WRITTEN BY VALERIE EASTON PHOTOGRAPHED BY JACQUELINE KOCH

	An eclectic assortment of bird attractants, including this Asian-inspired birdbath, add to the wildlife-friendly character of Carol Miner's casual, whimsical garden.

"Grampa and I put in a rose garden, and I did veggies with Grandma," she says, "but it took until last year for me to decide I was old enough to plant my own rose garden." Now her garden is filled with old-fashioned flowers and playful art that reflects her love of family and passion for reading. The neighborhood has contributed to the quirkiness of the garden. "People drop stuff by," says Miner. "They know I'm resourceful — I go out my front door and find someone has left me a bunch of old teacups."
 

The shingled house is set off by the picket fence and cottage-garden tumble of flowers and foliage.

Miner has a narrow slice of property in Anacortes — just 60 by 100 feet that runs from quiet street to rushing creek at the back. She had to tear out blackberries, horsetail and morning glory to get to the creek and open it up for a salmon run. Now her entire property is an official Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary deemed by the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife, meaning that birds and creatures can feed and settle in safe from chemicals and poisons. The garden provides water and native plants as well as shelter. Miner adds a human touch to the appealing wildness with teacups on posts, hubcaps on a hill, ornamental birdbaths and birdhouses, tiny trucks and figurines, and broken-china mosaics.
 

	Teacups holding tea lights illuminate the paths at Miner's summer full-moon parties; a crescent of white-flowering moon garden curves in front of the garden shed.

A colorful mélange of poppies, roses, delphinium, foxglove and hollyhocks is a perfect complement to her shingled, peak-roofed house. How do tea roses, the most greedy and finicky of plants, fit into a casual, organic garden? She couldn't help but plant Rosa 'Pearl' in honor of her mother, and R. 'Ballerina' because her daughter was a dancer. This mother of teenagers has the same philosophy about gardening as she has about child-rearing: Provide a good foundation, then don't micromanage. Each rose has its own little guardian figurine nearby; nevertheless, Miner admits that roses are testing her hands-off philosophy.
 

A border of lupines, iris, lamb's ears and lilies flourishes streetside, mixed in with edible plums and raspberries. Miner sees every fence post as an opportunity for a birdhouse.		By June, the fragrant, pale pink 'New Dawn' climbing rose and a stand of hollyhocks nearly smother the violet-trimmed, china-ornamented garden shed.

In the mulch beneath the roses rests a fleet of rusty toy trucks, an idea inspired by the book "Are You My Mother?" by P.D. Eastman, where a bulldozer rescues a little bird. So far the roses appear healthy, as do the birds, nesting in the birdhouses and trees in the back garden. In this peaceable kingdom, even the cats and birds coexist. The cats hunt the snakes instead, says Miner.

A cottage-garden-style border flourishes along the street with iris, poppies, lamb's ears, lilies and lupine, deliciously interplanted with raspberries and plums. This constantly changing tapestry is anchored by a work-of-art garden shed, a mosaic masterpiece crafted of broken bits of china, mirrors and teacups. Miner got the idea from "How To Make an American Quilt" by Whitney Otto, a novel in which a woman in a rage over her husband's infidelity breaks all the family china, then finds healing by putting the pieces together again all over the walls in her pantry.
 

	The little garden shed is truly a multipurpose structure, holding bikes and shovels inside and displaying this flowery wall of old china plates on the back outside.		Inspired by the children's book "Miss Rumphius" by Barbara Cooney, Miner's family adopted the story's motto, "You must do something to make the world more beautiful," as their own. Hence the vase of purple poppies and daisies on the telephone pole.

Miner began by gluing bits of broken china around the shed windows, then just kept on going to cover the entire front wall. Its back wall blooms year round with a collection of old china plates in sweetly faded flower patterns. Miner enjoys how people reminisce about their grandmother's or great aunt's china when they see the wall. She visually tied shed to house by trimming both with the same potent lilac color, called "Love Potion" from Pittsburgh Paints.

You might think it'd be tough to top the charm of the shed, but a little way along the garden path lies a crescent of moon garden, inspired by white rocks Miner's daughter toted home from the beach. Snowy handkerchief curtains in the shed serve as backdrop to pale flowers selected to reflect moonlight, including white astrantia, iris, peonies, roses, columbine and Canterbury bells, trimmed in ruffs of silvery artemisia.

A narrow path leads around the house to the sloping back garden, which used to be a playground for the kids, complete with tree house perched in a huge poplar. Now that the kids have left for college, Miner has remodeled their playhouse into a sauna and retreat for herself, and is in the midst of removing all the lawn, creating mounds of native vegetation and putting shade-loving woodland plants along the creek banks.

"Quilting is my winter gardening," says Miner, who in all other seasons channels her ingenuity into her garden refuge. She sums up her approach by saying, "The thing about gardening is that too many people overanalyze it."
 

Miner's garden is an officially designated backyard wildlife sanctuary, a pesticide-free zone with a creek, native plants and birdhouses.

CREATING YOUR OWN SAFE PLACE
The Washington state Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary Program is designed to encourage all gardeners to recognize that they're habitat managers. Each year, 35,000 acres of habitat are lost to development in our state, and what we do or don't do in our own yards affects the quality of the remaining habitat for dozens of species.

Want to nurture wildlife in your garden?

• Plant more trees and shrubs.

• Add a birdbath, garden pond or other water source.

• Avoid pesticides and herbicides.

• Add bird feeders and birdhouses, or better yet leave snags.

• Get your neighbors interested. Several adjacent yards with good wildlife resources are even more effective.

For more help, go to www.wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/byw_prog.htm. To order a packet with tips and instructions on how to enroll your garden in the program, send your address and a $5 check payable to WDFW to: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary Program, 16018 Mill Creek Blvd., Mill Creek, WA 98012.