While we've let that remain on one side of the house, maintained only by occasional clearing of tree and brush seedlings, we found that flat land is scarce and valuable on a mountainside, particularly with children. Sunny areas have been filled in with native salal, a shiny leafed evergreen with berries rivaling blueberries in taste. Red and evergreen huckleberries have thrived where competing vegetation is removed, while orange salmonberry, thimbleberry, native blackberry, and cow parsnips fill out the edible discoveries to be found on a walk on the trails. Among the acidic needle droppings beneath the towering spruce trees, wild lily of the valley finds a distinctive niche and association. Slopes trampled by elk become filled for several seasons with clusters of purple foxglove, while Columbia lily, trillium, Smiths fairy bells, blue-eyed grass, wild hollyhock and other surprises await discovery along the trails.
Some gardens exist in themselves.
Others are to be viewed from within a building, or linked to interior spaces or places outside the garden. This garden was planned integrally with the house. The house is placed so that its outside deck projects over the edge of the hill, accentuating the sense of being high above the waves. Windows and outside plantings are planned so that in one seat you look outside in three directions and feel yourself surrounded only by trees. Yet another seat a few feet away sees nothing but ocean, sky and distant hillsides in three directions.