Tag Archives: garden

Garden Arbours & Pergolas

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It’s the dead of winter in my part of Canada, the garden buried today under more than a foot of snow (which always makes me laugh, to see photos from milder climates of ‘the winter garden’ and how to design for that season). But winter is always a good time to think about plans for the garden – especially those involving ways to make it more inviting to those who want to spend time relaxing, dining or napping in it. Enter those structures — sometimes architectural, sometimes rustic, sometimes just plain whimsical — that transform the garden from a ‘place for plants’ to a sanctuary for people. I’m thinking mostly about arbours and pergolas, two words that have come to mean almost the same thing, but in fact have different roots. Pergola comes from the Latin “pergula” for “projecting roof”, meaning an open-work-roof structure attached to (or immediately adjacent to) the house. Arbor/arbour derives from the French and Old English “herbere“, originally meaning a herb garden, but later a structure for supporting heavy vines such as grapes. Below is an illustration of a 16th-century German celebration in an outdoor arbour or pavilion, taken from a 1992 book on my shelf called Decorating Eden by Elizabeth Wikinson and Marjorie Henderson.

In time, “arbour” evolved to mean a simple structure with an open-work roof within the garden, sometimes containing a seat. Today, those words are almost interchangeable and encompass myriad styles, from barebones rustic to architecturally ornate. Let’s start with one of my favourites, because it reflects the talent and style of my dear, late friend Penny Arthurs, aka The Chelsea Gardener, who designed and built this arbour in her Toronto garden. Teal stain transforms the enclosing walls and cross-beams through which Boston ivy creeps. The front posts at left support climbing roses, while the ‘floor’ is the same brickwork Penny used in the rest of her garden. The rustic bench completes the scene. I so miss Penny and wrote a blog about her in memory.

In Shirley William’s garden in North Grafton, Mass., a rustic arbour featuring rough-hewn uprights and cross pieces supported climbing vines that were just coming into leaf when I was there in May a few years ago. It was furnished with comfy chairs for taking a weeding break. I wrote a blog called “Spring at Brigham Hill Farm” after my visit to this delightful garden.

Derek Bennett’s food-forward Toronto garden included this trellised arbour for al fresco dining – featuring an overhead lamp and a rustic, dry-laid brick floor. Morning glories grew through the trellis and basil and tomatoes grew in pots nearby.

This formal poolside Toronto structure seen on a garden tour seems best described as a pergola, despite being away from the house. Architect-designed to be integrated into the raised terrace, its supports are strong enough for the massive overhead wisteria about to burst into bloom.

A well-known pergola at Wave Hill garden in the Bronx features an open wall for guests to view the Hudson River and New Jersey’s Palisades on the far shore. It is surrounded by and hung with containers of plants, many rare. Have a look at my blog on Wonderful Wave Hill.

In Wave Hill’s famous Flower Garden, rustic arbours with built-in seats face each other across the colour-themed garden. One is wreathed in climbing roses……

…. while the other hosts roses and dainty Clematis ‘Betty Corning’.

I loved the bright blue beams of this “ramada” (Spanish for open air structure covered in branches) in the herb garden of the Tucson Botanical Garden. Why don’t more people use colour like this in the garden?

A massive white wisteria rests on sturdy overhead beams in the Pond Arbor at Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, PA. The beams are supported at the back in brackets attached to the stone wall of the Gravel Garden, above and behind it, and in front by sturdy, stone-faced, concrete posts. Guests can rest in Chanticleer’s iconic chairs, listening to the breeze ruffle the ‘Everillo’ sedge and fullmoon maple nearby. Chanticleer is my favourite small public garden in the world! Here’s my latest 2-part blog from Sept. 2023.

At the Idaho Botanical Garden in Boise, a series of arbors in the English Garden fitted with steel mesh on the overhead timbers support clematis, climbing roses and other vines . They contain benches so visitors can stop and enjoy the sound of the central fountain. Here’s my 2017 blog on the Idaho Botanical Garden, which highlights native plants on the Lewis & Clark Trail.

I walked through the aquamarine pergola/colonnade in the Walled Garden at Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island – home of the wealthy Phipps family – a few decades ago, so this photo could be out of date. But I was delighted to see the garden used as a location for the society opening of “the botanic garden” in HBO’s ‘The Gilded Age’ a few months ago. It features a border of ferns and wisteria overhead.

At Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., landscape architect Beatrix Farrand originally designed the Arbor Terrace in the 1920s as one of seven garden rooms on the property. In 1944, it was re-imagined by owner Mildred Bliss with designer Ruth Harvey, its lawn replaced by Tennessee stone and the oak arbor rebuilt out of cypress. You can read my blog on Dumbarton Oaks – including the grape arbor – here.

A large arbour decorated with hanging ornaments encloses an outdoor seating area in Colleen Jamison’s Austin, Texas garden: a perfect spot to relax on warm evenings. Here’s my blog “Birds, Bling and Beguiling Brown” on Colleen’s garden.

This beautiful dining arbour designed by Maureen Sedran of Mark Hartley Landscape Architects was on a Toronto garden tour ages ago. I loved that the urn fountain was near enough to create a soothing soundtrack for the lucky people enjoying dining under the suspended hurricane lamp.

Maureen Sedran of Mark Hartley Associates also designed this airy arbour and the surounding garden featuring an elegant white redbud (Cercis canadensis f. alba).

For several years when we attended the Shaw Festival in Ontario’s Niagara-on-the-Lake, we stayed with friends at Lakewinds Bed & Breakfast. It had a beautiful garden, a covered veranda with comfy seating and this pergola dripping with wisteria. Sadly the owners moved on – but of course I wrote a blog!

When we were on our South Africa garden tour years ago, the garden of Henk Scholtz was a delight. I wrote a blog about his “wonderful, whimsical garden” that included the photo below, of Henk’s grape pergola.

Architect Minky Lidchi’s ornate Johannesburg garden did not feature a traditional pergola, but used metal beams between sturdy concrete pillars blanked with vines to create an airy overhead effect. Here’s my blog on Minky’s garden.

I liked this metal chandelier hung amidst the wisteria in the dining pergola of Stellenberg Garden, in Cape Town, South Africa. Of course I wrote a blog about this Cape Dutch Class house and garden.

On a 2022 wine tour of Sicily, we had an outdoor tasting under an interesting shade pergola/awning at Principi di Butera winery. It would be easy to attach a canvas above the overhead pole array to provide more shade.

Sometimes, privacy is as important in an outdoor structure as overhead shade or vines. In artist Bev Stableforth’s garden in Creemore, Ontario, outdoor draperies can be drawn to create a sense of intimate sanctuary.

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MY GARDEN

When we did some landscaping in 1988, having a two-level deck off the back of our 1915 house helped ease the transition from the back door to the garden in a way that regular stairs would not. An architect neighbour more accustomed to designing museums did the original rough design – placing the structure on 16 cement sono-tubes – a foundation our contractor swore could support a small house. It had an inner bench, a milled-lattice privacy screen and a solid cedar wall that made the deck feel like the prow of a ship. I loved it, but wanted something a little more romantic right outside the door. So a few years later, I hired a carpenter to build a pergola and planted a wisteria in the garden to the right of the deck, the idea being it would reward me with purple flowers each spring. That did not happen, the deck being a little too shady, but the foliage was pretty. (Some of you might have read my poem ‘Wisterical’ about my flower-shy vine.)

However, late afternoon was often too sunny so I hemmed up three sections of pink candy-striped fabric and suspended them via eyelet rings between the cross-pieces. It looked very festive! And I had the chunky table built to fit the space.

In the 1990s, my husband still had his company and we hosted a few garden parties, inviting friends and clients. The bar in the pergola was a popular first stop.

The post featured my artist son’s clay mask and at the base, an assortment of containers filled with annuals and perfumed star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides), which I brought indoors in autumn to overwinter.

I strung lights in the wisteria for evening dinners.

A 1998 garden party saw us take precautions against rain with a marquee that went right up and over the deck and pergola.

It was very romantic – though the rain stopped in late afternoon.

The deck from the garden.

I sewed up some cushions for the built-in-bench and the sling chairs. But eventually the non-flowering wisteria irritated me enough to get rid of it. Though it was too big to dig up, I cut it back and put a garbage bag over the bottom of the trunk until it gave its last gasp. Then I planted a hybrid Asian clematis called C. x fargesoides that features small white summer flowers and rampant growth to more than 20 feet.

This was the view of the pergola and privacy screen from beside the deck.

But the Asian clematis was a nuisance to try to train on the sparse overhead boards, as you see here.

And by 2009, the wood on the deck – including the pergola – had sustained more than 20 years of rot (especially sitting under a 70-foot black walnut that rained nuts and leaves down each autumn) so a rebuild was in order. Those 16 cement sonotubes were still in good shape, howver!

And admitting defeat on the deck pergola idea, I opted instead for a simpler design – no benches, a traditional railing wall that would dry out better than the solid cedar wall and iron outdoor furniture. Not as romantic, but less maintenance.

And that’s the end of my winter contemplation of pergolas and arbours. If you’re interested in garden construction, you might want to read my blog on our garden path and gate, “The Gate, the Grate, the Path”, featuring the 35-year-old magazine cover below of my gate on the first issue of Canadian Gardening Magazine in Feb/March 1990.

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

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.

Colour, Drama & Sophisticated Design in a Tacoma Garden

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The organizers of our Puget Sound Garden Fling this July chose the perfect garden in which to let us gather as a group, feet tired from a day of touring, glasses of wine in hand, to marvel at a textural, art-filled garden sculpted from a steep hillside and appointed with sleek, beautiful outdoor furnishings. As a lover of colour, I was wowed by the garden of Mac Gray and Meagan Foley overlooking Tacoma’s Commencement Bay — and I loved everything about this dramatic, chartreuse-black combination on the terrace.

It made for a very convivial setting!

Though black as an attractive finish for fences and decorative features is now being seen more often, this garden used it in diverse ways, like this sleek wall fountain adding its own splashing soundtrack to our party.

Black continues to be a unifying theme in the pool at the base of the hillside garden where a herd of hippos meander along the shore and a sculptural black fountain creates its own music beneath a massive gunnera, its strong stems echoed in orange spikes.

The plant colour palette is mostly restricted to greens with chartreuse Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘All Gold’) creating luminous leafy fountains here and there. Pieces of art are nestled into the rocks that form the hillside landscape while also retaining the steep slope. At the top of the hill near a copse of white-trunked birches is a massive Stonehenge-like sculpture.

Black planters add to the garden’s dark touches.

‘All Gold’ Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra) is one of the best grasses for all-season chartreuse colour. It prefers damp soil and is perfect for a pondside planting.

Flowers come and go, say seasoned garden designers, but foliage is king. Here we see a compact Japanese maple adding a note of wine to the many greens.

Hostas and sedges (Carex spp.) enjoy the moist conditions in the lower slope.

Higher up, a chartreuse pot lifts colourful shade-lovers above the green foliage plants.

Everywhere are touches of chartreuse and black, like these glazed garden balls tucked below ferns.

The motif seems to be plants + art, including these interesting scrolls in the tile below the shield ferns (Polystichum spp.).

Standing on the terrace sipping my wine, I was transfixed by a semi-circular black sculpture glimpsed through the pendulous boughs of a weeping willow. When I asked Meagan Foley about it, she said she had looked at that part of the hillside and felt it needed a strong piece of art – and this was the beautiful result.

Focusing in on the sculpture, I saw that it was cut out to perfectly frame the yellow spikes of ligularia up the slope.

Not all the artistic touches are one-of-a-kind sculpture, however. There is space in the garden for pure fun, too.

Heading to the front of the house and a balcony overlooking the front garden and Puget Sound, I found more nods to black and chartreuse in the ceramic bamboo culms and furnishings. I imagine this is a wonderful spot for a morning coffee, gazing at the hummingbirds under the Japanese maple and watching the trains pass by on the shore of Commencement Bay. Thank you Meagan and Mac, for sharing it with us.

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Do you love charteuse plants too? Here’s a blog I did with lots of ideas for splashing a little of that sunshine-green hue in your garden: Cordial Charteuse on the Garden Menu

And here are my previous blogs on Puget Sound Gardens:

The Wonders of Windcliff – the Indianola garden of famed plant explorer Dan Hinkley and architect Robert Jones

A Return to Heronswood – nineteen years later, I returned to this resurrected oasis on Kitsap

A Garden of Endearing, Eclectic, Exuberant Refuge – the fabulous Seattle garden of Daniel Sparler and Jeff Schouten

In Camille Paulsen’s Puyallup Garden – a plantswoman’s wonderful garden overlooking mighty Tahoma