Lynnwood garden is full of stories

Published 2:52 pm Thursday, June 3, 2010

It would be hard to find another gardener quite like Lynn Harding.

The 61-year-old Lynnwood master gardener does it all.

Name a plant or a growing technique, and you’ll likely find it on the 1 ½-acre property she tends with help from her husband, Don Harding, a retired Lynnwood police officer.

That’s not to say that Lynn Harding doesn’t specialize.

Her current garden, which will be open to the public on June 26 as part of the Snohomish County Master Gardener Foundation’s annual summerlong tour series, is tailored to her passions.

First of all, Harding, who comes from a long line of gardeners, is the official guardian of her family’s heritage plants.

That includes her great-grandmother’s Memorial Day peony; her grandmother’s favorite dahlia, received as a wedding gift in 1914; and her late mother’s amaryllis, a wedding gift in 1941, not to mention the hundreds of specimens Harding’s amassed over the years.

Her second emphasis in the garden is floral fodder for her longtime part-time career as a professional florist.

Though she purchases most of her flowers from growers for her business, Harding’s Greenhouse, she heavily supplements arrangements with seasonal beauties from her garden that would otherwise cost her a fortune. And her flowers are fresher, of course.

White ruffled sweet peas and hydrangeas are prime examples of something she can use for weddings at just the right time of year.

One year, Harding cut 300 dahlias from two plants in her yard over a 10-day period. She kept them fresh in her floral refrigerator and delighted the bride who had ordered her wedding flowers — deep crimson dahlias — after seeing the plants in bloom the previous summer.

“It was spectacular,” Harding said.

Harding also pulls fresh, beautiful greens from her large yard, including sarcococca, skimmia and choisya. She grows three types of hypericum, also known as St. John’s wort, for their stunning red and, sometimes, green berries.

One year she did a wedding with gold, red and chocolate-colored sunflowers.

Harding, a former journalist and a retired school librarian, describes her gardening interest broadly. She calls it enthusiasm, which is to say whatever she finds herself attracted to in any given year.

“I go in streaks,” Harding said with a wink.

Right now she’s in a conifer phase. Not far from her front door, a mountain hemlock, which typically grows in alpine settings, stands tall and stately in a pot.

She’s also on a hunt for plants with marmalade in the name to honor her feline garden companion, Marmalade. So far, Harding’s found a heuchera, a rose and a hosta with marmalade in the name.

Her biggest project this year, however, has been developing a 125-foot mixed border of trees and shrubs on the southern and western perimeters of their property to give them more privacy from encroaching development.

Trees, shrubs and perennials have found fitting homes in the border, including many plants Harding has cheerfully propagated, such as maples, dogwoods and blueberries.

Propagation is another of Harding’s many horticultural interests. All around her yard and in her home’s attached greenhouse, she has projects going, including the rooting of colorful geraniums, her signature plant for the upcoming tour.

One of Harding’s favorite plants in the border is a 4-foot-high metasequoia, also known as dawn redwood. She received the seed for the tree, once thought to be extinct, from her late gardening buddy, Bert.

“This is going to be the star of this garden,” Harding said of the deciduous conifer, which loses its needles every fall.

It is an example of her love of plants that come with personal stories as well as botanical and visual interest.

Though it’s only about 4 feet high now, the tree, a fast grower that can reach 200 feet, will one day be a towering focal point of the property’s northwest corner.

“It’s going to get huge,” Harding said with a grin.

Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037, sjackson@heraldnet.com.