Farmhouse Shadow Garden

Six years ago, Derick and Jessi brought energy, enthusiasm and know-how to this 1916 farmhouse and garden. Derrick enclosed the three-season porch/plant room and built the Belgian Victorian greenhouse, while Jessi developed the understory beneath mature cedars, firs, and a Japanese moon maple. The garden shows the influence of Japanese and Korean gardens with a mix of NW natives.

A mature Japanese snowbell graces the center of the front garden where four magnolias and a peach tree line the perimeter. Bulbs in this area include lilies, crocosmia, gladiolus and iris. Visitors are welcome to enter the enclosed porch, which has many beautiful tropical plants on display.

Through the big gate is a flagstone entertaining area, backed by dahlias against the fence. Throughout the garden are containers of golden crookstem bamboo, smoke trees, and thirty varieties of hellebore and ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum, with many propagated by the owners. The planting beds are edged by eight different varieties of moss, originally scraped and saved from the roof.

 Derick built the foundation and short walls for the Belgian greenhouse kit, giving it a glass cathedral look. Jessi calls it her “she-shed” and uses it to visit with friends as well as to propagate plants. Jessi found the old quote to be true: “First year sleeps, second year creeps, third year leaps”. Against the greenhouse are roses, opposite the raised vegetable beds and the exit to the alley.

This lovely garden, mixing the old with the new, is truly a labor of love come to fruition.