Happy Friday GPODers!
Sadly, we’ve reached the end of Cherry Ong’s tour of Nancy Heckler’s garden in Indianola, Washington. While Nancy’s garden has seemingly endless treasures and areas to explore, we’ll leave a little to the imagination. Nancy occasionally opens her gardens to tours for the public, so we’d highly suggest keeping your eye open for garden tours around the Puget Sound area for a chance to see Nancy’s incredible space in person. Of course, if you’re unable to make you way out to Washington, you can always scroll through all of Cherry’s fabulous photos she’s shared with us over several weeks (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).
Today we explore another garden room where art comes alive! 🦎 This room is tucked into a far side of the garden where Fergus and Brocc led us to. The first thing that greets you on arrival is this unique inanimate lizard climbing up the tree. Nancy said it was made by a friend and it appears like it has lived in the forest for many years. She doesn’t move the piece around as parts of it come off every time it is moved.
Our experience is enhanced by the sweet smell of the forest throughout the visit, but most especially in this garden room.
There are several more rooms but this will be the final installment contributed to this series. Until the next garden tour.
Cherry Ong
That incredible lizard sculpture Cherry mentions above. It’s hard to discern what materials were used to create this piece of art, but that is also part of what makes it so intriguing.
If you’ve seen the other parts of this garden your series, you’ve seen plenty of examples of the colorful glass orbs that are sprinkled throughout Nancy’s garden. Aside from being some really pretty garden art, they are also a way to connect all of Nancy’s incredible designs together as well as to add a bit more shine to her shady garden beds.
Structures in a garden are just as important as the plants that surround, and Nancy has made a point to make each one of these “garden rooms” cohesive yet wonderfully unique. A shed this small can be bland, but the addition of an ornate little window and exaggerated roof eaves gives it so much character.
All of Nancy’s garden art is remarkable in that it catches the eye while simultaneously blending in so seamlessly with her garden and landscape. A partially downed tree would stick out like a sore thumb in many other locals, but amongst the many towering trees in and around Nancy’s space, it is actually the perfect pedestal to create something new.
Even on a small porch, Nancy is able to find the space for a bit of art and plantings as interesting as the pots they are planted in. I particularly the trough container that looks like an old, hollowed-out log. A simple row of black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’, Zones 6–11) adds more interest without overwhelming the small space.
In a garden with so much green, a little rust is the perfect addition. Again, while in other landscapes an old tree stump would need to be pulled or obscured, a stump in Nancy’s garden is the perfect pedestal to give height to a garden element that needs a little lift.
Nancy is also able to keep all of these old tree stumps looking like a cohesive part of her garden by incorporating lots of natural wood elements into her designs. A bright colored, pristine raised bed would look out of place in Nancy’s woodland wonderland, while this one’s rustic finish makes it feel as natural as the rest of her beds.
Of course, a woodland garden in the Pacific Northwest is not complete without a fair share of ferns. I’m by no means a fern expert, so I’m not sure what species this one is. Any fern aficionados have an idea what this beauty is?
Lastly, I’m not surprised at all to see a little stumpery amongst all of Nancy’s rustic and woody plantings. With all of those old tree stumps I knew one was going to get transformed into a natural container.
One final HUGE thank you to Cherry for sharing this very special tour of Nancy’s garden with us. Cherry has been continuously generous in sharing her garden as well as the many private and public gardens she visits, and this visit with Nancy Heckler was no exception. I can’t wait to see the adventures that Cherry continues to have in 2025!
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