Whidbey Island garden is charming all year long

Published 4:59 pm Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Judy Prindle doesn’t believe in putting gardens to bed for the winter.

It just isn’t necessary in the Northwest, where ornamental grasses turn to lasting bronzy golds in the fall, shrubs bloom throughout winter and evergreen plants thrive year-round.

When blizzards pounded the region before Christmas, Prindle and her husband, Kirk, were inside their Whidbey Island home enjoying recently plucked roses.

“People think gardens are just static, but they’re growing all the time,” Judy Prindle said.

That’s certainly true here. The Prindles have used horticultural wonders, outdoor sculptures and just plain hard to work to create a garden paradise.

Perched on a bluff with a view of the Olympic Mountains, their outdoor oasis is engaging, even at its snow-sacked worst.

“It’s a formal structure with lush plantings, exuberant plantings,” Prindle said.

Prindle, one of the founders of the Whidbey Island Garden Tour, designed the couple’s cozy Northwest-contemporary home and guest cottage as well as the gardens that surround and connect the two.

The Prindles started planting in 1993, moving some plants from their longtime Snohomish home. Over the years, they’ve gradually landscaped three mostly sunny acres, hydrated in dry months with rainwater from an underground cistern fed by gutters from the house and guesthouse.

Prindle started with a backbone of evergreen groundcovers, shrubs and conifers.

“You can keep it going by having evergreen plants,” she said. “You’ve got to have interest in the winter.”

Evergreen players that stood the test of weather include a winter-blooming Oregon grape hybrid, yucca, hebe, rosemary, lavender and many types of sage.

Senecio, an often-underutilized evergreen shrub with yellow daisylike flowers and fuzzy leaves that look like a cross between rhododendron and sage foliage, also endured the storms beautifully.

Off-season excitement here, however, isn’t limited to living things. Kirk Prindle, a retired cardiologist, has dotted the entire property with sculptures made of salvaged materials.

In the front yard, an agave made of aluminum and an old boat mast makes a splash.

Over the driveway, an arching cone of spray-painted red, green and yellow plastic nursery pots creates a whimsical arch.

Amid the ornamental grasses below the guesthouse, a gear-headed sunflower smiles.

“As a physician I was associated with so much of the human condition that through sculpture I have been able to express myself on various levels,” said Kirk Prindle, who, according to his Web site, “strives to draw attention to the juxtaposition of our love of our beautiful world with our misuse of her gifts.”

Long pergolas and large arbors for climbers, such as clematis, roses and potato vine, provide additional structure in the garden.

With so many attractions already in place, the emergence of bright bulbs, bold perennials and deciduous new growth in spring and summer provides an embarrassment of color-coordinated riches.

One bed near the house features white blooms of camellia, choisya, hydrangea and rhododendron. Golds, meanwhile, dominate a pond just below the guesthouse, where a golden chain tree dangles its blossoms over the water. Maroons, hot pinks and blues dominate in other swaths throughout the garden.

Many magazines, lured by such bountiful displays, have featured the Prindle property, including Horticulture, Garden Design, Better Homes and Gardens, and Seattle Homes &Lifestyles.

Judy Prindle sees gardening as a creative, cerebral endeavor. She feels like an artist with a palette, except the nuances of her work can’t be assigned by a brush.

“You have to know what each plant does. You have to read about them,” she said. “It’s a very big intellectual experience.”

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