Old-Fashioned Fun
Formal finds flair with flowers, light and venerable bones revived
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 MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Daisy and Dexter animate the garden, where they enjoy free run. Here they relax on a cushioned chaise beneath an umbrella.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES White Adirondack chairs stand out against all the green of hostas and ferns. Spires of Acanthus mollis bloom behind Tamara Wilson and her playful Wheaten Terriers.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Sparkly glass candleholders are garden art during the day, serving double duty to lighten things up for evening parties.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Guests walk past rows of hosta and patches of golden lamium planted along the new stone pathway that leads from the front of the house around to the back terrace.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Before: The sad, neglected old garden has been transformed with fresh lawn, flowers, sandstone steps and walkways.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES The old Federal-style brick house sits slightly below the street, with a sunken terrace entry. Along the street, coneflowers brighten the scene; boxwood hedging and roses grace the steps and terrace.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Accents like the frog sculpture and planted urn set the garden's classic but not too formal style.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Lacecap and mophead hydrangeas cluster along the shady path, freshly laid with local Wilkinson sandstone. |
The 1920s brick Federal-style home is the very definition of stately, with white-trimmed windows framed in classic green shutters. But when Tamara and Wayne Wilson bought the place four years ago, it was so shrouded in overgrown camellia bushes you passed through a green tunnel to get to the front door.
Now the mature magnolias, camellias and rhododendrons have been tamed. Renovated pathways, lawn and an unabashedly old-fashioned flower garden restore the property to proper Washington Park dignity.
You'd expect such a formal old house to lack intimate connection to the outdoors, but French doors and multipaned windows open the whole back of the house to the garden. Right outside the glass doors is a stone terrace. The brick of the house and stone of the terrace act as a heat trap, making this an ideal open-air dining and living room for most of the year, with views out to Lake Washington. Shaded by a mossy old apple tree that comes right up through the pavers, the terrace is hedged in greenery and furnished with table, chairs and chaises.
"The previous owner thought we'd need to take the apple tree down," says Tamara, but the couple restored it to health, and now the tree's venerable age and spread give the terrace a sense of place and shelter. In the summer, the tree dangles heirloom Gravensteins; in autumn, hardy fuchsias bloom around its trunk. And all year long its canopy is strung with bright little lights to make the terrace glow as dusk draws in.
The Wilsons have respected the property's character while renovating the garden to reflect their love of entertaining. Tamara runs a public-relations firm specializing in food and fashion, yet has taken time out to nurture the garden. Wheaten terriers, Daisy and Dexter, distract from the seriousness of getting the garden in order, breaking from running laps around the lawn to greet visitors, their fluffy tail stubs vibrating a wild welcome.
Tamara's tips for entertaining
A player on the Seattle restaurant scene for 25 years, public-relations maven Tamara Wilson knows parties. On nice days year-round, the Wilsons entertain outdoors. They set up a bar and a long, cloth-draped dining table on the terrace, and place vases of flowers down the middle of the table. "Guests don't even bother to come to the front door," she says.
Here are Tamara's tips for great parties, indoors or out:
• Use real china, glassware and linen ("We're all adults now," she advises).
• Make the outside feel like indoors by bringing cushions outside for the Adirondack chairs, and always use fresh linens when serving cocktails.
• Never run out of ice.
• Arrange flowers from your own garden on the tables.
• Light up the outdoors, with strings of lights in the trees and lots of glass candleholders.
Tamara gives Wayne credit for the garden's restoration. He retired from his law practice just in time to clean up the place, spending at least 400 hours hauling out truckloads of garden debris. The many rhododendrons, Tamara says, were "unloved, unwatered and looking like sticks topped with a few leaves." Professional pruning restored the shrubs and trees, including a vast Empress tree, to vigor and shape.
After the property was winnowed out enough to see the bones, the Wilsons set to work replacing heaved-up old paths with Wilkinson sandstone from quarries near Auburn.
Then they set to planting. "We have kind of old-fashioned tastes," explains Tamara of the roses, hedging and perennial borders. On a visit to England, Wayne was impressed with a hosta-lined walkway at Hever Castle and came home with the idea of massing hostas in the garden's shady patches. The mature viburnums and magnolias have been pruned to form green privacy walls around the lawn, and an arbor is laced with a yellow climbing rose. Curtains of cotoneaster were dislodged from the sunny rockery and replaced with lavender and white 'Magic Carpet' roses. Billowing hydrangeas drape over the stone pathways, and colorful perennials edge the lawn.
"After all this time, we're finally becoming what we weren't before — gardeners," says Wayne happily. "We used to be just amateurs."
Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Mike Siegel is a Seattle Times staff photographer.
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