japanese woodblock prints with lovely women in kimonos carrying bamboo umbrellas, like these 18th century ukiyo-e paintings.

 Scenting the air under the big trees was Harlequin glorybower (Clerodendrum trichotomum).

A skirt of driftwood adorned the trunk of a big conifer – found sculpture from Indianola’s beach.

This clever pairing echoed the dark foliage of Hydrangea Eclipse® in the veins of the Japanese painted fern (Athyrium nipponicum var. pictum ‘Regal Red’).

Everywhere there were little vignettes that commanded attention – and much more time than we had!

When it was almost time to leave, I headed to the front of the house where the door was graced with the perfect aquamarine pot to show off the swirls of the Rex begonia ‘Escargot’.  Has a snail ever looked this lovely?

A gate at the front led into the woodland via a different path – I think?  Pretty sure I hadn’t seen that Podophyllum ‘Spotty Dotty’ before….

It is always a treat to visit a garden where the artful touches are as important to the gardener as the sophistication of the plants.

The path wound around toward the lawn at the back with yet more hydrangeas and shade-loving perennials….

…. including these gorgeous Rodgersia seedheads.

As usual, in looking at my friends Pam Penick’s and Loree Bohl’s blogs, I see that regrettably I didn’t get to all the corners of Nancy Heckler’s beautiful 1/3-acre in the big trees of the Kitsap Peninsula. Be sure to have a look at their photos, too. And thank you Nancy, for sharing with us the wonders of your woodland.  

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Read more of my recent blogs on beautiful summer gardens of the Puget Sound:

Camille Paulsen

Daniel Sparler & Jeff Schouten

Meagan Foley & Mac Gray

Whit & Mary Carhart

A Return to Heronswood

The Wonders of Windcliff

Bonnie Berk & Larry Kessler

Casa Nirvana for a Seattle Plant-Lover

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Even before I climbed the stairs to the Seattle garden of Bonnie Berk and Larry Kessler during our mid-July ‘GardenFling’ tour of gardens in Washington State, I stood admiring the lush streetscape. An exquisitely planted boulevard (you really can’t denigrate this by calling it a ‘hellstrip’) and burgundy-leaved trees and shrubs were arrayed in front of a monolithic stucco wall. That brick-topped wall and double staircase were part of the vision of Seattle’s well-known architect Arthur Lamont-Loveless (1873-1971) who, at the time he designed the house in 1916, was also president of the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

But Bonnie Berk, below, had her own vision for the house and garden, especially the slope leading to the street. When she purchased the property in 1995, she was busy with a successful consulting business she’d launched in 1988 working on public-private partnerships and “the spectrum of major public policy issues, developing long range strategies and facilitating agreements among diverse communities.” (BERK Consulting) After retiring from the company in 2013 and marrying Larry Kessler, the Chairman of Health Services at the University of Washington School of Public Health the following year, she had time to devote herself to the garden. Today, she’s heavily involved in local gardening initiatives, including the board of the Northwest Horticultural Society, the Hardy Fern Foundation and Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

Anyone who has gardened on a steep slope knows the challenges of designing, planting and maintaining such a space. In 2000, when Berk began the job of repairing the stairs, cracked walls and central terrace, she also tackled the slope to the wall, creating terraces for planting. Today, the slope is a colourful tapestry of perennials, bulbs and shrubs. Containers sit on the brick-topped retaining wall and at the top of the north slope is a weathered metal sculpture titled ‘Joy’ by Jennifer Gilbert Asher & Mario Lopez; it echoes the warm colour of the bricks and the bronze foliage of the dwarf Japanese maples.

It’s clear even before climbing to the house level that Bonnie Berk is in love with plants of all kinds and designs with an artist’s sensitivity to form, texture and colour.

”Indian Summer’ alstroemeria — which I also photographed at Dan Hinkley’s Windcliff’ — has a starring role here.

Dark-leaved dahlias, a fountain of variegated moor grass (Molinia caerulea ‘Variegata’), pink sanguisorba bottlebrush flowers and blue agapanthus adorn the slope’s south side. Near the top is a metal sculpture by Jim Honold titled ‘Moongate’ and beyond, a brilliant chartreuse bouquet of ‘Golden Spirit’ smokebush (Cotinus coggygria).

Boxwood hedging defines a planting terrace while the sculpture frames daisies and lilies at the top of the slope. Beyond is a 20-foot high high cherry laurel hedge (Prunus laurocerasus) believed to have been planted when the house was built. It affords privacy from the neighbours while creating a dramatic backdrop to the plantings on the house level. (When I was a little girl in Victoria, B.C., the shiny, oblong leaves of cherry laurel were the “dollar bills” we stacked at the cash register in our make-believe store.)

A peach-coloured hyssop (Agastache) is in full bloom — always a favourite with hummingbirds — and behind is a stand of summer alliums, likely ‘Millenium’.

On the main staircase terrace is an antique Singer sewing machine pedestal topped by a metal table filled with succulents. And all around are colourful containers filled with treasures.

A closer look at the succulents in their gravelly soil.

Turning left at the top of the stairs, we come to a long mixed border fronting the laurel hedge and centered with a patio featuring a black Luytens bench under a Jim Honold-designed metal arch wreathed in variegated Kadsura japonica ‘Chirimen’. Kadsura is an evergreen, Japanese, woodland vine related to Schisandra and features glossy leaves on stems that can reach 15 feet. It bears tiny, yellow, magnolia-like flowers and edible fruit. This patio with its many containers seemed like a beautiful stage set with the laurel hedge a leafy back curtain.

The brickwork in the paving and the arch carry the colour theme. The handsome Rex begonia at right typifies Berk’s love of good foliage.

Foliage surrounds a sculpture titled ‘Mother Nature’.

Further along the border, a sculpture nestles behind a hydrangea, with the russet seedheads of rodgersia echoing the rusty metal.

Here, a shower of tiny, lilac thalictrum flowers and starry clematis rise above the leaves of Deutzia scabra ‘Variegata’.

Some gardens can be seen in a glance, but Bonnie Berk’s plantings are like tiny paintings, each one different from the next. There’s no “three of this-and-five of that” ethos here. It’s all jewels.

‘Antonow’s Blue’ honeybush (Melianthus major) is a semi-evergreen shrub that bears red-bracted flowers in late summer – but it’s primarily grown for its stunning, glaucous foliage.

The house’s siding is finished in a dramatic black that acts as an effective background for many of Berk’s dark pots. But a red Adirondack chair on this side deck looks like a comfy spot for enjoying the view.

Sculptures and pots are arrayed on steps to another terrace off the house’s living room, which affords a view to the east of Lake Washington.

A white clematis flower emerges from a glazed pot

The path beneath the house’s front terrace is edged by a rich diversity of shade-loving foliage plants.

In a sunnier spot, the silvery-blue stems of skyscraper senecio (Curio ficoides ‘Mount Everest’) illustrate the plant collector’s passion.

Native to Japan and Korea, the shredded umbrella plant (Syneilesis aconitifolia) bore a solitary flower stem, its attractive foliage more chartreuse in this garden than I’d seen before.

As it was time to leave this jewelbox Seattle garden, I spotted a plant I had heard about but never seen, Paris polyphylla, a trillium cousin native to China. And I thought how appropriate, in this garden of rareties, to be treated to yet another. If only I’d had another four or five hours to spend here! Thank you, Bonnie Berk.

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Read more of my recent blogs on beautiful summer gardens of the Puget Sound:

Camille Paulsen

Daniel Sparler & Jeff Schouten

Meagan Foley & Mac Gray

Whit & Mary Carhart

A Return to Heronswood

The Wonders of Windcliff

Nancy Heckler

A Hillside Garden on Vashon Island

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Circling back to one of the fabulous gardens I saw this summer while on a Tacoma-area “Garden Fling” with fellow bloggers and Instagrammers, let’s head across on the ferry from Tacoma to Vashon Island. Before arriving at the garden, as you can see Vashon is just as picturesque a seaside setting as you’d imagine, albeit with some of the invasive plants I recognize from my own country neighbourhood, far away in central Ontario. Yes, pink everlasting sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolius) and yellow tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) can be found near my cottage on Lake Muskoka – but those arching boughs of Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) are sweet memories of my Victoria, B.C. childhood – even though I know they’re one of the very worst invasives in the Pacific Northwest. But let’s drive on to Maury Island, which is a “tied island” linked to Vashon via a man-made isthmus to visit my featured garden.

It’s a testament to the hard work and creativity of Whit and Mary Carhart that the photo below of textural shade plants flanking a generous path near the top of their garden is here at all. Why? Because this is one of the few almost-level areas sculpted from a steep forest hillside that would have tried the imagination and engineering capabilities of lesser gardeners.

A bed of treasured alpines retained with wooden ties traces the angles of the slope.

Moving up and down the hillside is challenging enough for a gaggle of garden bloggers. But actually working this garden would put stairmaster exercises to shame! (And these are just a few of the level changes.)

Let’s move down towards sea level and admire the Carharts’ skill with container plants – especially those that feature good foliage contrasts. Who needs flowers?

Understandably, most of the plantings are shade lovers like the rodgersia left of the colorful sculpture by Vashon mosaic artist Clare Dohna.

Arriving at the base of the hillside — and despite the difficult light conditions – I admired the cedar shake cladding and sprawling architecture of the Carharts’ home. Astilbes were in full summer bloom along the path.

A rich, teal-blue trim accents the cedar cladding.

On the porch is another whimsical Clare Dohna mosaic sculpture.

Adirondack chairs at the back of the house look out onto the bay view reflected in the window. I love the combination of small river rock and stone pavers.

This corten planter shows how a simple combination of colourful foliage plants – shrub, tropical, perennials – is handsome and effective. And the planter colour ties in with the siding.

The glossy brown pot at right also matches the house siding and features a soft colour palette and varying textures of plants including silvery Senecio candicans ‘Angel Wings’ and variegated ‘Tasmanian Tiger’ euphorbia (E. characias) with small-leaved Veronica pimeleoides ‘Quiksilver’, a hebe, at right.

I can imagine the sound of the grasses swishing in the wind as the family enjoys a meal on this patio.

My impression of the Carhart garden will always be “comfortable chairs everywhere”….

….. including a shady glade overlooking Quartermaster Bay where a series of colourful chairs are arranged in a conversational grouping.

The sunniest aspect around the house features a profusion of perennials and tall lilies.

What clever positioning of these fish swimming upstream on a waterfall of Hakonechlora macra ‘Aureola’…. to spawn, perhaps?

I’ve felt the same way at times. Glad to see someone thought to put it on a sign at this sweet playhouse, built by Vashon Islander Gary Sipple.

A good motto for this garden.

As a lover of colour, I appreciate well-considered vignettes like this, with the ‘Lucifer’ crocosmia echoing the persimmon of the bistro table and chairs.

What a great garden for a party – seating everywhere.

Chartreuse and lime are favourites of mine – I’d love this bench in my garden.

I ask Whit Carhart to pose for me. A retired doctor, he and his wife Mary have poured a lot of creativity, energy and love into this garden since 2000 when they started working on it. Though their property includes a large tract of natural Stewardship Forest, the cultivated area totals 2.5 acres. When Whit was developing his interest in gardening, he took a course at Edmond’s Community College from then-Horticulture Professor Dan Hinkley, whose wonderful garden Windcliff I wrote about recently.

Partway up the slope is the most naturalistic swimming pool I’ve ever seen. Designed in 2008 to evoke Japanese garden style by landscape designer Terry Welch, it is saltwater and fed by a waterfall. Surrounded by smooth rocks and low plantings, it even features a small island with an evergreen.

There are artful fish ‘spawning’ here as well!

As I head further up the slope, I pause at a lovely Japanese-inspired gazebo

Set into a cement pad in the floor at the front is a notation; water has settled around it, charmingly reflecting the foliage of the trees above.

Looking back down at the gazebo from the path above.

Moving up, I pass a container planted with handsome Fatsia japonica ‘Spiderweb’.

Further up, I spotted the brilliant blue of Salvia patens.

I wish I’d had time to move slowly through the plantings, which were exquisite. Two of my fellow bloggers captured much more in this garden than I did and I’m taking the opportunity to introduce them to you here. Pam Penick from Austin, Texas is one of the founders of this annual tour. Formerly called the Garden Bloggers Fling, it’s been shortened to The Garden Fling and includes Instagrammers, Tik-Tokkers and industry folk. Here is her blog on the Carhart Garden.

And California succulent guru Gerhard Bock also wrote a comprehensive blog on the garden here.