Neighbor Gardens: Palmer & Friedlander

The HPSO Vancouver Mini-Garden Tour continued this past weekend with four gardens located on the east side of Vancouver. Two gardens were located just across the street from each other in Hockinson.

First up is the garden of Karen Palmer and John Emmett with gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains -

Another beautiful clematis - this one is "Happy Jack" - happy indeed!

Now this is unique garden statuary! Karen says this came from Tuscon, Arizona, a purchase motivated by their granddaughter.

Another unique feature of Karen and John's garden is "Yucca Hill", a collection of yucca planted on a steep hillside. 

This garden is five acres and there are many vegetable gardens and an orchard with one hundred heirloom apple trees as well as other fruit trees. It is all fenced in - Karen says they have deer, bears, cougars and other wildlife!

Across the street is the garden of Lucie and Mike Friedlander. They moved into the house three years ago and inherited a mature garden. 

This is a much more formal garden than the others on the tour. The description in the pamphlet said that most of the plants are deer resistant. There is lots of lavender but also roses and hydrangeas which I'm guessing are not resistant to deer. There was a lot of sun in the garden and that row of hydrangeas along the south-facing wall was surprising. I'm not sure how they look so good but they did.

There were many kousa dogwoods and they were very beautiful. I think these are the 'Satomi Pink' variety but that is just a guess based on ones I've seen at the nursery.

Ah, finally some shade! This was at the entrance to the property.

Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy