If there’s one good thing that came with the COVID-19 virus in the past year, it’s the increased interest in the joys of gardening. With more time to spend at home and the need to fill the gaps left by social distancing, home and garden businesses have noted a surge in sales. Another positive: The […]
Patti McFerran
A garden writer and tour director from Boulder, Colorado and an Emeritus Master Gardener, she is actively involved in many local gardening organizations including the Gig Harbor Northwest Perennial Alliance, the South Sound unit of the Washington Park Arboretum Foundation, and Horsehead Bay Garden Club. She is on the Master Gardeners' speakers list; her programs include shade and herb gardening as well as garden travelogues. She has worked with the Gig Harbor Garden Tour for 7 years and has been the garden selection chair for the last four years. She and her husband, John, retired to the Northwest in 2003 to be closer to their daughter, Molly, and their three wonderful grandchildren, Sarah, Jasper and Rosemary.
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Artists in the Garden
Gardens have been a favorite subject for artists since the beginning of time. Where else can such perfect subjects be found — subjects that flaunt their beauty and just beg to be painted? They don’t charge a modeling fee, need no special costumes or make-up; sit still and pose for as long as the artist […]
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A Lush Garden Makeover
You’ve seen the photos in ads for miracle makeovers: the plain little face “before” and voilà! the lovely visage “after.” That same message can be applied to gardens, as was the case with this miraculous makeover of Susan and David Crossland’s garden in Bremerton. In just six years, they transformed a plain little house (circa […]
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A Classic Garden Passes On to the Future
Sometimes a garden that has been “installed” while a house is being built has an impersonal, landscaped look. Not so with this beautiful property on the banks of Bainbridge Island’s Hidden Cove. This garden reflects the aesthetics of the original owners, as they were able to live on the property while the house and garden […]
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Autumn Glory at Bloedel Reserve
The Kitsap Peninsula is privileged to be home to one of the nation’s most magnificent landscape gardens, just over the Highway 305 bridge on Bainbridge Island. Touted as “one of North America’s 10 best botanical gardens,” Bloedel Reserve is unique in its focus, combining exquisite vistas within a natural setting and featuring stately trees, ponds […]
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A Garden Makeover
It takes time — as well as imagination, desire and commitment — to turn a yard into a garden. Sam and Karen Brindley had the latter two necessities when they moved to Indianola from Kirkland 10 years ago. The house they found had a spectacular southern view across Puget Sound toward downtown Seattle, Bainbridge Island […]
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The Garden Shed Takes Back Stage in the Garden
Every garden needs a work area: a “behind the scenes” staging space where all the glories of the garden are dressed, groomed and rehearsed until they are ready to make their entrance. This can be a spot tucked away out of sight with a simple table, a bag of potting soil and a stash of […]
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Gig Harbor Garden Tour’s Lush Offerings
Variety is the spice of life. This year’s Gig Harbor Garden Tour truly exemplifies that old adage. From elegant, English-style greenhouses to sweet, pocket-sized gardens to big, community raised-beds bursting with herbs, fruits and vegetables, there is something for every garden taste in the luscious, spicy offerings of 2020. The 23rd annual tour includes four […]
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Historic Homestead Becomes Home to Gardens
Imagine being a young woman in Germany in the 1890s and coming alone over the Atlantic Ocean, and across the entire continental United States, to a remote peninsula in the Pacific Northwest. That is what young Dora Gummert did when she came to Gig Harbor to marry Henry Sehmel (pronounced Zay-mul), who planned to farm […]