Wyn and Steve Abbott live on a piece of land in Hansville that was described as “The Fairy Tale Garden” on the 2024 Hansville Helping Hands tour. Its name is perhaps appropriate in more than one way.
Both Abbotts create magic, not only with their gardening efforts, but with their own artistic and creative talents. He is a locally known artist who has created in seven different mediums. She has been quilting for over 40 years and several years ago began painting with watercolors. When they bought their home a few years ago, it was still being constructed. They made sure that the home would include two separate craft rooms in the floor plan. Additionally, there is a 7-foot-high crawl space where Steve Abbott has room to store his paintings.
How They Came to Hansville
Both Abbotts grew up in Edmonds. Since their parents were best friends, Wyn and Steve grew up together and spent most of their lives on the water and on sail boats and motorboats.
“My mom set us up as adults when she asked me to go to an art show,” Wyn Abbott says. Of course, the show included Steve’s amazing art. Then a week later, Wyn’s mom said, “Steve’s coming to dinner; why don’t you join us?” Her mom’s plan worked because the two married six months later.
Wyn Abbott has lived in Kitsap for 40-plus years, working as a nurse at Harrison Hospital for 29 years. Both she and her husband had a childhood dream of living on a boat. Before they moved to Hansville, they achieved that dream by living for eight years on a 54-foot trawler-type boat with a sewing room, three bathrooms and a washer and dryer. She commuted to Harrison from the boat and he was a Boeing engineer, also commuting to work. While living on the boat, she quilted and he painted, selling lots of prints from his artwork.
Even though they now live on land, the Abbotts have not given up their water pursuits. They each still kayak frequently when they’re not painting, quilting or gardening. The couple also go camping in their travel trailer.
Flotsam and Jetsom Garden Club in Hansville
Wyn Abbott joined the garden club that meets at the Buck Lake Community Center from 9 a.m. to noon on the second Wednesday, September through June each year. She says she mistakenly thought that to become a member, a person’s garden had to be inspected. “Happily, that was not the case,” Abbott says. One of the things she enjoys about the club is getting to know other gardeners and getting ideas — and, of course, their plant sale each May.
Quilts and Art
In the summertime, Wyn’s quilts and Steve’s artwork are displayed outside their home on the walls surrounding the deck, on a chair on the front entryway and on the side of the home along the pathway from the front gardens to the back gardens. She says she gifts all her quilts to family and friends and doesn’t sell them.
Steve Abbott is currently having fun painting with casine. He says, “Casine dries really fast and is painted on boards.” Other mediums he enjoys are oils, water and pastels. He’s also painted with acrylics but not very much, as it’s not his favorite medium. He makes prints for sale of his original paintings.
The Enchanted Gardens
Wyn Abbott has set aside a fairy garden section for her plants, along with charming pieces of art to invite fairies in. One of these is a tiny table with a tiny chair and an itty-bitty teacup. All of the garden areas are crammed with plants, plants and more plants. She describes her style of gardening as “cramscape.” “I just cram in all the plants so hardly any soil shows,” Abbott says.
Her sister-in-law provided the seeds for a section replete with holly hocks, christened “The Hemingway Garden.” A sign in this section describes how the sister-in-law brought back holly hock seeds from a visit to the actual garden created by Hemingway. Abbott says, “These hollyhocks are their great great great grandchildren.” Each year, these beauties return in full bloom.
Abbott says her brother-in-law in Edmonds inspires her gardening and also gives her lots of plants. Her favorite plants are perennials. She says she is not fond of lots of green (i.e., green foliage). She’s OK with green plants as long as they have lots of blooms on them. The land around their back and side gardens though are verdant forests from the Hansville Greenway, which runs along one side and behind their property. This green becomes a good thing because it sets off all the gorgeous and sunny colors of Abbott’s plants.
The entryway of her front porch is festooned with both an evergreen clematis that blooms in late winter into spring and a gorgeous, deep purple, summer-blooming clematis. To the left of the porch before journeying down a path to the back gardens, there’s a greenhouse that Abbott says they ordered from Israel. She overwinters plants there, but says they realized it’s quite heated by the sun in that spot during summer. She uses the greenhouse to display their artwork at times rather than putting plants there.
Favorite Plants
A plant Abbott uses to awesome advantage is Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens). It’s a green perennial covered in white clusters of blooms. In some West Sound gardens, it begins blooming at the end of winter. But in her garden, it blooms profusely during the warm months of summer.
Throughout the year, her garden has lots of bulbs popping up. One beauty is gladiolas in shades of peach and orange. She also has white geraniums rather than the red ones. These geraniums are tucked here and there and also clustered in containers. Abbott often overwinters her geraniums in the greenhouse. Clusters of various yellow annuals and perennials add interest in the borders around the greenhouse. Blousy hydrangeas in shades of light and dark blue are strategically placed where they can add additional interest.
A deck in the back garden provides a place to sit and soak in all the beauty. It also provides a pathway for the Abbotts’ two pug dogs. The Abbotts are entirely loving their time in their Hansville home, surrounded by beautiful gardens. And when it’s too rainy or too hot, they enjoy their indoor time creating in their workshop rooms.
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