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Although this could very well be a picture of me finding a new treasure at a favorite nursery, it's actually an illustration by David Catrow for a children's book called Plantzilla.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

The Garden of Tia Scarce

Another Northwest Perennial Alliance Tour Saturday with Alison found us touring the Kirlkand garden if Tia Scarce.  A relatively young garden (started in 2006) the Scarce garden had lots of wonderful secrets to discover.


  Is this a cool potting bench or what?

Everything in this garden is placed with a great deal of thought.


The pieces in turn invite the observer to think or at least to smile a little.

Tia bought this owl home some time ago placing it on the table to decide where it's permanent home might be.  Maybe it's found its place already!

Appealing use of an empty container.  So much about this composition makes it work well. 
 
Seems everyone is orange crazy these days.  Gotta say that I like it too and this piece, brought home from the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, is delightful.

What is the appropriate song to sing while cooking one of these?  Gnome, Gnome on the Range...

Speaking of things that are becoming more and  popular, here's an agave planted ITG.  As Loree said in one of her recent posts, "there are always agaves if you look hard enough." 
 
 
Colorful way to block a pathway!  I use five gallon buckets that were free.  There are usually a few of them strewn about full of weeds and stuff that has recently been pruned from plants.  Usually they're unintentionally in the middle of some pathway and I end up tripping over them.  But I digress.
 
Cute bird house façade.
 
 
These fun spheres popped up in various spots around this bed.


An attractive pot grouping. 

I never tire of seeing Mahonia 'Soft Caress.'  Such a wonderful plant!  This garden also contained a huge specimen of  Stachyurus salicifolia but my pictures didn't do it justice.   You'll just have to imagine it, 7 -8 feet tall and  nearly as wide.  Gorgeous!

Notice how the circle motif of the pot is echoed in the rusty metal artwork.  Nicely paired indeed!

Lots of hidden objects to be found in this special garden.  My hat's always off to folks who open their gardens to others.  Thanks Tia for being such a nice host and for  a lovely start to our day of garden touring!

26 comments:

  1. Another day of touring gardens and another good garden to start with.

    It's all so pretty. The objects are fun, the container plantings are beautifully done. I especially like the container water garden.

    There's always an agave.

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    1. If you just believe you'll find that there truly is always an agave.

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  2. You've shown another interesting garden, Peter! I love all these objects, round, orange, owl, birdhouse... Nice!

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    1. Thanks Nadezda. There were some fun things there. Happy Thursday!

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  3. Those Mahonia 'Soft Caress' are wonderful. I stood transfixed in front of a display the other day trying to talk myself into and out-of buying one. The out-of won when I saw the price I thought I was paying ($19) was actually on just one smaller plant and the one I'd picked out (along with all the other nice ones) was $29. Augh.

    Indeed those that open there gardens are special people. I'm a curmudgeon.

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    1. Wow, $29 is a bit steep. They grow fast though so a smaller one would work and it's easier to find a place to squeeze a small one in.

      You open your garden, just not to whole crowds! And you're far too young to be a curmudgeon. (See how I'm trying to make up for the age comment a few weeks ago?)

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  4. So many interesting pieces of garden art. I love the owl. Very nice

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  5. I'm one who thinks the garden is ever-more-interesting with found objects here and there. Well, for me it's everywhere! I do love this garden.

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    1. We share a love of found objects in every corner. It's fun and gives a garden character!

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  6. Ha...I'm glad I'm not the only one who improvises such "traffic calming" devices. Currently, I've got our enormous recycling bins in front of our sidewalk to keep people from driving into/over a large pile of gravel.

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    1. Ooh, I love the term traffic calming devices. Hope you have good luck keeping people out of your gravel!

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  7. Having opened my garden a time or two, I can vouch for the attendant anxiety. It really shouldn't be that way, since gardeners are invariably generous to a fault and lots of fun besides. This gardener certainly had nothing to worry about.

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    1. The great thing about these tours is that they present a variety of gardens from a postage-sized plot behind a row house to acres-large estate gardens. There are ideas to appropriate in all of them.

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  8. Love that bowl with the orange balls, and agree with you about the placement of the empty vase or container, lovely composition.

    We're still on two minds whether to ever participate in an open garden scheme or not (at least before the fire). We do admire those who do, as much as we understand those who don't.

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    1. Fortunately (or unfortunately) there are no nearby gardens that are on the tour circuit so I don't even have to think about it. I can understand your ambivalence about participating in an open garden scheme.

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  9. Fun garden, and glad to see it belongs to another lover of orange. I like the owl and other rusted metal objects as well.

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    1. She sure packed a lot of great objects into a relatively small space and everything was so well placed that it didn't seem overcrowded at all - Quite a talent!

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  10. We have been unable to get to NPA open gardens lately, so thanks for sharing them. At least I know what I'm missing!

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    1. This one was open the same day as yours. I think that might have been the last time we were able to do NPA tours, too.

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  11. Beautiful photos, fantastic compositions:) Greetings

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  12. What a great garden. I adore that rock in the first photo. I love it when gardeners include small details like that.

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    1. I agree, it's fun to find all the little details in this garden!

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  13. I've wanted a 'Soft Caress' Mahonia ever since I saw the first one at a garden show, so perfect and symmetrical. Maybe someday. What a lovely garden, thanks for the tour. I have to say the potting bench is lovely but much too clean.;-) All the garden art enhances the garden and I like looking at it in other people's gardens, but I'm mostly into just plants myself. Orange, or more toward peach, is my favorite color at present.

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    1. I love 'Soft Caress' and hope that you get one! You're right about the potting bench! Happy weekend!

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Thanks so much for taking the time to comment! I love to hear your thoughts.