The Garden Of Her Dreams – An Olympia Gardener Creates A New Home

Dandelion Gardens
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 Submitted by Dandelion Gardens

Dandelion GardensMarcia bought her new home off Boulevard Road in Olympia last November, and thereby began a fun and colorful journey of transforming the home and garden to meet her wants and needs.  Marcia knew what she wanted when she bought this home:  to live closer to her son and grandchildren, to be more conveniently located to the state offices (where she works), and to own a property suitable for her energetic dog, edibles, ornamentals, and entertaining. She’s now living her dream.

As a young woman, Marcia earned her bachelors’ degree in biology and quickly put it to good use.  No matter where she’s lived, she’s always had a large vegetable garden and incorporated native plants into her landscape.  She has gardened her way around Washington State, including golf course living in Eastern Washington, a home in Vancouver, and she even attempted to garden in the hard and impossible clay soil on Cooper Point.  She outsmarted the Cooper Point clay soil by planting edibles in containers and annuals in landscape beds (because annuals need smaller holes than shrubs do).  The numerous deer around the Cooper Point property were a whole new challenge, and she learned how to garden successfully with deer, too.  Moving to a new home solved both her deer and clay soil problems.

The corner lot is a generous sized property – big enough to enjoy her garden dreams but not so big as to create a nightmare.  Being a corner lot, the Dandelion Gardenshouse and property are very visible from the street, so she wanted a fairly traditional look from the street.  A landscape contractor installed a large, sweeping paver walkway to the front door.  The walkway expands into a large and inviting patio that includes colorful containers and a comfortable bench purchased from an Oregon artist.  The landscape beds around the walkway and patio include colorful Little Heath Pieris, heather, and ornamental grasses.  The look is finished by a beautiful red maple that softens the house and repeats the color of the brick work.

Behind the attractive privacy fence, Marcia lets her garden personality really shine.  In the side yard, a narrow area between the fence and house that is so often underutilized or ignored, the contractor installed long, narrow, raised beds for edibles. In these beds a variety of hot peppers, peas, potatoes, Swiss chard, lettuce, and herbs are planted, perfect for all her cooking needs.

The large patio behind the house is divided into several distinct spaces for conversation, dining, and warming yourself around the fire.  The fire-bowl area includes large rocks which work as extra seating, a place to set a drink, and a place to stop your eye as the patio ends and the landscape begin.  Beautiful mosaic tiles, made by her deceased husband, are set into the patio and the tile colors were used to establish the color palette.  The tiles’ bright orange and blue hues are dandelion Gardensrepeated in her garden furniture and containers.  Marcia hasn’t planted all of her containers; the empty ones are used as eye catching, colorful focal points in the landscape.  Custom made iron work was also installed on the fence as a place to grow vines.  In time, the jasmine and clematis will provide color, soften the fence and provide more screening from the backyard neighbor.   Two frames were made and mounted on the fence to display additional colorful tile pieces.

Marcia loves vibrant reds and lime greens and has filled many of her containers with red impatiens, red petunias, and lime green foliage plants.  Her containers also include evergreen perennial structural plants, the bright annuals simply augment them.  Annuals are also planted in garden beds to provide color while waiting for the newly installed landscape to fill in.  Her love of contrasting colors and textures is readily evident in all landscape beds and containers.

Marcia would rather be outside in her garden than anywhere else.  She loves the exercise, the time to hear and see the birds (happy memories of her grandmother), and finds it satisfying to have the garden “look just right”.  She also enjoys the immediate gratification of pulling a weed, arranging a container and creating a plant vignette.

She has also learned many enjoyable lessons through her years of gardening – she used to be a teacher and school principal so she knows all about lessons and teachable moments.  Three of the most important lessons she’s learned are to be patient – the landscape will fill in, plants will tell you if they are happy or not, and it’s okay to move plants.  Great garden lessons we all could learn.

For more information on how to make your garden dreams a reality contact Dandelion Gardens at 360-455-9164.

 

 

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