Northwest Living Bellingham garden reaches out in fine European form
WHEN SUSANN Schwiesow was looking to move to Bellingham from Portland in 1982, she at first refused even to look at the dark brown house with a turquoise stripe on it. The garden was nothing but junipers, lawn and mugo pines, and Schwiesow had fallen in love with the wildly floriferous Sissinghurst garden in England. But a single glorious Japanese maple redeemed the 1960s-era house. Schwiesow and her husband, Gale, bought the property.
And over the decades, both owner and garden have been transformed. Schwiesow now owns a shop with classic garden accouterments in nearby Fairhaven, and is a partner in Schwiesow & Drilias Landscapes, a garden-design and installation business.
"I love the structure in European gardens," says Schwiesow of her inspiration for the hedging, arbors and potted plantings that have replaced the uninspired landscape around her home. The wide driveway that used to come right up to the front windows horrified her. It's been replaced by a terrace outlined in boxwood hedging and furnished with pots of bulbs and treasured little shrubs. A white-flowering Chinese wisteria trained along the front of the house pays homage to Sissinghurst romanticism.
The garden, front and back, is mostly a sophisticated mix of foliage textures and forms rather than flowers. The large, sloping bed beneath the front terrace is where all the bloom takes place. Here, cherry trees and tulips put on a spring show, followed by peach-colored roses and poppies. Later in summer, the bed shades yellow with yarrow and blue with agapanthus. "It's left over from the perennial days of sequencing," explains Schwiesow, who has moved more toward foliage and potted plants in her gardening evolution.
High, solid hedges of Portuguese laurel divide the garden into leafy green rooms. "Gale prunes all the hedges," says Schwiesow. "It's amazing we're not divorced over it." What used to be boring stretches of lawn are now pavers, potted boxwood balls and generously scaled beds of fragrant shrubs like viburnum, sarcococca, winter honeysuckle and evergreen Carpenteria californica that blooms white in June.
The low, Asian-inspired home wraps around a central courtyard with a swim pool. Boxwood balls in terra-cotta pots mark the corners of the pool. Glossy evergreen magnolias and potted palms underplanted with Japanese forest grass lend an exotic feel to the warm garden room. Pots of culinary herbs bask in the sunshine by the pool, and pots of succulents and a fig tree overwinter in the nearby sunroom.
Portland Home And Garden Show - News
WHEN SUSANN Schwiesow was looking to move to Bellingham from Portland in 1982, she at first refused even to look at the dark brown house with a turquoise stripe on it. The garden was nothing but junipers, lawn and mugo pines, and Schwiesow had fallen
From sous chef to Top Gun at one of the most talked about restaurants in Portland, Justin Woodward is movin' on up. When I arrived at Cafe Castagna for my interview with Castagna's new chef Justin Woodward, he was busy outside with Sheldon Laeity of
The events are an opportunity not just to socialize, but to gain knowledge and understanding about the ongoing issues encountered by each Sisters' house. As Portland house co-founder Sister Mona Little-Moore explains, each microcosm is different,
"They said they were going to occupy this space, but unfortunately they didn't show up," Kodi said. Next to that plot is a beautiful garden planted and tended by the Somali Bantu. This group comes at least twice a week to tend its tomatoes,
The Bodmers didn't have cable, so his mother had been sending tapes of home and garden shows to Kari. "That was my entertainment," she says with a quick laugh. One day, a tape arrived and it was something his mother had recorded by accident: The story
Portland Real Estate Insider: Portland Fall Home & Garden Show is ...
We know it’s still summer, but it’s not too early to start planning your trip to the Portland Fall Home and Garden Show. Fall is the best time to make a few home improvements and renovations to get ready for winter. If you’ve ever lived in Portland, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the onslaught of bulb flowers – gorgeous irises and daffodils – that take over residential real estate and abandoned street corners all around town, filling Portland with color and Spring fever. You can contribute your own splash of floral beauty to the Spring explosion in Portland by planning some bulbs and Spring-blooming plants in your yard and garden, and if you need a bit of extra help or new idea be sure to check out the 2011 Portland Fall Home and Garden Show at the Portland Expo Center, beginning on September 29 and bringing tips, tricks, and discount supplies to the Portland metro area until October 2nd.
For just $10, Portland Fall Home and Garden Show attendees will be treated to DIY classes, exhibits featuring everything from including valuable information about the best products and services for renovation and new construction in the Pacific Northwest seasonal conditions. Both amateur gardeners and professional landscapers will find great information about new products, design ideas, and tips and tricks for making it through a wet and wild Portland winter. Remodeling tips and tricks will be available from renovation experts, including sustainability pros, historic specialists, and professional contractors.
Bargain Hunters will find paradise at the Builder’s Surplus Sale, where local contractors and builders bring their excess materials – including doors, plumbing, lighting, windows, closet organization, flooring materials, and tons of fun accessories – at ridiculously marked-down prices. Don’t miss your chance to snag the deal of the century on a new toilet or that perfect light fixture for your dining room. If you’re remodeling a home for sale in Portland, these prices could mean valuable savings on those improvements you need to make in order to compete in the Portland Real Estate market.
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