Three years ago we bought a wonderful old Craftsman style house\u00a0 that was fairly run down.\u00a0 Not only was the house in need of repair, but the entire lot was an overgrown tangle of water starved plants, half -buried and uneven chunks of a concrete path, and yellow jacket nests.\u00a0 Our first priority was to make the house livable, but I was much more interested in the gardening potential.\u00a0 During the first two years most of the work involved the ongoing\u00a0 removal of chunks of concrete, machine parts, old stumps and roots, and badly pruned and suffering plants and trees.\u00a0 As I cleared the southern side of the house I amended the soil and began to plant a few things.<\/p>\n
It made the most sense to start my new landscape design with some trees and shrubs.\u00a0 I was dreaming of madrona trees (arbutus menziesii<\/em>) and big evergreens but knew those were not practical choices for my situation.\u00a0 I went to Rosso Gardens<\/a> in Georgetown to figure out what trees would work with the mostly dry and sunny southern exposure and the narrowness of the area to be planted.\u00a0 Martha helped me choose some vine maples, a laceleaf Japanese maple,\u00a0 and a European Hornbeam.\u00a0 I brought her a picture of my house and she made suggestions on where to place the plants.\u00a0 I found it quite interesting, but not surprising, that her placements jibed with my 7 years of Feng Shui studies and practice.\u00a0\u00a0 Many gardeners practice the most fundamental level of Feng Shui (which is called Land Form), without even knowing it.\u00a0 Now I always look for her when I go to Rosso’s.<\/p>\n