A fter a lifetime spent working and saving, Jean and Ed Ellis thought they had finally found their dream home.
The 3,400-square-foot house perched above the beach on Camano Island had it all: a dock and sweeping views of Port Susan Bay.
It also had a steep, sloping half-acre of property to care for – too much for the couple, now in their late 60s, to manage.
The reality of growing older set in. Unwilling to give up gardening or to pay someone else to care for the yard, the Ellises found a one-bedroom home in a housing development on the island four years ago.
“And this time we got it right,” Jean Ellis said.
The garden and home they’ve created isn’t as grandiose as the house on the beach, but it is an example of how folks forced to slow down and scale back can still keep a beautiful garden and home.
Since the couple had no view at their second retirement home, their yard became their retreat. “We had to have a garden that was our view,” Jean Ellis said.
Jean Ellis, a master gardener, is in charge of the plants. She blended annuals, perennials and even tomato, zucchini and strawberry plants together to create pops of bright color and rich texture. The perimeter of the fenced backyard is lined with asymmetrical, rounded planting beds, neatly edged and lined with stone blocks.
The only symmetrical planting bed is a “fairy ring” filled with red crimson azaleas and impatiens around a plum tree in the front yard. A small fountain gurgles near the front door.
A circular planter bowl made with cemented pebbles is filled with annuals near the front drive. The Ellises refer to it as the “cereal bowl” because the deer won’t leave its contents alone.
“Work horse” plants that produce beautiful, long blooms are some of her favorites: scabiosa, penstemon, Garden Party roses, Bonica roses and potentilla.
A plant she thinks every garden ought to have is bog, a heather-type plant that requires no pruning and produces tiny pink flowers that emerge in early spring. Jean Ellis keeps all her plants healthy with Alaska fish fertilizer and bone meal.
Jean Ellis painted a birdhouse and inexpensive terra cotta pots canary yellow and then placed them around the deck along with several pieces of cobalt-colored deck furniture – the vivid color moves visitors’ eyes around the garden.
The fence is painted the same soft gray as the house and she attached painted old pots spilling with annuals to add visual interest. Two eight-foot tall posts are hung with handcrafted iron planters.
The couple wants to garden as many years as possible.
“As you grow older you’re going to have ailments – usually joint and bone problems – a garden needs to be designed so you can enjoy it,” she said. “You need to put things in that allow you to sit down as you garden.
“I feel if I ever had to give up my garden, it would almost be too much to bear.”
They created raised beds so Jean Ellis can sit down and scoot along as she works, rather than hunch over ground-level plants.
Plants snuggle together in a method Jean Ellis calls “over planting.” She said this reduces the amount of weeding because there is little room for unwelcome plants to take root. She thoroughly cleans out the beds in the fall.
Her hands ache with arthritis so she chooses tools that are easy to grip with a soft handle, and she uses flexible elastic gloves.
A well-kept home and yard is important to Ed Ellis in part because he grew up with little. His father worked as a shingle weaver for the mills in Everett and as a child, Ed Ellis lived in a succession of apartments with no yard to play.
The Ellises met at Everett High School and married soon after. They started with nothing and both climbed the ranks at GTE: She worked in customer service management and he ended his career as a service manager overseeing an area covering 500 square miles. After 49 years of marriage, they remain best friends and take pride in their tidy home, a reflection of the life they’ve built.
“We both grew up in Everett and people just didn’t have a lot of money,” she said. “They didn’t have gardens. That’s something we wanted because we didn’t have that in our families. Both he and I were on the same wavelength: we were willing to work for it but enjoy it.”
As a teen-ager Ed Ellis worked as a caddy at the Everett Golf and Country Club and over the years developed a love for both the sport and the closely cropped, rolling fairways and greens of golf courses.
Now Ed Ellis is an avid golfer, and he gives the lawn at his home a crewcut every three days, mowing it less than an inch tall. The gentle curving lines he makes with his mower are spaced with military precision.
The Ellises are planning for the future. “We’ve already talked about if something happens to one or the other of us,” Jean Ellis said.
Most of the flowerbeds would go and the annuals would be moved into pots. It’s easier and cheaper to hire someone to mow the lawn than weed beds, they said.
“But we’d always have the cereal bowl and rockery filled with flowers until our last gasping breath,” Ed Ellis said.
Herald writer Debra Smith may be reached at 425-339-3197. E-mail her at dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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