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Land Of Enchantment

The casual charm of a country garden is a 20-year labor of love

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JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES A trellis delineates one side of the cutting garden, laced with a "found rose" that's proved to be early-blooming and disease-resistant. JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES The entrance to the vegetable garden looks like a storybook scene in early June, with lilies in full bloom and a white rambler rose cascading off the rustic arbor. JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES The youngest part of the garden is the Mediterranean-inspired sunken courtyard behind the studio/potting shed. A bubbling Stonesmith-brand fountain centers the scene. JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES Ornamentals and edibles are mixed together to great effect in the Kamera garden. With a potting shed as backdrop, rambling rose 'Vielchenblau' blooms for six weeks above over-wintered kale JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES A variegated snake bark maple (A. rufinerve 'Hatsuyuki') frames the entry to Cheryl Kamera's dye studio, built by her husband, Dennis. The front two-thirds of the building serve as studio, the back third as potting shed. JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES A purple and gold foliage border flanks the entry arbor. In May, the color scheme is repeated in the laburnum and wisteria growing on the arbor. JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES Cheryl was inspired by an English gardening book to plant the pale, layered dogwood, Cornus controversa 'Variegata.' JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES The delicate Acer palmatum 'Orido Nishiki.' JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES The cutting garden's golden/peachy section features verbascum, knifophia, alstroemeria and a few self-seeded purple foxglove. Dahlias are coming up to carry the show into autumn. JACQUELINE KOCH / THE SEATTLE TIMES The 100-by-30-foot vegetable garden is surrounded by a 12-foot-high deer fence. The most labor-intensive part of this high-maintenance two-acre spread, the vegetable garden is mulched with straw to keep down the weeds and preserve moisture.

Mad for maples


Cheryl and Dennis Kamera consider their collection of 50 kinds of Asian maples to be the garden's great treasure. Years ago, they tracked down an elderly maple hybridizer in Montesano, visiting often enough to collect grafted little sticks of rare and unusual varieties, now grown large. Here's a short list of their favorites:

Acer palmatum 'Orido Nishiki.' A delicate maple with pink and white splashes on the leaves and matching veining on the trunk.

Acer rufinerve 'Hatsuyuki.' A stripe or snake bark maple with variegated leaves.

Acer palmatum 'Linearilobum Atropurpureum.' A graceful, arching maple with burgundy leaves and scarlet autumn color.

Acer palmatum 'Villa Taranto.' Narrowly dissected green leaves trimmed in glowing red.

Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium.' Known as the full-moon maple, with soft chartreuse leaves and reliably vivid fall color.

From the moment you walk beneath the laburnum-and-wisteria-draped arbor into a bower of fluttery Asian maples, the romanticism of Cheryl and Dennis Kamera's Whidbey Island garden is intoxicating. You'd be hard put to imagine a more quintessential country garden than this two-acre spread of vegetables, cutting flowers and rose-covered arbors.

The artistry of the place lies in its timeless aura; surely such a garden has always been nestled into a clearing on this wooded hillside. But once you get past the soul-stirring leafiness of the Kameras' maple collection, you realize the casual charm of the garden is hard won. "The garden is a high priority, it's what we do," says Cheryl of the 20-year labor of making and maintaining this intensely planted wonderland.

"We garden constantly, so it's never overwhelming," says Dennis, a contractor who builds houses by day and then comes home to build arbors. "There's a big push in early spring to haul and spread the manure mulch." Other than applying this dose of nutrients, they fertilize little. Their garden drill consists of pruning, constant editing and weeding often enough to keep unwanted plants from going to seed.

Take the cutting garden, which started out innocently enough. Cheryl planted some dahlias in a sunny spot, then dug the bed wider to add a few alstroemeria, then lilies, then peonies. Now her cutting garden stretches 100 feet long by 6 feet wide, and she must wade into it, clippers held high, to snip a bouquet.

Mad for maples


Cheryl and Dennis Kamera consider their collection of 50 kinds of Asian maples to be the garden's great treasure. Years ago, they tracked down an elderly maple hybridizer in Montesano, visiting often enough to collect grafted little sticks of rare and unusual varieties, now grown large. Here's a short list of their favorites:

Acer palmatum 'Orido Nishiki.' A delicate maple with pink and white splashes on the leaves and matching veining on the trunk.

Acer rufinerve 'Hatsuyuki.' A stripe or snake bark maple with variegated leaves.

Acer palmatum 'Linearilobum Atropurpureum.' A graceful, arching maple with burgundy leaves and scarlet autumn color.

Acer palmatum 'Villa Taranto.' Narrowly dissected green leaves trimmed in glowing red.

Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium.' Known as the full-moon maple, with soft chartreuse leaves and reliably vivid fall color.

Cheryl is a textile artist whose passion for color links her twin pursuits of art and gardening. She's grouped the flowers in loose color blocks, starting at one end with purple, blending through red, orange, yellow and peach before fading gently into pink, blue, lavender and white. The effect is of a wave of color billowing through the garden, not unlike the luscious color gradations on the silk and velvet scarves she dyes in her garden studio. Yet Cheryl is also a chemist who for many years worked in a Seattle lab. Her background in environmental science informs the health of her garden, which could be a poster child for organic methods, with its compost bins and bevy of unsprayed roses.

Rather than assigning chores by divvying up space, as so many gardening couples do, the Kameras work to their strengths and interests. "I plant the peas, and Dennis plants the leeks and onions," says Cheryl. Dennis prunes more, she does most of the editing, and they both enjoy tracking down specialty nurseries. Deer and rabbit predation is mostly tolerated, although the vegetable and cutting gardens are securely fenced, and the newest plants caged until they grow large enough to survive the island's wildlife.

After 20 years of full-tilt gardening, the Kameras remain enthused to be out there shoving dirt both days of the weekend and often into the evenings. "Garden maintenance is tied up in our passion for being in the garden," says Cheryl. "We both love the process."

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "A Pattern Garden." Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Jacqueline Koch is a writer and photographer based in Seattle.