High on Hydrangeas – Nancy Heckler’s Indianola Garden

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Janet

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 18^th 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

Posted on November 16, 2024 by Janet

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.