CITY OASIS

(This is a 2016 garden description. Gardens for this year’s tour can be found here.)

Only 6 years ago an abandoned house stood here, atop a steep slope of blackberry brambles—what a transformation! Enjoying challenges and big projects, the owners first built their house in 2010, followed by the gardens in 2011 with shrubs salvaged from lots where houses were being torn down. Creative planters, stumps and snags bring interest and personality to this reclaimed garden.

Walking up the driveway, you’ll see a bank supported by large boulders featuring ninebarks, azaleas, maples, spireas, and euonymus. Crowning the bank on the front porch are three graceful hinokis in large clay pots. At the top of the driveway, a parking area is enclosed with planters containing salvia ‘Hot Lips’, coneflowers, various annuals, and grasses. From this vantage point, take in the gently terraced gardens and patios streaming down the hill, ending in a panoramic view of Puget Sound, the islands, and Olympic Mountains beyond.

A large pizza oven, designed and built by the owner, sits at the east end of the patio, next to the vegetable garden among potted grasses. To the north is a second patio of 2’x2’ pavers with built-in benches, thoughtfully placed in the shade of old-growth Western cedars and conifers.

Landscape timbers, 392 in all, were brought in to create the series of broad steps, landings and retaining walls that wind down to the sunny patio below, which is surrounded by ferns, hellebores, and heuchera. Culverts and watering troughs are used for planters. Halfway down, note the gardening shed with crab-themed décor.

From a wildly overgrown hillside came beautiful spaces to relax, socialize, entertain, and garden.

Wheelchair/stroller accessible only on upper level. Steep driveway. Parking for 2 cars in driveway for those with limited mobility.