Hedged in the Highlands: Hidden on a hill, a perennial riot is framed in tranquil green
While the lines that define the garden are mostly green — rows of hedging, edges of lawns, clipped pyracantha outlining the windows of the house like a just-barbered beard — the heart of the garden is the riot of flowers in the perennial borders below the house. As you look down from the home's old tiled terrace, or walk between the borders toward the shadowy woods, you think perhaps the sole reason for all the green formality is to show off the flowers to such perfection. This Highlands hillside garden is so generously scaled that it nearly swallows up the perennial borders until you are among them, when their glorious fragrance and color present a fine contrast to the rest of the garden's restraint.
The nearly magnetic charm of the place lies in its simplicity. There's nothing fussy about the formality, nothing contrived, yet it is not the least severe. It would be easy to believe that this house and garden had existed on this tucked-away hillside for generations, that the hedges have always presented such perfect symmetry, that the mature trees cleverly grew up to shelter the drive just so.
The real story isn't quite so magical, although it is all about longevity and loving care. Andrews became interested in gardening when she moved to this house, influenced by her mother, who loved to garden when Andrews was growing up in Vancouver, B.C. She remembers her mother's double allée of roses, and the Saturday-morning ritual of picking earwigs out of lengths of hose stuck in the ground to trap them. Once Andrews and her husband, Ned, moved into the Highlands, her mother-in-law, also an avid gardener, lived just up the hill. Now Andrews' son and daughter live close by and have inherited the family love of tending gardens.
No doubt Frank Lawley, the live-in gardener who puts in a great many hours with the clippers creating those smooth green expanses, would laugh at the notion that the hedges have any intrinsic symmetry about them. When the Andrews family bought the house in 1957, the architecture of the garden was already well established, as were hedges of English and Portuguese laurel, boxwood and pyracantha. The only plant flourishing in the perennial borders, however, was phlox.
"We've had a couple of re-dos on these perennial beds," explains Andrews. They were redesigned last by Ken Gambrill, now deceased, and are filled with a seasonal kaleidoscope of color and fragrance, eagerly attended by bees. Hefty clumps of campanulas, dahlias, agapanthus, penstemon, achillea, acanthus, artemisia and hollyhocks are set off by the wide path of grass that runs between the long borders. Astrantia major 'Hadspen Blood' and Knautia macedonica glow ruby red against the green of the grass.
A separate nursery area, well hidden from view, provides flowers for the house and a fresh supply for the borders, so they are never plundered or left to display bare spots. Last spring, Andrews visited gardens in England, coming home with new ideas for these borders, so yet another renovation may well be in the works.
Below the formal lawn is a recirculating water course of creek and little waterfalls, designed by Lynn Sonneman to loop around the lower rock garden and end in a water-lily pond. A semi-circular bench alongside the water is a perfect place to sit and enjoy the view of orchard falling off toward the water beyond. The Andrews kids used to sled on the slope, which has since been contoured and planted in a grid of cherry, apple and Italian plum. The sculpted hillside orchard is brightened by plantings of old-fashioned flowers, some given to Andrews by her many gardening friends. Sweet William, lavender, godetia and an array of poppies fill in between the tree trunks. "I just love those poppies," says Andrews of the flowers that appear as cheerful and casual as if a child had drawn them amidst the meadow grass with a color crayon. The hot, west-facing bank down to the water is thick with the blue-green foliage and huge, silky-white flowers of matilija poppies (Romneya coulteri) which love the slope's rugged conditions and sharp drainage.
During the nearly 50 years Andrews has tended her garden, she has made good use of the expertise of talented designers such as Sonneman, Tom Berger and Ken Gambrill. Their contributions, while no doubt vital, remain subtle, for the overall aesthetic of simplicity and serenity reigns. Perhaps the story of this garden is as much about restraint as about plants, more about accentuating the spirit of the place than about growing new cultivars. Within the existing formal framework of house, hedging and hillside, Andrews has grown the flowers she loves while preserving the tranquility of the place. When asked about design and plant choices, Andrews simply shrugs and says, "You just work with what you have."
Valerie Easton is a Seattle free-lance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.