Local gardening legend, former television show host and aspiring blogger Peg Bier welcomed us to the constantly evolving two and a half acre garden paradise she and her family have called home since 1959. She readily credits the help of her four children and 12 grandchildren in being able to keep the bountiful beds, borders and overabundance of container gardens tended and watered. Then a full-time employee at local nursery, Merrifield’s Garden Center, she was the obvious choice to co-host the local cable TV call-in gardening show, Merrifield’s Gardening Advisor, which aired on Saturday mornings for over 25 years from 1990 until 2015. Check out the archived shows on You Tube by entering Merrifield Gardening Advisor in the search box! Her common sense advice and seasonal topics are timeless. No longer in her seventies, she has retired from television but remains a part-time Merrifield’s employee and a fixture in the Fairfax County, Virginia gardening community.

I feel sure that, in its youth, the Bier home and garden in Tyson’s Corner were surrounded by rolling farmland. Modern day development has grown right up to its property lines and Peg now gardens her acreage right in the middle of a neighborhood of well cared for homes. The riotous roadside garden filled with all manner of plants is the first hint that this garden is a bit different from its more restrained neighbors.

 

In Peg’s own words, “It is not the wow factor but the smile when some small discovery is made.”

Before we even get off the roadside I see that there are small vignettes and dish gardens tuck into the garden here and there. Many are so subtle you really have to be looking for them!

 

The first view of the family home–the elevation change is the perfect set-up for sunny raised beds viewed perfectly from the front porch.

Peg’s garden weaves in and out of sun and shade offering good growing conditions for a wide variety of perennial, shrubs and trees.

Peg shared that all the maples in the garden were propagated by her. Her home seems to grow right out of the garden, softened on all sides by greens, golds and burgundy.

The home’s main outdoor dining area, complete with seating for the whole family, is barely visible until you actually climb the few stairs to the patio.

This timber framed sunken patio offers shady respite and another opportunity for built in raised beds.

There are sun plants…

And shade plants..beautiful hostas on parade, big and small!

Comfy, resting and reading spots appear as you round curved paths–this one themed with red-orange blooms and bright blue garden accents.

This green roadway parallels a small riverbed and took me to Peg’s veggie garden.

Completely fenced to foil the deer, veggies are grown in and amongst flowers and small accent shrubs.

Above and below dish gardens planted with small scale shrubs nestle among carefully curated garden accent pieces.

Peg Bier’s garden is truly full of small discoveries but there is no absence of wow factor here either. My impression is that of a “gardener’s garden”–plantings are relaxed and re-seeders just go where they please, her less than perfect lawn reflects her commitment to organic gardening and I believe she will find a home for any plant she to which she takes a fancy. Her garden mirrors her personality and is a fitting legacy of the almost 60 years of devotion.

 

In all honesty, I am not sure there was a river and I don’t know if Ellen Ash is a grandmother (hmm..she does have a bubble machine in her back garden) but we journeyed through many tall trees on the way to her woodland garden in Great Falls, Virginia. California gardeners–except those in the coastal northern areas who have plenty of their own trees–get a little sappy about rural areas with rolling GREEN fields and stands of towering oaks maples and conifers. The Ash garden is no more than 50 miles from Washington, D.C. yet it seems to be in a totally different world.

The gated entry and long drive in flanked by mature woods reveal no clues of the contemporary home and treasure filled  2 acre woodland garden carved out of the forest.

This dry riverbed flows from the house to the drive. Mature plantings of hollies, flowering trees, junipers and other shrubs nestle up to the home. I often talk about designing plantings to give a garden a “sense of privacy and enclosure”. No need here! This property actually is enclosed on all sides with woods–no road or neighbor can be seen or heard. Check out our group as we left our bus to see the scale of the surrounding forest.

The highlight of Ellen’s garden for me was the extensive perennial bed–maybe 250+ feet long and 20 feet deep bordering the driveway directly in front of Ellen’s home. You can see just the end of it in the photo above.

In addition to small blooming shrubs, clematis, spring bulbs and lilies this bed is home to over 100 varieties of perennials and many of the fun garden chachkis Ellen adores. The low stack stone wall undulating through the bed adds a second level of interest.

We wandered through her woods which includes mature native American hollies, oaks, maples, hickories on our way to the back garden. I loved her use of very large stones set into mossy paths offering many side routes to areas filled with hydrangeas, azaleas and rhododendrons.

This little girl I met along the way made me laugh! Clearly she represents the joy this gardener takes in tending this beautiful piece of Virginia.

Among the ferns and hosta I spied this plant which appears to be an Acanthus-the variety is unknown to me as we pretty much just grow the Acanthus mollis which has the huge glossy dark green leaf. Can anyone help?

One of many areas to sit and enjoy the garden and its inhabitants, organic and inorganic!

The Ash back garden has a classic large lawn area–great for games and dogs–bordered by groupings of mature shrubs. When I gardened on an acre in Central Georgia I learned the value of having large areas which were less fussy and more maintenance free so that I would have time and energy to intensively garden other areas requiring more TLC. What a wonderful leafy background for these broad plantings.

While a large pool and pool house is the focal point for the back yard I was drawn to the variety of beds and plant material softening the perimeter and the areas between the home and the pool hardscape.

Ellen’s dahlia bed–so sorry I will not get to see these when they come into bloom in late summer.

The use of stone throughout the pool and patio area ties the manmade landscape to the natural landscape.

Layers upon layers of green made this garden seem cool even on a hot and humid late June afternoon.

As we say goodbye to Ellen Ash’s gracious garden I know you are wondering, “What does a can of spray paint have to do with a woodland garden?” Here’s the story!

The moment I got off the bus in Ellen’s driveway I was held captive by a number of groupings of brilliantly colored Allium. In my defense, your view is through my camera lens. In reality I was 10-15 feet away from the blooms. As I marveled at their clear color this late in the season, a Virginia garden blogger standing next to me clucked and shook her head as if I was a lost in the woods (literally). “They’re spray painted.”, she said. “No, really, they are.”, she added. Apparently spray painting your alliums is SOP in these parts. Many gardeners like to retain the spiky seed heads throughout the summer and then harvest them for fall and winter arrangements–presumably breaking out the spray paint again in an appropriate hue. I will admit to being a wee bit skeptical of the explanation until I saw spray painted seed heads in several more gardens over the next couple of days.

I can see the Ash homestead in the forest as the gathering place for friends and family far and wide–children and adults playing touch football on the broad lawn, going on scavenger hunts amongst the canopy of the forest or just sunning and swimming at the pool. In my mind’s eye I see Ellen with her sun hat and trowel puttering in her garden and enjoying the very personalized garden she has nurtured in this wonderful natural setting.

 

The 2017 Capitol Region Garden Bloggers Fling opened my eyes to the great range of public gardens available to the the residents of the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland. Remember when I told you the Fling’s itinerary was designed to give us a little taste of a lot of different regional garden experiences rather than whole meal of just a few? Hmmm…I may have only said that in my mind and not to you in a post! In either case–in that spirit our time was limited in both of the two public gardens I will share today. Both were beautiful spaces with a nice balance of open areas and display beds and would provide a full day’s enjoyment during any season of the year. The residents of their communities are so fortunate to have these public gardens and their resources right in their backyards.

BROOKSIDE GARDENS in WHEATON, MARYLAND

Brookside Gardens is an award winning 50 acre public display garden within Wheaton Regional Park. The gardens are free to the public from sunrise to sunset every day of the year except Christmas Day. We disembarked at the modern (and air conditioned!!!) Visitors Center and I picked up their 2017 Spring and Summer magazine–packed with a full range of events including the Summer Twilight Concert Series, Shakespeare in the Garden, the Garden After Dark and a speaker series. Year round the garden offers cooking demonstrations, a full range of horticultural classes, a school of botanical art and illustration and a ton of children’s activities. While our tour remained remarkably on schedule over the 3+ days, given the sheer number of places we traveled, we needed to play catch-up when reaching Brookside. The hot ticket right now is the Wings of Fancy Live Butterfly and Caterpillar Exhibit at the South Conservatory and so I set off down the hill to find it. Take the walk with me and see what I passed along the way.

I am loving it all ready! Located close to the Visitors Center with easy access for families this great outdoor classroom is planted with alphabet topiaries and even has a miniature library. Each of several “classrooms” has a lesson that connects the garden to the concepts of Math, Science, Reading Art and Music. Even lunch and recess are more fun than the average school day!

Beautiful layers of color and texture flank the wide and easy to walk downhill path.

Pots tucked in here and there keep aggressive spreaders like this Equisetum hyemale, or horsetail reed, in check.

No shortages in this garden of breathtaking long views. As I saw in so many places on this adventure–conifers, evergreen hardwoods and deciduous trees mixed and layered with varying shades of green shrubs and perennials.

Astilbe, commonly called false spirea or false goatsbeard, flourishes in the shade canopy and softens the transition from hard surface to landscape.

The lime greens light up the shade and work so well with the little pops of purple Browallia.

Healthy, blooming Hosta-objects of lust and envy for dry California gardeners.

Cornus kousa ‘Snowboy’ had me at first sight. Its form is more upright and slender than my other favorite variegated dogwood ‘Wolf Eyes’.

Arriving at the South Conservatory I knew I did not have time to actually enter the  butterfly exhibit but very much enjoyed the long raised bed filled with plants attractive to all types of pollinators.

The educational signage was great and the area was full of moms and strollers plus touristy garden guests like myself–clearly Wings of Fancy is a popular destination.

Had to get my hustle on now to get back to the Visitors Center for our Panera Bread boxed lunch and a great presentation by Fling sponsors American Beauties, Organic Mechanics and Sustane. Left with more great goodies including a native Phlox, Sustane’s Complete (water dispersable fertilizer) and a big bag of root zone feeder packs called Fuhgeddaboudit! from Organic Mechanics. All of these sponsors are small ecologically  responsible companies–check them out on the web!

MEADOWLARK BOTANICAL GARDENS in VIENNA, VIRGINIA

The beautiful Piedmont Hills are the backdrop for this 95 acre property which was once a family farm. Meadowlark is a garden devoted to conservation, aesthetics, education and community service operated under the auspices of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. We had the opportunity to meet Garden Manager Keith Tomlinson at our closing dinner in the Atrium to hear his vision for the garden–I was pretty amazed to hear that Meadowlark is essentially self sustaining. The garden is open daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. There is a small admission fee or you can buy a family yearly pass for $45–pretty good bargain. There are a number of themed gardens including: the Experimental Meadow, the Korean Bell Garden, the Perennial Color Border, the Herb Potpourri Garden and three native plant collections focused on Virginia and the Potomac Valley.

Meadowlark has some of the most phenomenal long views of any botanical garden I have visited. Paved and mulched walking trails meander throughout. Due to time constraints I kept to the center parts within an easy walk back to our dinner venue. Stroll along with me and enjoy this beautiful park which sits right in the middle of a residential   neighborhood.

My first stop was the Bold Garden, a fun collection of plants having bold coloration, size or texture. You can just get a peak at one of my fellow bloggers having a bit of a rest. Most of the display areas had places to just sit and soak in the surrounding nature.

While this meadow rue, Thalictrum rochebrunianum ‘Lavender Mist’ does not look very bold in this photo, the bloom stalks rose over 6 feet!

 

Another appealing resting spot–this one in the Herbal Potpourri and Salvia Garden where deep beds flank a winding center path. Over 70 species of Salvia are represented along with hundreds of herbs and medicinal plants.

Here’s one of those long vistas I promised you! Just a glimpse of Lake Carolina, one of 3 small lakes in the garden, as seen from the herb garden.

A glorious day at Meadowlark looking across the Great Lawn.

This meandering path of daylilies led me to the mass of bloom from the Stout Medal Daylily Garden downhill near one of the smaller lakes. This collection contains at least one of every daylily awarded the prestigious medal given in memory since 1950 in memory of  Dr. Arlow Burdette Stout, who is considered to be the father of modern daylily breeding in North America.

 

July 8 is Daylily Day at Meadowlark with a plant sale, a walking tour and a special exhibition by the Northern Virginia Daylily Society. As I followed the walking trail around Lake Carolina I passed impressive perennial beds in which daylilies and their companions were the stars.

The far side of Lake Carolina has large gazebo perfect for wedding and other events–what a serene setting.

Rounding the lake in my route back to the Atrium and our dinner I passed by so much more than I could ever share. Meadowlark had a meditative quality so appealing to me. Perhaps it was the wide open spaces where the collections were destinations you reached by way of just enjoying the natural flow of the land rather than being bunched up together one after another.

The sun disappearing behind the trees…

We enjoyed  lovely dinner together in the Atrium and heard some words of wisdom about staying current in a fast paced digital media world from  Lloyd Traven of Peace Tree Farm, breeder of Lavender ‘Phenomenal’. I saw this interspecific lavender (hybrid crossed between plants in two different species) used extensively in several of the Smithsonian Gardens–full of blooms and drawing bees like a magnet! In Central California we don’t think twice about losing lavenders through the winter. ‘Phenomenal’ was bred in Pennsylvania and has excellent winter hardiness to Zone 4. Lloyd and his wife and business partner, Candy, spent the weekend with us touring gardens and even brought us all our own ‘Phenomenal’! Check them out at http://www.peacetreefarm.com for more information about everything they grow. Just a heads up–you won’t find any seasonal color baskets with red petunias, white verbena and blue calibrachoa on their website.

Next up–2 acres  in Great Falls, Virginia where I learned how spray paint mixes with woodland gardening!

 

Two Arlington, Virginia gardeners faced very different challenges head on to create wonderful spaces in which they can relax and entertain and welcomed our group of garden bloggers ready to inspire us with their stories.

Scott Brinitzer is a landscape designer and owner of Scott Brinitzer Design Associates. He has been gardening at his 1917 Federal style (I’ll take any corrections on the style–not really my specialty) home for more than 26 years. His street is part of a neighborhood built in what was once an oak forest and he continues to encourage neighbors to retain the ambiance with the addition of new trees whenever possible. The leafy canopy surrounding his home provided us with a cool respite on a hot day.

The unique pea gravel and concrete hardscape, also found on the porch balustrade, is original to the home and deserves a closer look.

This is an area of copious rainfall and Scott’s street drains directly downhill into the Chesapeake Bay which is profoundly polluted. Every feature of his organic garden is designed to eliminate run off and offer water an opportunity to percolate back into the ground.

This wide side yard once had an impermeable concrete driveway from the street to the garage at the back of the lot, partially seen at the far right. Water on the driveway formed a deluge down the driveway right out into the gutter leading to the bay. Scott removed about 2/3 of the hard surfaced driveway, replacing it with wide beds on each side and an attractive gravel pathway which allows rainfall to pass through to the underlying ground. An area directly in front of the garage and adjacent to the classic arched trellis work is recessed even further to alleviate a particularly stubborn flood prone area. This area of the garden is lushly green with plant material of varying heights including this structure covered with mature wisteria. It has classic southern garden written all over it!

The back garden is intimate with structure provided by boxwood hedges, specimen shrubs and bamboo. This garden shed is charming enough to live in.

Throughout patio areas and bed edges are cut stone, allowing water is drain through; walkways are gravel. A sunny back bed offers ferns and Liriope spicata. Lath panels allow vines to scramble up, softening the fence line. Pots abound including those clustered around this small water feature which is in perfect harmony with the home’s style.

The (non-garage) side garden is also very wide and is often used for entertaining. Below you see part of our group of about 40 doing what we do best: talking plants, taking photos, jotting notes for blog posts and use in our own gardens. Scott could easily do a dinner party in his lovely side yard!

I managed to snap this photo before the group flowed toward the front part of the side garden.

The combination of non grouted cut stone patio work and the gravel paths provides continuity on all three sides. This shady bed is filled with Pachysandra or Japanese spurge and the classic southern backdrop of mostly glossy green trees and shrubs provides a feeling of enclose and privacy although we are almost in the front yard. Intimate seating areas invite you to just relax and take in the afternoon.

Dutch elm disease has been encroaching on this neighborhood for some years but until recently Scott’s trees had been spared. A stately elm in his garden is now affected and he has been working with Bartlett Trees to manage it. Tree specialist Steve from Bartlett was on hand to talk to us about tree care and disease management. We were able to look at the diseased tree first hand–sad to see that a huge limb was beyond help and had been recently removed.

The Brinitzer garden felt supremely liveable to me. Although Scott described it as a small garden at 10,000 sq. ft.; for me it was very comparable to the property sizes commonly seen in California. Scott analyzed the garden’s issues and designed solutions to meet the challenges in an environmentally responsible way. The space was a wonderful example of a garden whose substantial use of evergreen plants and shrubs as “bones”–structure, screen and background–guarantees year round beauty. There were fun places to sit and vignettes to ponder. Color was restrained and the landscape in no way competed with the beauty of the home itself, rather it wrapped the home like a leafy green cape! Thank you, Scott, for sharing your home and your talent with us.

The front garden of Jeff Minnich’s home is no bigger than a minute but packed with classic southern plantings. A door side plaque introduces us to Woodland Cottage.

Nothing in this charming postage stamp front garden prepares you for the extensive woodland garden planted on a very steep rocky slope behind the cottage.

I think my fellow blogger has stopped to get a photo but it is possible that she is evaluating whether she will need oxygen on the way back up.

This rock waterfall flows from the level of the bamboo seen in the upper right of this photo and the same position in the photo before. The steps are to the right of this long drink of water which ends in a peaceful pool. We are not even close to the lowest part of the garden yet–less than half way.

At the elevation of the waterfall there is a shallow patio area which extends the width of the house–to me it was the perfect spot for this garden designer and owner of Jeff Minnich Garden Design, Inc. to sit with an adult beverage and survey his domain. However, there was no way to take a quick shot of it without falling off into the woodland below! The lower garden is accessed by a stairway on one side and the tree root studded path on the other, basically forming a U. Suit up, folks–we’re going down!

These were great chunky stone steps with a thoughtfully provided handrail. Colonies of ferns and what I think is Tricyrtis, commonly called toad lily flank the steps. If I am right on this identification these would be loaded with gorgeous flowers spotted like toads in the early spring. A large Cryptomeria cast its shade over the walk and I think the temperature dropped 10 degrees by the time I reach the lower packed earth path. Look at this profusion of white hydrangeas just falling down the steep slope. For the sake of scale don’t miss the orange shirt worn by one of us at the very bottom of the garden.

The coloration of this large conifer on the lower path caught my eye. Unknown to me but readily identified by one of the Virginia gardeners as Thujopsis dolobrata ‘Variegata’, a member of the cypress family. She shared that it was a favorite of hers to cut for arrangements at Christmas time–the white needles just lit up the shadowed lower garden.

When you go down you have to go up again–the path on the far side of the U took advantage of large tree roots to act as anchors going up. Jeff had warned us about these and so forewarned I used them like steps rather than tripping over them.

This peaceful garden was rich in texture, leaf shape and texture and is layered with both evergreen and deciduous shrubs and trees, as well as conifers. Many traditional woodland plants tend to be early spring bloomers so I was not surprised to minimal color at this hot time of year. I have always yearned for a classic green and white garden but never come close to achieving it, giving in to the lure of all that color at the garden center. These two Arlington gardens have renewed that desire. Now I just need a new garden with a lush, high shade canopy in which to develop it–not sure one is waiting for me in hot, dry Central California. No gardener has a perfect site but these two Virginia garden designers have been great examples of balancing their gardening goals with  their property’s assets and challenges and meeting nature halfway.

 

 

 

The Garden Bloggers Fling itinerary devoted an afternoon of open time to see the many individual Smithsonian Gardens found along the National Mall in Washington D. C. We were free to pick and choose from among the 12 gardens found in the stretch between the Washington Monument and the United States Capitol–it was no easy feat to decide where to use this precious time. I visited 6 of the 12 and spent a bit of time at the Farmer’s Market near the U.S. Department of Agriculture Building.

Rain threatened constantly and the day was miserably hot and humid. We disembarked our bus and headed in one, twos and threes to execute our finely tuned 12 gardens in 3 hours plans. My first stop was the Pollinator Garden in homage to the designation of June 19-25 as National Pollinator Week. This garden fills a 400 X 40 ft. area on the east side of the National History Museum at 9th St.

The garden was established in 1995 as the Butterfly Habitat Garden, solely focused on butterflies. In 2016 the garden was re-dedicated as the Pollinator Garden to showcase the wider diversity of pollinators, including bees, beetles, butterflies, flies, hummingbirds, moths and wind. Natives were added to the plantings to provide beneficial habitat to the wide range of pollinators and the garden’s focus became the interdependency between plants and pollinators.

Although this garden was packed with plants, those in full bloom were few enough to provide bright pops of color as you walked along the wide curved path. I was really impressed at the educational opportunities this space offers to parent and teachers. The signage is colorful and appealing to both adults and children! The first plaque introduces you to the myriad of pollinators and alerts you to read the each subsequent pollinator profile panel focused on a single pollinator.

This area of the garden focuses on bees. On the far left you see a young lady relaxing under skies which have momentarily cleared. This long slender open space has several benches and at the moment of my visit they were mostly filled. Below is the pollinator profile panel for this section.

I have to say that I stopped and read every one of the seven panels as I wandered through. Who knew that flies prefer pale and dull to dark brown or purple flowers; or that fragrance plays no part in the hummingbird’s choice of flower to visit; or that moths outnumber butterflies 10 to 1 and like to visit four o’clocks, moonflowers and tobacco? I can honestly say that I had never even thought of a beetle or fly as being a pollinator; we are so focused on bees and butterflies. The beetle information was fascinating–the panel tells readers that “beetles are referred to as ‘mess and soil’ pollinators, beetles blunder their way through delicate blossoms searching of food, a mate or perhaps the bathroom”.

Wide borders with tall evergreen and conifer backgrounds block the noise from 9th Street which is only a few feet away. A very pleasant and peaceful walk for being right in the middle of bustle of the capital!

A few familiar pollinator friendly plants blooming included Salvia guaranitica, Monarda (bee balm), several varieties of Phlox paniculata

This is Pycnanthemum muticum, commonly called clustered mountainmint. I saw this plant in several different settings–totally new to me but I am putting it on my research list–it almost glowed!

The Pollinator Garden was not showy by any measure at this point in its season but I really enjoyed walking through and learning the interesting facts about the different pollinators which perform a task critical for the survival of mankind–the same mankind that stomps, sprays and swats them on a daily basis. Gardens emphasizing natural plant partnerships provide host plants, not only as food sources but also for shelter and safe havens for laying eggs and wintering over. Bravo to this garden for increasing my awareness of pollinator diversity.

We had learned that the weekly Friday Farmers Market adjacent to the Department of Agriculture would have some extra things going on for National Pollinator Week. Only moments after walking back across the National Mall to reach the site the skies opened up and there was a scramble for shelter by visitors and vendors alike. I did get a quick look at a couple of the booths including one educating visitors on bat pollination.

And I made a new garden friend–this HUGE Malayan flying fox! He (she?) is one of the Southeast Asian species of megabat–no kidding, megabat!

There is just not much more I can say about this amazing creature except “Wow!”.

I’ll continue to alternate public and private garden posts for a couple of weeks until I either have given you a peek at all of them or until the details start to become a blur…

Here’s a quick shout out to one of the sponsors of the 2017 Capitol Region Garden Bloggers Fling–American Beauties Native Plants. Check out their website at http://www.abnativeplants.com for native plants which will help you create gardens that are not only beautiful but also habitats for desirable wildlife. Thank you!

Landscape designer Barbara Katz is one of the rock stars of the garden world. In addition to creating beautiful and personalized garden spaces as the owner of London Landscapes LLC, she has teamed up with the high priest of meadow design, Piet Oudolf, to create the new Delaware Botanic Gardens.

The opportunity to visit Barbara’s Bethesda, Maryland garden is a rare honor made even more special after learning a little of the its history. The home was built as a spec home in 1994 and in 1995 its new owners contacted Barbara to create the gardens front and back. The commission was Barbara’s first major residential work and she poured her heart and soul into every detail–so much so that when the project was completed she found herself actually missing the garden.

Years past and Barbara’s design build firm flourished; she never quite let go of that first garden. In 2002 she happened to meet her former client at a local grocery store and learned that they were moving out of the area. Barbara and her husband ended up purchasing the home and the garden returned to her tender care. Right where it belonged!

A large bed filled with grasses, perennials and annuals greets visitors. The colonies of purple Agastache, commonly called hyssop, attracts bees and butterflies along with other pollinators to the garden.The color palette is bold enough to hold its own under strong summer sun but subdued enough to not detract from the home’s stonework and burgundy accents. What you don’t see is the cut bluestone walk adjacent to the curb which provides both a place for visitors to step out of their cars and a little space for plant colonies to grow without ending up in the street.

The bluestone is repeated in the small patio nestled against wide front steps. The plant material layered to the right and left of the steps includes several conifers which will provide winter interest. The red leafed Japanese maple is just visible on the left and echoes the door and shutter color–check out the great dark red rockers on the porch!

The rhythm of the path through the side yard is set by large staggered cut stones. This shady area is illuminated by a variety of lime green and lighter green plants including several varieties of Hosta, Japanese forest grass, ferns and Lonicera nitida. Taller, darker green vines and conifers seem to only intensify the lighter, lower selections. Many of us struggle to just get our generally narrow side yards to look remotely attractive–this pathway could be a garden unto itself and beautifully accomplishes the goal of drawing you into the back garden with the promise of yet unseen colors and combinations.

This charming vignette is found just as the side yard opens out into the back garden. The simple birdbath is nestled among a lovely variety of leaf textures, shapes and colors. The wee bit of pink at the branch tips of what I think is one of the Loropetalum species is echoed in the exquisite bi-color daylily. I regret not getting down on my hands and knees to see if the daylily was tagged–I want this one!

The back of this lot slopes up 12 feet to the property line near a 200 year old oak. As my eyes travel across this slope, which has been terraced to several levels, I see literally hundreds of annual and perennial plantings in well studied plant combinations. Combinations are repeated throughout the space giving the exuberant design continuity and order.

The lesson here is layer, relate, group, repeat. Green is the neutral throughout Barbara’s garden–and all these greens live together in harmony.

The waterfall and small pond were not part of Barbara’s original design and were added recently. Again we see the use of conifers as year around structure in the garden. The vista will be different but just as attractive when the annuals have been removed and the perennials put to bed for their long winter’s nap.

The first of the stone retaining walls is barely visible behind the plantings. The variety of stone walls and paths will also provide winter interest when the leafy materials are dormant.

As you climb the wide stone steps to the upper levels the waterfall can be viewed from multiple perspectives. Ajuga reptans fills in around the stones and will have a lovely bright blue stalk in the spring. Also called bugleweed, this ground cover spreads by runners and will bear a short bright blue stalk of flowers in spring. The white and pale green varigation of the large dappled willow draws  your eyes to the sky!

A small circle of turf on an upper level offers a cool spot to relax–I hope Barbara and her husband sit here often to watch the birds and wildlife attracted to their garden. Another stone retaining wall produces the opportunity to layer in screening plants which act as a backdrop for the entire garden and provides some privacy. The variegated tree in the center is Cornus kousa ‘Wolf Eyes’. I had this small and very stylish dogwood in my George garden where is literally glowed among a backdrop of darker green foliage.

We are almost at the top of Barbara Katz’s world now! A few steps behind us she has tucked in hot tub and a spot to sit with her husband for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

Pretty reluctant to leave the Katz garden, my group wandered out by way of her other side yard. What looked to me like more dug in plant material turned out to be her holding area for jobs in progress and additions to her own space.

Plants in flats and gallon containers are clustered together up against the house. From the street the area looks perfectly planted. I am sure she shifts items around trying out combinations and getting a feel (on a small scale) how plants will complement each other in a finished design. Water is nearby and she can pull from or add to her stock as necessary.

Barbara met the challenge of this difficult steeply sloped yard head on with beautiful results. A variety of levels, the continuity of the use of stone and the explosion of carefully curated trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals make this a garden for all seasons–every blade, leaf and flower had me at hello.

We arrived at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land late in the day; the skies were somber and overcast. The weather seemed fitting for this place of contemplation and reflection tucked away in the Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Brookland. Founded in 1899, the monastery is the United States home of the Holy Land Friars. The neo-Byzantine Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the centerpiece of the grounds which include gardens, replicas of many shrines throughout Israel, an archive and a library.

As we were near closing time we immediately descended the stairs into the lower garden areas. Below you can see a small part of the woodland garden as seen from above.

The grounds are layered in evergreen and deciduous trees, conifers, azaleas and a modest selection of blooming perennials and shrubs–their purpose to form a peaceful backdrop to the spiritual nature of the monastery rather than a garden showpiece. Below you see the Lourdes Grotto found in the lower garden.

The lower garden had a truly ancient feel which was enhanced by many low walls and edgings of these fabulous moss encrusted rocks. The soft paths deadened the sounds of our footsteps and we felt the need to almost whisper in this space!

As we wandered the pathways back to the top the skies had cleared a bit making it easier to walk among the gardens.

You can see the administrative and residential areas in the background. Throughout the grounds were places to rest and just enjoy the quiet surroundings.

Of special interest is the Rosary Portico; a cloister like series of open passageways in which you can travel from one side of the buildings to the other. The column supports of the portico are of varied forms and were all crafted by the same mason.

Roses, boxwood, daylilies and annual plantings grace the open spaces.

As you walk the Rosary Portico you see this angelic greeting recreated in over 150 languages, both living and dead. Many visitors search for the greeting in their own language–I looked for the plaque bearing the greeting in Armenian to take a photo for David but alas, we ran out of time before I found it!

After a day full of the three “H”s–hot, humid and hectic–I boarded the bus with a little bit of the peace of this place firmly implanted in my spirit.

 

Hello readers! I am going to switch it up a bit for you. Rather than strictly follow the day by day ramblings of the Garden Bloggers Fling I have decided to mix the public and private garden spaces we have toured just to keep you guessing at what you will see next!

Vacations in Maine were the inspiration for the Bethesda, Maryland home and garden of landscape designer Debbie Friedman. Owner of Bethesda Garden Designs, Debbie has mixed natural elements with a fairly controlled palette in her vision of a quintessential but understated Maine cottage garden. She also inspired us with her ability to tackle garden challenges with innovative solutions–her garden is approachable, achievable and a spot I found to be serenely welcoming.

Debbie greets us with open arms–what a great start to our day!

Debbie has created this mini meadow which fills the area between two walkways leading to her home. She explains that the area has an ever present issue with a very invasive grassy weed species which she has fought for years. Her solution was to fill the area around the small flagstone patio with a meadow of Liriope spicata whose form is very similar to the grassy weed. She can spot the interlopers and remove them easily enough but to most viewers the grassy leaves all look the same. The low Liriope is bordered by taller Pennisetum alopecuroides giving the area a feeling of enclosure. Smaller feather grass (Stipa) provides a little step down to the borders as it winds toward the front porch.

Have a closer look at this wooden log bench providing not only a place to rest but a statement of the importance of natural elements has for Debbie in her garden. The vignette is just enough.

This bold bed beneath the gently curved window is chock full of perennials providing food and shelter for birds and other wildlife. The golden blooms of Rudbeckia maxima, also called the great or giant coneflower, were awash with goldfinches as we arrived–we just couldn’t get off the bus fast enough to photograph them. Verbena bonariensis, whose purple tipped flower heads you see here is another sun and pollinator loving plant so useful for that pop of color dancing in and around its companions.

Carefully curated artistic objects peek out of foliage throughout the garden.

A tall, slender metal and twig structure echoes the form of the Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Slender Silhouette’ to its right. On the left you can see a glimpse of one of several mature Cryptomeria on Debbie’s neighbor’s property. You can never go wrong with a ‘borrowed view’ when it so nicely complements your own. Debbie uses logs again–this time setting the slices in to serve as her walkway to the back garden.

This long view provides a bit of perspective as to the garden’s size. This garden has two homes behind it but Debbie’s use throughout of nicely layered screening evergreen shrubs and conifers provides a sense of privacy and calm right in the middle of a busy neighborhood.

An amazing retreat awaits under the leafy canopy! Wood slices offer a pathway throughout the ostrich fern. Bamboo all ready existing on the property line provides a backdrop for this shade drenched area. Debbie shares that she keeps it pretty well under control by stomping on the newly emerging shoots each spring. You go, girl!

In the foreground are Debbie’s favorite cultivar of Japanese forest grass–Hakonechloa  macra ‘All Gold’–which almost seems to glow in the shade. Log hollow slices set on their side reinforce the use of natural materials as both functional pieces and art

Two levels of patio seating areas grace the rear of Debbie’s home. They offer wonderful long range views of the garden and have architectural and material interest all of their own.

More than one gardener in my group is headed right to their local patio store for orange outdoor furniture! I loved the simplicity of the lower deck water feature and the use of industrial materials as a counterpoint to all the leafy green. The tall red blooms are Monarda  (I think ‘Jacob Cline’).

Take note of the dappled willow, Salix integra behind the water feature. Debbie used the supple new whips from this plant to weave through these interesting metal framed balls which reside just at the edge of her lawn.

This creative garden designer and her charming garden were the perfect start to our first day of touring Capitol region private gardens. I think we all boarded our buses appreciative of her generosity in sharing her garden with us and a little in awe of many of the creative ways she used everyday, natural materials.