Perhaps one of the best joys of gardening is when a gardener finds that new struggling little sprout that’s choking under too many weeds and she frees it — and within a day, it’s growing straight, reaching into new summer sun.
Little joys like this one are abundant stories coming forth from the gardeners of this year’s Gig Harbor Garden Tour. All seven selected gardeners describe their gardens as magical, a retreat, an evolution, a work in progress. Each expressed an affinity for the care and feeding, not only of the design but for the plants that flourish in their gardens.
“Each year, we select gardens to inspire gardeners of every level, the master gardener to the absolute novice,” said board Chair Jan Reeder. “This year, we have gardens of all sizes, some with many acres, and some in small tracts with HOA restrictions. We want to showcase what can be accomplished by anyone.”
In addition to inspiring and delighting gardeners and garden lovers, the garden tour supports important literacy activities in Gig Harbor.
“Last year, we raised over $25,000 from the tour and we gave it all away,” Reeder said. “Our efforts supported projects at five elementary schools, one preschool, both the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula libraries, Altrusa, Gig Harbor Pediatrics Northwest and the Harbor History Museum. The whole idea is to get books into kids’ hands and help them become lifelong lovers of reading and learning.”
‘Hyak Park’
The largest garden this year belongs to Dannie and Craig McLaughlin on Fox Island. Three glorious acres invite neighbors, kids and family members to explore whimsey, roses, hydrangeas and a spectacular waterfall graced by Astilbe ‘Bridal Veil,’ Azalea ‘Helen Close’ and red twig dogwood.
“We call our garden ‘Hyak Park’ and it does feel like a park,” Dannie McLaughlin explained. “We love it when our family and neighbors come and just enjoy spending time with Mother Nature.”
Garden visitors are invited to wander along the gravel pathways. Deep into the garden, they will find “Bird Song Pond” and “Tree Face Path.” Here, the owners carved out cedar and Douglas fir trees, creating playful tree faces.
At the other end of the garden is an area containing 33 conifers, a rose garden and a vintage Airstream travel trailer sitting in the midst of a cottage garden. The property has its own campground, a two-story treehouse and spectacular views of Hales Passage, Mount Rainier and, on a clear day, the Olympics. Tour guests are also invited to view Craig McLaughlin’s vintage car collection.
‘Controlled Chaos’
Dawn and Lars Holmberg, also of Fox Island, have been cultivating their garden for over 25 years. Lars Holmberg calls it a “controlled chaos.” “We like to work with nature rather than against it,” he explained.
The Holmberg garden is a collection of individual gardens that make a whole. “We have garden rooms,” Dawn Holmberg said. “There’s the South Forest Garden, the Fire Pit Room, the Orchard Border, the Pond Garden, the Green House, the Zen Garden. New this season will be a glass house, influenced by Japanese gardens, in the woods.”
Each of their garden rooms has an entry, be it an arbor or tunnel. This serves as an announcement to visitors that they have arrived in a new space.
“The lines have to make sense,” Lars Holmberg said. “There has to be some flow and be pleasant to walk through. We have a lot of seating areas so we can study the lines, have coffee in the morning, read in the afternoon, have wine in the evening.”
With lots of perennials, rhododendrons, fuchsias and foxgloves, the garden is surrounded by a green belt of trees that he designed and planted when they first moved into their house. “Here we have a Pacific Northwest gem. We’re very hidden and you don’t know what we have until you are in the property,” he said.
More Than 25 Years in the Making
On the other side of Gig Harbor, overlooking Colvos Passage, Point Defiance, Mount Rainier and the maritime traffic of ferries and container ships, is Patti Brown’s garden. Like the Holmberg garden, it’s a little more than an acre and it, too, has been a work in progress for over 25 years. “There was just a basic lawn when we moved in, with lots of blackberries,” Brown said.
A lot has changed in the quarter century of this garden’s development. Brown, who is very conscious of conserving water, installed a drip system and shrunk the grass footprint. She designed the garden using ideas from Pinterest and garden shows, resulting in formal and informal seating and dining areas.
“My favorite thing about my garden is that you can be in one area, the woods, or the greenhouse, or the lawn,” she said.
Visitors will find a contorted filbert (walking stick plant) showcased among the freeform ornamental grasses of deep greens and yellows. A stunning, basalt dining table with benches beckons visitors to sit and enjoy a snack, while the English-style greenhouse is right out of a Jane Austen novel. The garden is designed with accessibility in mind, although it’s on a slope. The stairs have handrails and the hardscape allows for easy meandering from one area to the next.
Designed Around a Pond
A newer section of the Canterwood neighborhood is host to two gardens this year, Pat Riley’s and Jodi Maenhout’s. Developed about 13 years ago, the lots in this section are smaller and demonstrate what a creative gardener can achieve in such a space. To see these gardens, visitors will need to enter the main Canterwood gate at 12606 54th Avenue NW; GPS directions lead to the wrong gate.
Master Gardener Pat Riley describes her garden as a retreat. The garden is designed completely around a centerpiece pond with two waterfalls. “I have black goldfish and koi. Sometimes the herons will eat the koi, but I love looking at my pond,” Riley said.
While Riley designed the bulk of her garden, she did work with local designer Sue Goetz as a coach. It’s a meandering garden with copious perennials bordering her water feature.
“There are CCRs [covenants, conditions and restrictions] for the neighborhood and it’s heavily regulated — they had to approve everything. My garden is really all in the backyard and I have no expansive lawn,” she said. “I love fuchsias, and next to roses, they are probably my favorite. They attract so many hummingbirds.”
Even though the houses are relatively close together, the variety of maples, ferns and even Riley’s garden art gives the visitor an experience of enjoying a very private enclave.
An Evolving Garden
Jodi Maenhout says her garden is a constant work in progress. “I plant what I like,” she said. “I do experiment in my garden and have base plants that I move around frequently.”
Trained as a landscape architect, Maenhout said that often, landscape architects have the most challenging yards. “We are always creating something for someone else,” she said. Even though Maenhout no longer works in the field, her training is evident in her garden.
She used the builder’s basic plantings, moved things around, struggled with a lack of good topsoil (it was scrapped away in the construction) and added lots of foliage and texture. “I have dinosaur [food] plants everywhere,” she said. Also known as Gunnera, they are a prehistoric plant with leaves that can be as broad as 5 feet. It dies back in the winter but come spring, it’s a plant that just comes back.
A highlight of Maenhout’s garden is its topography. There is a small path in the back that takes the visitor to a slightly raised area with sunny spots in the afternoon. Throughout the garden are a variety of Japanese maples whose colors change with the seasons, providing year-round interest.
Prior to moving into this home, Maenhout lived on Fox Island. “All of my Japanese maples are from seedlings I propagated from the old house,” she explained.
For advice to new gardeners, Maenhout says, “You know, sometimes a garden just evolves. Don’t be afraid to experiment. You don’t always have to follow the rules.”
Classic Northwest Landscape
Lu and Randy Kelley’s garden is across from the entrance to Sehmel Park. Of all the gardens on this year’s tour, it’s perhaps the shadiest. “It’s a Northwest shade garden that showcases beauty in all seasons,” said Lu Kelley, who is the gardener.
A half-acre in size, it was a blank slate when the Kelleys moved in more than 25 years ago. With an east-facing garden and very little sun in the winter, Kelley attended classes on how to make the best soil and how to select plants that will flourish. “I joined a garden club and found mentors. You are never done with a garden and each year, I learn new things,” she said.
At the beginning, Kelley did work with a professional to get the original design. Today, the garden is a profusion of color. In the summer, she has lots of annuals in the sunniest part of the yard, which also serves as the septic overflow. “My goal was to have plants that bloom in every season and to have color as a foreground for all the shady plants,” she said.
There are a variety of ferns in many colors, hellebores that bloom in winter months and Supertunia that keep their color all summer. Bright blue garden chairs and whimsical sunflower garden art also bring brightness to the shady areas, along with lace-like germaniums, giant alliums and foxgloves.
Visitors to this garden, particularly on a warmer summer, will find respite in its shade and marvel in what is so special about a classic Northwest landscape.
A Storybook Garden
Off Rosedale, on a 2.5-acre lot, is Alayna and Gary Davis’ garden. Alayna Davis, who is the gardener, describes it as magical. “It is an invitation to connect with nature in three ways, from a meandering English garden, through a meditative path in the forest, ending in a sustainable food garden,” she said.
Davis got her love of gardening from her grandparents and at a very young age made mud pies and learned to sprout seeds. This lifelong passion inspires her to create a storybook-beautiful garden. “My husband is from the U.K., so we wanted to re-create the feel of ‘home,’ of an English garden. While for me, I really wanted a space to propagate and grow my own food,” she said.
Davis is avid about sustainable food. She grows their own food, and what she grows, she has propagated. “It’s very easy and economical to fill your garden with what’s already there,” she said.
The English garden supports a large dragonfly, butterfly and hummingbird population. In the spring, nuthatches nest in the prolific black mondo grass that borders it.
Visitors will be swept away in flower gardens of alstroemeria, huge umbrella-like daises, greenery everywhere and spots for sitting and relaxing. There’s a giant red umbrella that peeks out of the trees; a classic, rustic driftwood bench that invites curling up with a good book; and an astonishing rocky waterfall that gracefully flows into what is almost a grassy meadow. Native evergreen trees have been artfully limbed to allow for glimpses of blue sky and sunshine. It’s a garden of structured and unstructured areas, each with a very specific purpose.
As in past years, many gardens will host vendors, including the 2025 featured artist, Peggy Judd. Her work, “Sunshine Poppies,” was selected to be the garden image on the poster and ticket/brochure. Tickets for the Gig Harbor Garden Tour are limited, so purchasing early is recommended.
In thinking about these selected gardens, board chair Reeder says, “This year’s gardens are a really special, unique collection. It will be one of our best.”
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