Carved In Stone
Georgia transplants, they tamed a shady slope and shaped a soothing space
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 BARRY WONG / THE SEATTLE TIMES Nita Jo Rountree feeds the koi she calls her "kids." Nine fish live in the round pond, which Nita Jo built herself, hauling mortar up the hill in 5-gallon buckets. A hedge of Hydrangea aborescens 'Annabelle' backing the pond was chosen for the impact of their outsized, flower-ball blooms.
BARRY WONG / THE SEATTLE TIMES Paths lead around and through plantings, up to the top of the back garden. In June, Asiatic lilies are in bloom, the paddle-shaped leaves of cannas are developing and the stepping stones are outlined in black mondo grass set off by yellow Sedum makinoi 'Ogon.'
BARRY WONG / THE SEATTLE TIMES An urn centers a side-garden grouping of dark purple coleus, lilies and Crocosmia 'Masonorum.'
BARRY WONG / THE SEATTLE TIMES Perfectly groomed borders feature more than 30 different roses, including the coral Rosa 'Spice Twice.'
BARRY WONG / THE SEATTLE TIMES Nita Jo's father built birdhouses, which she painted in lively colors and planted with clematis vines.
BARRY WONG / THE SEATTLE TIMES At the back of the house, the hillside garden rises behind the generous decks that are fully furnished with heat lamps, barbecue, dining tables, chaises and even rocking chairs.
BARRY WONG / THE SEATTLE TIMES Because of the garden's slope and shade, nearly every plant is staked with metal rebar or, in this case, an old bedstead.
BARRY WONG / THE SEATTLE TIMES Every inch of Nita Jo and Randy Rountree's Bellevue third-of-an-acre is intensely gardened. In front of the house are sweeps of lawn and classic, high-maintenance borders planted in perennials, annuals and roses. |
"My fish are the mutts of the koi world . . . but they're the stars of my garden," says Nita Jo Rountree of the fish she brought with her from Georgia, three of which she's owned for more than 20 years. Some basics:
• Nine koi circle around in 1,650 gallons of water. The pond has UV light and a bead filtration system.
• In summer, she cleans the pond once a week, every two weeks when the weather cools, and every month or two in the winter.
• Koi change color as they grow older, so don't be surprised to find different tints and markings as fish mature.
• Be prepared to cover your pond with a net to protect koi from hungry heron and predatory raccoons.
A vegetable garden for him and a fish pond for her were at the top of the list when Nita Jo and Randy Rountree started house hunting six years ago. After all, Nita Jo was transporting large, live koi across the country from Atlanta, where she'd recently run a landscape business.
What the couple bought was a steep, laurel-drenched hillside with a house in front of it. Nita Jo flew to Bellevue two months before the moving date to build her pond so the filtration system could run a few weeks before she moved the fish into their new home. Then she spent nearly two years ripping out all the stuff the builders had put in, ridding the garden of laurel and a big leaf maple that smothered the hillside. Only then did she set in to really garden.
"I'm just like a kid in a candy store with all the great plants here," says the effervescent ex-landscaper. "In Georgia, I had to put an air-conditioner on them to keep them alive!" It didn't take Nita Jo long to learn how to garden in a new climate, proven by her recent election to the presidency of the Northwest Horticultural Society. When I ask if she's tempted to go back into the gardening business here in the Northwest, she chuckles. "I don't have time," she says. "After all, I've changed my property from low-maintenance to high-maintenance."
"My fish are the mutts of the koi world . . . but they're the stars of my garden," says Nita Jo Rountree of the fish she brought with her from Georgia, three of which she's owned for more than 20 years. Some basics:
• Nine koi circle around in 1,650 gallons of water. The pond has UV light and a bead filtration system.
• In summer, she cleans the pond once a week, every two weeks when the weather cools, and every month or two in the winter.
• Koi change color as they grow older, so don't be surprised to find different tints and markings as fish mature.
• Be prepared to cover your pond with a net to protect koi from hungry heron and predatory raccoons.
Nita Jo designed her labor-intensive garden herself, repeating the contours of the existing rockery in the curve of her new pond and the low stone walls that retain the steep slope behind the house. A first step was to track down the stonemason who crafted the fireplace wall in her home. Because the house was designed with expansive windows to view the garden, she wanted to link indoors and out by repeating the same stone in the garden. She hauled buckets of mortar, poured concrete footings for the short stone walls, pounded in rebar, and laid the stepping stones traversing the slope. It's comforting to know she at least hired help to dig the pond. "I was too stupid at first to be worried about the slope," says Nita Jo. "But now I'm daunted by it."
The sunniest part of the garden is at the very top of the hill, with apple trees espaliered along the fence and pea vines supported by a rusty metal bedstead. "Randy is in charge of the vegetables and fruit," says Nita Jo. "If he can't eat it, he's not interested in growing it."
Around the front of the house is a more formal garden, planted in lilies, colorful impatiens and tuberous begonias, and more than 30 different kinds of roses. Nita Jo's latest project is a wide bed along the street, hedged in tiny boxwood balls and stuffed with orange, yellow and blue annuals. After five years of gardening, every single inch of this geographically challenged garden is full of plants. "Of course it is, it has to be," says Nita Jo. "I'm a plant-a-holic."
Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "A Pattern Garden." Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Barry Wong is a Seattle-based freelance photographer. He can be reached at studio@barrywongphoto.com.
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