Every spring, I’m suddenly reminded of the garden I’ve been neglecting.
On that first sunny weekend, I will frantically attempt to accomplish the weeding, pruning, and planting that I’ve long put off.
Meanwhile, others greet the season like it’s an old friend finally returning home. These are the true gardeners: the ones who own more pairs of gloves than shoes, who consider a bucket of well-aged manure a thoughtful gift, and whose labor of love is being featured in this year’s Vashon Garden Tour!
Now in its 33rd year, the perennial Vashon Garden Tour — presented by Vashon Center for the Arts and Windermere Vashon — returns on June 22 and 23. The owners of six distinctive properties throughout Vashon will welcome the public to enjoy, appreciate, and learn from the beautiful gardens that are their pride and joy.
I love going on garden tours. Stepping into a backyard or outdoor space that’s been thoughtfully crafted to be someone’s personal Shangri-La is always a privilege and an inspiration. But the Vashon Garden Tour is unlike any other garden tour.
Vashon itself is a gorgeous rural garden of roadside flowers, lush forests, fertile fields, and relaxing shorelines. Unlike garden tours set in more urban (or even suburban) settings, where the gardens are meant as an escape from their surroundings or neighbors, Vashon gardens often elevate and embrace the best features of the island environment.
Lush forests offer opportunities for winding paths and sunny clearings; shorelines and historic bogs become grand and peaceful water features; fertile fields give root to organic vegetables and offer ample space for exotic specimen trees. What sets the Vashon Garden Tour apart from others is that it is as much about the individual gardens as it is about the individuality of Vashon.
Here are some highlights of the six properties in this year’s Vashon Garden Tour:
“Harborside Paradise”
(Hosted by Gary and Catherine Briggs)
Designer Jil Stenn and landscape architect Bob Horsely have orchestrated a symphony of native plantings, fruit trees, flowers, and artistic hardscaping. Natural rock features open to a rolling harbor-side lawn where the relaxing sway of saltwater-friendly grasses exudes coastal charm.
“Northwest Zen”
(Hosted by Dan Laster and Tom Freeman)
A granite water feature leads to a Japanese garden of layered maples, a mature Bonsai pine, and prized rhododendrons — some grafted by the late Al Watts. Follow the sound of lapping waves as you descend lavender-lined paths past flowers and herbs to the beach.
“Secret Sun Garden”
(Hosted by Eric and Mary Walker)
A thoughtful blend of perennials and native plants leads to the Secret Sun Garden patio with its lovely view across a ravine. Wander the trails to look up into the arms of the big-leaf maples and the curving limbs of enormous cedars.
“Romantic European Garden”
(Hosted by Daniel Meisner)
A European-influenced garden reveals quiet corners, inviting you to gather and savor life outdoors. Colorful flowers, lush shrubs, and graceful trees create a harmonious tapestry that seamlessly weaves into the historic Whispering Firs Bog, a Vashon Land Trust-protected wetland.
“Accidental Arboretum”
(Hosted by Dr. Gary and Margaret Koch)
Purchasing a live Christmas tree decades ago led to a passion for acquiring unique “specimen trees.” Breathtaking vistas are framed by Afghan Pine, Hungarian Oak, Palestinian Oak, Cedar of Lebanon, Persian Ironwood, Mt. Tabor Oak, Swiss Mountain Pine, and more.
“A Farming Legacy”
(Hosted by The Cassel-Fuller-Smutko Family)
Northbourne Farm was once a productive Japanese-owned strawberry farm in the 1920s, but by the 1990s, the fields had gone fallow, stripped of nutrients. Today, after much love and sweat, the farm thrives under the stewardship of the intergenerational Cassel-Fuller-Smutko family and their hard-working draft horses: an English Suffolk Punch (Roy) and a Belgian (Linda).
And there’s one other garden — a sort of seventh, hypo-allergenic, bonus addition to this year’s garden tour.
Being an arts center, VCA can’t help but see gardens as outdoor galleries of natural beauty, so throughout June, the VCA gallery will be turned into a garden of artistic beauty! Local artists will exhibit artwork inspired by all things floral and foliar, green and growing, mythical and magical for a gallery show titled The Secret Garden.
Come see The Secret Garden for free from June 5 – 23, Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.
Proceeds from the garden tour tickets and artwork sold during the June gallery exhibition, The Secret Garden, support and sustain VCA as they grow the arts on Vashon and cultivate the artists of tomorrow. So as you go garden to garden, flower to flower, think of it as pollinating creativity and helping the arts bloom all across Vashon, no matter the season.
Learn more and buy tickets at vashongardentour.org or vashoncenterforthearts.org, or visit the VCA box office.
Ian Bell is an amateur backyard gardener, and the Marketing Director for Vashon Center for the Arts.
Designer Jil Stenn and landscape architect Bob Horsely have orchestrated a symphony of native plantings, fruit trees, flowers, and artistic hardscaping at Harborside Paradise. Photo courtesy Catherine and Gary Briggs.
A granite water feature leads to a Japanese garden of layered maples, a mature Bonsai pine, and prized rhododendrons at Northwest Zen. Photo courtesy Dan Laster.
Breathtaking vistas at Accidental Arboretum are framed by Afghan Pine, Hungarian Oak, Palestinian Oak, Cedar of Lebanon, Persian Ironwood, Mt. Tabor Oak, Swiss Mountain Pine, and more. Photo courtesy Margaret and Gary Koch.
