Eileen Boal has gardened since she was 5 years old, pulling weeds and helping to harvest vegetables and berries.

Eventually she expanded into flowers, beginning with bulbs for spring color and used annuals for summer color.

In between the blooms of these two seasons there was this gap, Eileen said. “Until I discovered perennials.”

Her grandfather was a botanist with Washington State University, her mother shared his love of plants and eventually this ability to grow things trickled down to Eileen, and so it goes.

Eileen and her husband, Jerry, bought their current home in 2001. It was a spec home built in North Albany located on a flag lot set back from the road.

It became quickly apparent that the neighboring property — which faced the adjoining street would be so close it would block any and all view with a house built on it.

Therefore they decided to buy that property as well, and are delighted they did.

Terraced garden

Bare except for weeds when they started, the second lot had a gradual 4-foot slope from the back of their house to the adjoining street. To make this new area more user-friendly required the creative use of a back hoe to design two levels — terraces.

The bank dividing these terraces was cut with an angle so that gravity would hold the planned rock wall in place.

Starting with the big rocks on the bottom and smaller ones on top, Eileen placed every one of the truckloads of rocks (from 4 to 18 inches in diameter) against the bank.

“The most unique feature in the garden is the fact that all of the sword ferns you see growing out of the rock wall — popped up on their own,” Eileen says.

They don’t grow anywhere else in the garden either and she swears she didn’t plant a single one of them! (I also have an area of sword ferns that I never moved or planted where they now grow. I can only assume the spores came in on a load of bark mulch.)

Over 300 sunflowers filled the garden the first year — all planted by the birds.

Planting areas in this part of the garden are surrounded by large rocks and mulched with mint compost. The footpaths are distinguished by the use of bark.

Footbridges along the paths cross ditches — put in places where water naturally wanted to go in winter — which acknowledges normal water flow, explains Eileen.

These shallow ditches are filled with pebbles and smaller river rock, keeping water off the footpath in winter. This makes the garden not only accessible, but looking good year round.

Building the pond

For Eileen, making garden areas fit the space she had meant installing the pond where there was a natural dip that held standing water in winters.

Eileen dug the pond thigh deep at its center. At its highest point, it is sloped to connect the upper yard and its French drains. At its lowest point, winter excesses overflow into drainage ditches.

“This keeps the pond at the same level no matter how much rain we get,” Eileen says.

The sound of splashing water spilling over the terraced waterfall on the western flank of the pond is one of this garden’s redeeming attributes.

The landscaping surrounding it has matured to the point the pond appears as if by nature’s own design.

Favorite feature

Some of the garden’s many highlights include a pergola built by a neighbor, complete with garden tool shed on the western side. No more need to haul tools from the garage.

An extension was added to the pergola in 2005 which gives the deck 50 percent of its shade even when the vines don’t have leaves.

The other 50 percent comes from the honeysuckle and “monster” wisteria vines throughout the summer months. Mandevilla are NOT winter hardy so are kept in pots in the expanded dining room over winter but are returned to their respective pergola posts each summer.

All the flowerbeds are rigged up with a time-saving drip system on zones complete with timers. Thus the only lawn area that needs water is the open area in front of the pond.

According to Eileen, the pergola is the garden’s most beloved feature. Coming home from her day job working at Wah Chang, she can sit on the pergola’s deck and relax to the sound of birds singing, water splashing, or music playing.

As for favorite plants, the star of the garden varies with the time of year, Eileen says. A few weeks ago it was foxglove along the entry driveway. Then it was annual clarkia amoena (also known as Godetia) — one of her favorite reseeders. Meadowsweet came over from the neighbors and she gladly lets it grow in her garden as well. In fact, she encourages many of her plants to reseed — within limits!

Some other of her favorite reseeders are hollyhock, evening primrose, rose campion, Shirley poppy, and rudbeckia.

Thus the long driveway is brimming with summer color. Lavatera and mallow grow side by side, tolerating the hot, dry conditions that exist there. Just in case you’re wondering, except for the leaf structure difference, these plants not only look alike, they are in fact related.

Mallows are a diverse group that contains annuals (lavatera trimestris), biennials (L. arborea or tree mallow), perennials (from hollyhock-looking malva to moisture-loving Rose-mallow, which also goes by hibiscus moscheutos), and even shrubs — like Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus). Hollyhocks also belong to the mallow family.

Extension

To be able to enjoy the garden even more, the Boal’s added a 12 by 8 foot extension to their eating nook, turning it into a full dining room in 2005, and a second pergola over the adjoining deck that extends out into the garden from the back of the house.

The only downside was that it cut off the sound effects from the waterfall into the master suite on the other side of this addition. However, Eileen made up for it by installing a bubbler under their bedroom window.

The vegetable garden was placed where it was most useful — right out the kitchen door. It has six raised beds for peas, snow peas, lettuce, carrots, garlic, edamame (soy beans), onions, and kohl rabi, plus some poppies and an open area for larger plantings such as corn and tomatoes. Paths are conveniently placed for browsing while strolling throughout the garden.

Garden art, bird houses, and trellises not only invite you into this garden, but encourage you to stay.

“Up to this point, it’s been enormous fun filling this great blank canvas with plants,” says Eileen. “This year I’m realizing that this phase is about done, but I’m sure I’ll have just as much fun revising and maintaining it for years to come,” she added.