Garden discoveries

Mary Ellen Asmundson is a collector of plants.

“I’ve got a relatively small city garden but it’s packed,” she said. “I have a bunch of rare and unusual plants.”

Asmundson, an 18-year resident of Lake Forest Park, is the owner of one of the five gardens that is part of the sixth annual Secret Gardens of Lake Forest Park Garden Tour tomorrow, Saturday June 14.

It’s a low cost, budget garden, she said.

A year ago, the backyard of Asmundson and her husband, John Brew, consisted of a sloped lawn with very little level space. When Asmundson received a donation of recycled concrete she decided to use it for a garden renovation. Today, raised flower beds with ligularias, brunneras, hucheras and hostas line a pathway to her backyard garden where a path leads a visitor down a steep, green slope.

While smaller than some of the other gardens on this year’s tour, Asmundson’s garden includes a variety of different shades of foliage, unusual shrubs, various types of grasses, vines, perennials and bulbs, although not all plants are designed to be in bloom in time for the tour, she said.

“This is really colorful, like a rainbow with red and yellow day lilies and purple lavender and other rows of color in July,” Asmundson said while looking up at the sloping drought tolerant terrain of her backyard garden.

Up by her house, a wisteria plant requires Asmundson’s attention on a weekly basis. She trained it to grow on two levels, she said, after the plant threatened to take over her deck four years ago. The wisteria and the roses take the most maintenance in her garden, but Asmundson admits that she isn’t usually one to rest in her own garden.

“Like a lot of gardeners I don’t sit in my garden because I’ll bring a cup of coffee out and I’m there for less than ten seconds and I’ll see a weed and have to pull it and then an hour later my coffee is cold, I don’t have gloves on, and I’m all over the garden,” she said.

In another part of the city, Geri and Ron Hoefer refer to their 3.5 acres as an “urban farm.” From different colored rhododendrons to a vegetable garden, several fig trees and a Redwood tree originally brought back from California in 1973, the Hoefer’s garden will also be open to the garden tour participants.

The couple bought their 1913 house and the surrounding property in 1979. Ron designed much of the garden, according to Geri, and over time the couple added chickens, pheasants and a resident peacock to the green landscape. The pair has also maintained a piece of local history as the site is also home to the first Lake Forest Park schoolhouse.

“This was originally the path the first school teacher went down to get the mail,” Geri said as she walked through her garden on June 9.

Decades later, she enjoys sitting in an area not far from the trail, known as the “Roman Forum” to read her mail. The space features several pillars and was modeled after artwork on the University of Washington campus, Geri said.

Although the more than 200 dahlias in her garden won’t be in bloom for the tour, participants will be able to walk the large property and see exactly how the garden takes on different colors throughout the year through photographs.

“I’ve taken pictures and I’m going to post them some place so people can see what (the garden) is like at its best,” she said.

This year, musicians and artists will also be featured in the gardens. A live radio broadcast by Ciscoe Morris from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. will occur in the lower level of Towne Centre as well as a garden fair and plant show from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Advance tickets for The Secret Gardens of Lake Forest Park Garden Tour are $12 and can be purchased at Wild Birds Unlimited or Two Trading Tigers in Lake Forest Park, at Sky Nursery in Shoreline and at Ravenna Gardens in Seattle’s University District. Tickets are $15 the day of the tour. More information may be found at www.thesecretgardensoflakeforestpark.org.