Organized around horses rather than horticulture, there wasn’t much landscaping at all, apart from a few rhododendrons ravaged by blackberries and English ivy.
Today the 2-acre property near Kayak Point Golf Course is a gardener’s playground.
Impeccably maintained lawn, playful yet sophisticated arrangements of ornamentals and a down-to-earth vegetable garden with a quaint red potting shed showcase a variety of gardening styles and techniques.
Members of the Northwest Perennial Alliance visited the artfully and painstakingly manicured site last year.
And on Sunday even more local gardeners can visit as part of the second annual Cats ‘N Garden Tour, featuring five private gardens, a nursery and the tour’s beneficiary, the Purrfect Pals Cat Shelter, all in the Stanwood and Tulalip areas.
Don Knobbs hopes visitors will enjoy the idyllic setting the couple has created over the past decade, which also includes a new home and, just in time for last winter’s gnarly weather, a greenhouse.
“We like the idea that it’s like a park,” he said. “That was one of our aims.”
“It’s just peaceful,” Joanne Knobbs said of their land of plenty.
Visitors here have room to roam and discover myriad gardening tricks, including deer-proof plants and recycled materials.
Areas near the house feature more formal gardens and specimen plants, including a weeping copper beech, standing tall, lanky and purple with shimmering dark leaves.
Just across the crushed-gravel driveway is the sunniest part of the property, home to an orchard with apple, pear, plum and cherry trees, as well as a vegetable garden, neatly outlined with fences, raised beds and trellising.
That same area is also home to the Knobbses’ blueberry patch, surrounded by a frame of sturdy plastic piping. Just as their many varieties of blueberries begin to ripen, they simple wrap bird netting around the structure, securing it with clothespins.
When it comes time for picking, they don’t have to wrestle with the netting. They simply slip through an old but attractive bird-proof screen door built into the plastic framing.
If you look closely under the blueberry bushes, you can see one of the garden’s rare flaws, a natural but unintentional moss ground cover.
It would only be a flaw, of course, for Joanne Knobbs, who admits she and her husband take a deep joy in keeping their gardens tidy and organized.
Deadheading is not left undone here, nor weeding, even in the lawn, bordered in some places with poured concrete edging.
The Knobbses, however, aren’t formal gardeners. Their use of reclaimed and found materials keeps their oasis casual.
Pieces of a former concrete driveway made into rustic retaining walls and stepping stones are scattered around the expansive property, along with repurposed railroad ties.
In one of the side yards, an old sink, taken from Joanne Knobbs’ late mother’s home, is a fountain. Not far off, sedums grow happily in a black enamel roasting pan.
Native plants are part of the informality here, too, where the Knobbses have planted evergreen borders to blend in with neighboring scenery.
They’ve also created a perimeter between their back yard and the forest using volunteer vine maples.
Go a little deeper into the woods and you’ll find the ultimate nurse log, an old-growth cedar stump with roots from a juvenile hemlock straddling it on all sides.
Though there are probably more foliage plants here than showy bloomers, there are plenty of showy things added for color, including a purple wisteria growing over an arbor and a group of Prairifire crabapple trees.
Visitors here may also find an array of azaleas, some of them fragrant.
“They make a big splash of color and they’re staggered out over time,” Joanne Knobbs said. “I do have some method to my madness.”
Above, grapevines twine around a trellis in the vegetable garden. At left, a pair of birdhouses sits atop an arbor.
At top, old shoes serve as plant pots; repurposed and found materials add whimsical touches to the Knobbses’ garden. Above, a new fern frond reaches over round stones.
Garden tour
What: Purrfect Pals, a Smokey Point-based cat-adoption organization, will present its second annual Cats ‘N Garden Tour, featuring five private gardens. Proceeds from the tour and plant sales benefit the organization. There will also be cats for adoption at the shelter and at all the gardens.
Where: Gardens are in the Stanwood and Tulalip areas. The Keeping It Green Nursery display garden in Stanwood will also be featured along with a plant sale at the shelter at 230 McRae Road NE, Arlington.
When: Tour hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Plants will be sold from 10 a.m. until sold out.
Cost: Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the shelter as well as Sunnyside Nursery in Marysville, Emery’s Garden in Lynnwood, Christianson’s Nursery in Mount Vernon and Gargoyles Statuary in Seattle.
Information: Contact Kathy Centala at reception@purrfectpals.org or call 360-618-0417 with questions or see www.purrfectpals.org.
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