With garden tours happening nearly every weekend, you might find yourself asking: Why would I want to drive around looking at other people’s gardens when I could be playing in my own?
But then along comes a landscape you
just have to see.
Ted and Carol Janowicz have that garden.
In fact, their landscape is so enchanting it easily earned a place on the Mukilteo Garden & Quilt Tour, even though their home is technically in Everett.
Their garden, along with seven others in Mukilteo, will be decorated with quilts for the biennial public tour Saturday.
Of course, their yard hardly needs any extra enhancements.
It is a riot of color and a creative design.
Seven years ago the Janowiczes moved from a tiny lot in Richmond Beach to a large lot in Everett not far from the eastern edge of Mukilteo.
Their new property included a front yard in need of renovation and a back slope so overrun with ivy and blackberries that a family of deer had taken up residence inside the melee of invasive plants standing more than 12 feet high.
The Janowiczes’ first move was to change the home’s powder blue trim paint color to a rich Chinese red.
Today that dynamic hue sets the tone for the entire garden.
Carol Janowicz, a retired accountant, echoes the red not only in her innumerable botanical delights, including 150 red Oriental poppies, dwarf dahlias and Japanese blood grass, but also in the dark red ceramic pots that parade up the front steps.
Filled with bright yellow, fancy-leafed geraniums, they pop with colorful contrast.
Throughout the yard, golds, purples, oranges, pinks and myriad shades of green play off the swells of crimson, even on the darkest wettest days of summer, which have been unfortunately legion this year.
Dramatic swaths of ornamental grasses — short and tall, straight and curly — guide visitors around corners and down flagstone paths, lapping like waves at the garden’s borders and swaying in the breeze.
Because of her love of abundant seasonal color, Carol Janowicz, 63, focuses almost entirely on perennials and deciduous plants.
Who cares if their yard is practically barren in winter, she said. She gets to see it come alive in spring and summer.
Allium blooms as big as basketballs make a statement near the front steps over a low hedge of Obsidian heuchera. Hefty clumps of calla lilies impress next to a back fence with their large, creamy white trumpets. Three types of clematis climb three trellises in a side yard.
Daylilies are about to bloom around every corner, and Oriental lilies, 6 feet tall, should be in bloom for the tour, too.
One area of the garden is devoted entirely to colorful coneflowers with names such as Tomato Soup and Hot Papaya.
Though Carol Janowicz’s design philosophy is matter of fact — “You just do it. If you don’t like it, you take it out.” — her well-tended, always-deadheaded landscape is worthy of Martha Stewart Living or Fine Gardening.
And that’s just the front yard.
If the day is clear, you’ll find a view from the backyard of Port Gardner and Hat Island, visible from a curved, tiered back deck accented with wooden railings and copper bars.
Down the slope, a large rock waterfall leads to an even larger pond full of goldfish.
Here Ted Janowicz, 65, has built terrace after terrace for his wife’s plantings.
Multiple stairways provide easy access to the steep space, including a set of concrete stairs the couple poured themselves and a boardwalk that meanders through ground covers, small shrubs and perennials.
Ted Janowicz, an accomplished carpenter, also crafted the numerous wooden arbors and trellises placed throughout the garden, echoing the bright red trim from the house as well as its soft beige.
Many of the structures are accented with art glass made on site in the couple’s garage.
Ted Janowicz, a retired Boeing flight test engineer, also built two large rock retaining walls and birdhouses that look plucked from the lands of Dr. Seuss.
Fused glass works of art, all made by the couple, delight and surprise, too.
The Janowiczes, who briefly ran a small remodeling company after they first retired, can’t pinpoint exactly what drives them, except a desire to keep busy.
“It’s just a passion,” Carol Janowicz said, as her husband, added, smiling brightly: “It’s just there.”
Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037, sjackson@heraldnet.com.
Take the tour
What: The Mukilteo Garden & Quilt Tour, presented every other year by the Mukilteo Way Garden Club and the Mukilteo Lighthouse Quilters, features eight gardens decorated with more than 100 handmade quilts.
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday
Where: Mukilteo.
Cost: Tickets, which include directions to the homes and detailed garden and quilt descriptions, are $12 in advance or $15 on the day of the tour. Tickets are for sale at www.mukilteogardenandquilttour.org as well as at local businesses sponsoring the event. See www.mukilteogardenandquilttour.org for a list of sponsors in Everett, Mukilteo, Lynnwood, Marysville, Smokey Point, Stanwood, Woodinville, Shoreline, Seattle and Kirkland.
Information: See www.mukilteogardenandquilttour.org or call 206-755-2298 for more information.
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