Hard Scape Reshaped

From desert slope to meadow roll, in stone and shades of green

A STEEP SLOPE and full sun equals droughty-as-a-desert gardening conditions. Evergreen conifers keep our gardens from looking as arid as they really are for months of every year. The irony is that these big trees have such extensive root systems that despite the shade they cast, the soil beneath them is more parched than land on a sunny slope. Such is the case in Barry Trinkle and Miles Lane's precipitous North Seattle garden, where big, old cedars cast a bit of shade while ferociously sucking up any available water. So when the two of them started to make the garden, they faced a slope that was very sandy and barely navigable.

Throw in the couple's quite different ideas about how their garden should grow, and you'll have some idea of what designer Lisa Hummel was up against when she tackled a major renovation in 2001.

At least Hummel started with a blank slate. "There was really nothing here of any consequence," she says, "just your general urban weeds." Trinkle requested a cottage garden with room for vegetables. Lane wanted native plants. Hummel gave them both, along with a haven for birds and butterflies, and tied it all together by bringing in tons of native stone that shapes, retains and distinguishes this countless-shades-of-green garden.

Dry-stone, 4-foot-high walls meet the street at the bottom of the slope; lapping and cascading groundcovers soften the look. Stone steps lead to a stone bench built into the first landing, a welcome sight on this vertical climb. Reinforcing the natural affinity between stone and plants are pockets at every curve of the granite-slab steps, each stuffed with grasses, ferns and little wild strawberries. The steps, stone, landings and plantings parade up the hillside, curving with the slope. Hummel used some native plants, but mostly sturdy native simulators that blend seamlessly and survive the dry, exposed conditions.

In spring, the garden blooms with Pacific Coast iris everywhere. By summer, it lapses into a soothing medley of gray granite and green plants. The variety of textures is anything but dull, though, from bristly tufts of pine to shiny strawberry leaves, bursts of ornamental grasses, fluffs of ferns and lacy Japanese maples, and everywhere, expanses of speckled granite. The only flat areas in the steep ascent to the house are the slabs of stone and tabletop rocks selected for seating. Even the little bubbling pond emerges from stone as if from a deep underground well, its hard surfaces gentled with an overhang of pines, maples and grasses.

Around back, the look is a little less austere and purist, for here is Trinkle's cottage garden, with its blast of perennials and edibles — all scaled to the home's patio and French doors. But the common thread of stone winds throughout this garden, too, in pavers, raised beds and terracing. Hummel replaced the old laurel hedge at the back of the garden with Canadian hemlock, then added picturesque snags and evergreen huckleberries to create a patch of wild area for birds to nest and shelter.

Why not use all native plants in such tough conditions? "Lots of natives don't take well to cultivation . . . the fact is, they're fussy," says Hummel. So she's created the same serene, mountain-meadow look with quiet, mostly green, textural plants that appear as if they've been growing on this hillside for generations, instead of just the last four years. "I don't keep it 100 percent clean," explains Hummel. "That's not the right look. We don't buzz the ferns down every year — it looks relaxed and natural."

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Jacqueline Koch is a writer and photographer living on Whidbey Island.