Secret Garden

By Melissa S. Labberton

Photos by Sara Gettys

Yakima abounds with wonderful secret cottage gardens, hiding behind privacy fences and tall arborvitae hedges throughout our many neighborhoods. If you’re lucky enough to be invited in, a magical world of plants, trees, fountains and art awaits.

We’ve asked three local master gardeners to open their special garden retreats to our readers, with the hope that their stories won’t intimidate, but rather encourage others to create their own versions of an outdoor sanctuary.

When Carol and John Barany bought their house above Franklin Park in 1982, they found it surrounded by an acre of lovely green lawn. About that time national style mavens Martha Stewart and Laura Ashley started publishing their phenomenally popular home and garden books, filled with floral motifs and quaint country cottages that started a trend.

“We all wanted to make our homes look like little England,” Carol explained. Coincidentally, Shirley Whiteside opened Yakima’s Loo Witt Gardens on Summitview Avenue at the same time, offering green thumbs a much wider range of perennials, English roses, shrubs and garden art to accomplish just that.

When Carol started planting her garden she admits she had no plan and remembers starting with a six-pack of marigolds.

“Over the years my garden has grown like an amoeba,” she joked, as she gazed out at a sea of roses, poppies and delphiniums, bursting with color in her backyard. “I just wanted more flowers, and I kept taking out more grass to make room for plants.”

Her husband has not been idle while his wife toiled in her flower beds. Over the years, John has focused on their side yard, terracing and constructing a brick wall to allow for a vegetable garden and building an impressive grape arbor that drips with vines during the summer months. He also sculpted free-form plaster likenesses of his children’s faces on the front pillars of the home’s entry. An accomplished artist, John’s turned wood pillars, with heads created by local artist Penn O. Shelton, add a whimsical touch to the overall look of the Baranys’ garden.

Joyce and Tony Sagare moved into their home near Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital in 1969, also finding a lot of lawn, junipers and a variety of trees.[imagebrowser id=35]

“While I was teaching, my gardening consisted of pulling weeds, planting some petunias for color and raking leaves in the fall,” Joyce said. “After retiring in 1993, I became interested in gardening, adding some perennials here and there with some new shrubs and roses. I took a class on attracting birds, so birdbaths and new plants were added.”

Today the Sagares’ backyard is an amazing and tranquil setting, totally hidden from the street side of the house. Their large deck gives a view to a terraced landscape and an ever-changing cottage garden that provides a variety of settings. “Throughout the backyard, garden rooms and sitting areas have evolved. Pathways have been added. I like to try new combinations of textures and colors in the beds,” Joyce said.

The couple installed a gazebo in 1998, and a primitive potting shed and bench in 2000.  Enjoying a more rustic look, they’ve collected orchard tree props and wooden ladders to use as trellises. A variety of birdhouses make the backyard a wonderful spot to observe the wide variety of feathered friends native to Eastern Washington.

Joyce lists Queen Elizabeth grandiflora roses, hostas, astilibes and hydrangeas as her floral favorites. Her favorite annuals include coleus and calibrochoa that, she says, feature great color, “and they thrive in our hot summers.” She feels her backyard sanctuary has microclimates of sun and shade, and has planted each area accordingly.

“My garden is constantly changing, moving, adding, dividing and sharing.” And the result is a year-round retreat that takes complete advantage of Yakima’s four seasons.

[imagebrowser id=36]When Jane and Monte Berghoff moved to their Summitview Avenue home five years ago, the garden featured the basics: a natural wall of arborvitae, some wonderful large trees and broad lawns. Today a sign announcing “Jane’s Garden” gives credit to the gardener who has combined her love of antiques with her passion for gardening. The result is a whimsical slice of country in the midst of the city.

A collector of all things Americana, Jane has decorated her outdoor space with objects that elicit family memories. A vintage bicycle given to Jane for a childhood birthday has been transformed into a planter. The old door from her fifth-grade classroom at Toppenish’s Lincoln Elementary School makes a rustic backdrop for a flowerbed bordered by a collection of antique china plates. Her grandfather’s old farm plow and wheelbarrow rest under a 60-year-old broadleaf tree. The home’s shady patio houses Jane’s collection of vintage white wicker furniture — a perfect spot for sipping cool lemonade and eating gingersnap cookies in the shade of the hot summer sun.

Jane’s clever eye for country garden design got the attention of others, too: her Americana Garden was featured in this year’s Yakima Area Arboretum Garden Tour.

If you’re planning on creating your own private outdoor retreat, our experts have a few tips: first, make a plan. Then consult the experts (plants, shrubs and trees are expensive); and finally, start small. All three of these cottage gardens have evolved over the years because of hard work, mistakes, fabulous successes and the most important ingredient … a passion for gardening.  Martha Stewart, eat your heart out!