In the back yard, Jacquelyn Dreyer cleverly hung 52 hula hoops on the branches of her monkey tree using a long pole with a hook. “It’s like the shoe tree in Snohomish,” she said.

In the back yard, Jacquelyn Dreyer cleverly hung 52 hula hoops on the branches of her monkey tree using a long pole with a hook. “It’s like the shoe tree in Snohomish,” she said.

Everett woman creates a garden of wacky delights

It looks like a yard sale on steroids.

The lawn is covered with jewelry, lamps, clocks, poker chips, piggy banks, doodads, dominoes, decor and decorations.

But there’s no braking to buy, only braking to gape.

What’s up with that?

It’s Jacquelyn Dreyer’s humdinger of a display garden.

Dreyer called me a few weeks ago and invited me to her Everett home to see her yard, promising me I was in for something I’d never seen before.

“People stop to take pictures,” she said. “Every year, I have people say to me, ‘How come The Herald hasn’t come out?’”

She told me she had 57 bowling balls in her yard, 52 hula hoops in a monkey tree, CDs covering another tree like a disco ball and … well, that’s all I needed to hear. I said I’d be right over.

When I stepped out of the car, onto a big yellow duck painted onto her red driveway, I blinked in disbelief to diminish the glow of the disco ball tree and the prismatic lights flashing from hundreds of glass items covering the ground.

“I told you you’d never seen anything like this,” she said.

Yep. She was right. Not in my wildest drunken state.

She could have added: “You think that’s something? You should see the back yard.”

That’s where the bowling balls and a monkey tree are. And there’s even grass.

In the garage is her Chevy Astro van festooned with smiley stickers and a giant stuffed Pink Panther in the front passenger seat. It’s a wheeled version of her front yard. She dresses the part in colorful clothes and, though it’s now gray, had purple hair for years before it was fashionable and was nicknamed “Purple-haired Lady.”

OMG, how had she stayed under the The Herald’s radar all these years?

Dreyer, 73, and her husband, Loren, had one of the first houses in the quiet bedroom community west of Evergreen Way and north of the Boeing Freeway.

“That was 1964,” she said. “We were in construction so we helped work on them. We did concrete finishing.”

She said her front yard started out cookie-cutter, with grass and trees, and it stayed that way for decades.

“I started playing with it about 10 years ago,” she said.

She replaced the grass with black crushed rock and stained the driveway and walk bright red.

Then she started adding things. Much of it is from binges at thrift stores. Some things came from the house. “The dome is from the dining room light. The lamp is from a neighbor.”

A bench made out of horseshoes is from a yard sale.

There’s a basket of rocks. “I have a rock from every state of the United States and 32 countries,” she said. “I wrote to several colleges with lapidarians, and they mailed me some rocks.”

She said she lost her thumb “in a stupid accident with a hammer,” but it didn’t damper her determination.

She drilled and glued CDs together for the disco ball tree. She filled egg shells with concrete. “I shook the egg out, filled it full of concrete one drop at a time. You have to know how to mix it.”

The basketball she filled with concrete weighs 55 pounds.

“One year I had 11 things stolen,” she said. None were concrete things.

The benefits outweigh the risks of having such a showplace.

“People smile,” she said. “They come up the hill and they grin. It is amazing how happy it makes people feel.”

She’s not the only one keeping watch. There are two faces peering out the front window.

“That’s Pete and Elsie,” she said. “I made them from plywood and PVC pipe. You’d be surprised how many people think they are real. I had a cable guy tell me, ‘I looked up and almost wet my pants.’”

It’s a seasonal display, running March through October. Dreyer is not one to sit still. She hauls all the stuff into the house for the winter. Except for the bowling balls.

“The first year my husband said, ‘You’re not going to drag them all in the house, are you?’ We buried them in the ground. We never did mark where we put them. So he comes out that summer to rototill and he goes, ‘Where’s the bowling balls?’ At that time I think we only had 34.”

The hula hoop tree began innocently enough.

“I got started with one,” she said. “I stuck it on one of the branches and I said, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’”

Hoops begat more hoops.

“I went to the dollar store.”

How does she get the hoops up there? She makes it sound easy.

“I have a window-washing pole like professionals have. I made a hook on the end of it,” she said. “I have an 8-foot tall orchard ladder and I have a 6-foot tall neighbor.”

Sometimes, the hoops take a spin. “Those big winds we had, I had 24 hula hoops flying all over the place,” she said.

Otherwise, the hoops stay up all year. It’s a way to honor Loren.

She started the hoop tree after he died three years ago. She found her husband of 52 years dead in his favorite chair when she took him a snack while he was watching his Mariners play.

“He would have loved the hoops,” she said.

It helps her cope without him.

“I’m done,” she said. “For now.”

Andrea Brown at 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Life

Brandon Hailey of Cytrus, center, plays the saxophone during a headlining show at Madam Lou’s on Friday, Dec. 29, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lynnwood-based funk octet Cytrus has the juice

Resilience and brotherhood take center stage with ‘friends-first’ band.

FILE - In this April 11, 2014 file photo, Neko Case performs at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Fire investigators are looking for the cause of a fire on Monday, Sept. 18, 2017, that heavily damaged Case’s 225-year-old Vermont home. There were no injuries, though a barn was destroyed. It took firefighters two hours to extinguish the blaze. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP, File)
Music, theater and more: What’s happening in Snohomish County

Singer-songwriter Neko Case, an indie music icon from Tacoma, performs Sunday in Edmonds.

The Moonlight Swing Orchestra will play classic sounds of the Big Band Era on April 21 in Everett. (submitted photo)
Music, theater and more: What’s happening in Snohomish County

Relive the Big Band Era at the Port Gardner Music Society’s final concert of the season in Everett.

2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport AWD (Honda)
2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport AWD

Honda cedes big boy pickup trucks to the likes of Ford, Dodge… Continue reading

Would you want to give something as elaborate as this a name as mundane as “bread box”? A French Provincial piece practically demands the French name panetiere.
A panetiere isn’t your modern bread box. It’s a treasure of French culture

This elaborately carved French antique may be old, but it’s still capable of keeping its leavened contents perfectly fresh.

(Judy Newton / Great Plant Picks)
Great Plant Pick: Mouse plant

What: Arisarum proboscideum, also known as mouse plant, is an herbaceous woodland… Continue reading

Bright green Japanese maple leaves are illuminated by spring sunlight. (Getty Images)
Confessions of a ‘plantophile’: I’m a bit of a junky for Japanese maples

In fact, my addiction to these glorious, all-season specimens seems to be contagious. Fortunately, there’s no known cure.

2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited (Hyundai)
2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited

The 2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited is a sporty, all-electric, all-wheel drive sedan that will quickly win your heart.

The 2024 Dodge Hornet R/T hybrid’s face has the twin red lines signifying the brand’s focus on performance. (Dodge)
2024 Hornet R/T is first electrified performance vehicle from Dodge

The all-new compact SUV travels 32 miles on pure electric power, and up to 360 miles in hybrid mode.

chris elliott.
Vrbo promised to cover her rental bill in Hawaii, so why won’t it?

When Cheryl Mander’s Vrbo rental in Hawaii is uninhabitable, the rental platform agrees to cover her new accommodations. But then it backs out. What happened?

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli
Tangier’s market boasts piles of fruits, veggies, and olives, countless varieties of bread, and nonperishables, like clothing and electronics.
Rick Steves on the cultural kaleidoscope of Tangier in Morocco

Walking through the city, I think to myself, “How could anyone be in southern Spain — so close — and not hop over to experience this wonderland?”

Don’t blow a bundle on glass supposedly made by the Henry William Stiegel

Why? Faked signatures, reused molds and imitated styles can make it unclear who actually made any given piece of glass.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.