Giraffe

92010 Holiday Gift Guide

Holiday HootenannyJoin Vashon Voices for their � rst annual commu-nity holiday extravaganza featuring favorite Island performers and groups. 7:30 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11, and 3 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, at a location yet to be determined.

The Vashon Island Ukulele Society Holiday ConcertThe group, which marched in the Strawberry Festival this summer, will offer a free holiday concert and sing-along open to all Islanders. 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, at Vashon Community Care.

The Grinch Sets The Record StraightSteffon Moody stars in this family-friendly holiday comedy at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 16, at Ober Park.

Church of Great Rain Holiday ShowThe show will focus on the 15th anniver-sary of the formation of Vashon Community Care as a non-pro� t organization — an act that kept elderly Islanders on Vashon and gave rise to the facility and

programs VCC has today. 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, at the Open Space for Arts & Community.

Owen Meany’s Christman PageantBook-It Repertory Theatre will present this free play about Owen Meany, a charismatic kid with a bit of a Messiah complex determined to play baby Jesus in the church Christmas pageant. 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 19, at Vashon Community Care.

Winter Solstice Community Feast and Celebration. Guests will participate in performances, songs, fun rituals and feasting to honor the dark and celebrate the light. 6 p.m. to midnight Tuesday, Dec. 21, at the Open Space for the Arts & Community.

NuncrackersDrama Dock presents this “nunsense” Christmas musical. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 17 and 18, 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 19, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 22 and 23 and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 26.

Island children who want to send Santa a letter are invited to drop them off at Santa’s Cottage in the

Village Green or in the green mailbox in front of The Little

House. Santa likes to respond to every letter he receives, so kids need to make sure to include their full names and addresses. To hear back from Santa by Christmas, letters should be dropped off by Dec. 21.

THINK GLOBALSHOP LOCALmeaningful gifts for the entire home

463-1372Shop Giraffe online at

Blooms has festive fresh and dried designsin wreaths and centerpieces not to mention

our famous gift baskets!Blooms will be open Sundays

Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 12, 19 from 11am – 4pm

Come see the distinctive and beautiful gift possibilities.

Enjoy hot cider and homemade cookies!

OpenHouseOpenHouseHolidayOpenHouseOpenHouseNovember 26th & 27th

Featuring local artisans:“Charles N. Pete” Linens

John Moore’s Hand-Carved SpoonsSusan Garlick’s Lamps

Come see the distinctive and beautiful gift possibilities.


Come see the distinctive Come see the distinctive and beautiful gift possibilities.


At the corner of Bank Rd & Vashon Hwy SWwww.vashonblooms.com

Free Gift wrapping!

OpenHouse







By JANICE RANDALLFor The Beachcomber

When they describe their sprawling, year-round garden, Sally Fox and Steve Brown say the sunny five-plus acres near Point Robinson actually hold a

collection of 15 gardens, each one different. Their home is located at the center and looks out onto the colorful ornamental garden. The property offers a peek-a-boo view of Mount Rainier and expansive territorial views.

Originally a red currant farm, the property’s dry, gravelly soil offers a plethora of mature native madrona and Douglas-fir trees. They have designed their garden in the spirit of its origins, with an emphasis on drought-tolerant, native plants.

Near the entrance, visitors are met with the “farm area,” about 4,200 square feet dedicated to organic vegetables and berries (blueberries, raspberries, cur-rants, loganberries and strawber-ries) as well as a small orchard of apple, Japanese pear, plum, pluot, apricot and cherry trees. Adjacent paddock, pastures and buildings add to the property’s farm feel. Fox and Brown were named a “Farm of Merit” by King Conservation District for their efforts to develop and maintain an eco-friendly horse area for Fox’s two horses.

Fox and Brown are relatively new to gardening and call their expansive landscaping a “garden in process.”

“We never gardened before coming to the Island five years ago; it’s been on-the-job training,”

said Fox, who was president of the Vashon-Maury Island Garden Club last year. The original gar-den nearest the house is 20 years old. Others are four months to four years old.

“Our biggest challenge may be the fact that we have several garden-able acres, far too much for novice gardeners, but a nice problem to have,” Fox added.

They discovered lots of glass bottles and car parts that had

Page 16 WWW.VASHONBEACHCOMBER.COM Wednesday, March 16, 2011 • Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber

#

@

Nathan & Melissa Schafer, CPH

206.240.7167 www.schaferspecialty.com

License #SCHAFSL902PN

Creating & Maintaining Sustainable Landscape Designs &

Outdoor Living Spaces

Creating & Maintaining Sustainable Creating & Maintaining Sustainable Landscape Designs &Landscape Designs &

Outdoor Living SpacesOutdoor Living Spaces

Creating & Maintaining Sustainable Landscape Designs &

Outdoor Living Spaces

www.giraffevashon.com

463-137211-6 M–F, 10-5 Sat, 12-4 Sun

Set a beautiful table with hand-crafted ceramics

and wood.

G o f o r t h G i l lARCHITECTS

206.463.5222Creative . Sustainable . Regional www.goforthgill.comCUSTOM HOMES & RENOVATIONS PO Box 650, Vashon Island, WA 98070

201 1 • VASHON-MAURY ISLAND HOME & GARDEN

Room to growgrow

Sally Fox and Steve Brown find they have

VAA’s 2011 Garden Tour offers a window onto a garden with many rooms. Photos by Janice Randall

By JANICE RANDALLFor The Beachcomber

Enter Kay White’s Maury Island garden through iron gates and follow the narrow drive lined with ginkgo trees, heather and a colorful mix of perennials and annuals into 10 acres of park-like beauty born from time and a love of plants and trees. Views of a distant Puget Sound and Mount Rainier provide the perfect backdrop to this estate garden.

Kay and her husband Bill purchased the origi-nal home on five acres as a summer place in 1977. They soon decided to become full-time Islanders, bought the adjacent five acres and built their dream house. Clearing the land of blackberries and alder brought attention to the Douglas firs and madronas. Golf enthusiasts both, the Whites created a mini-golf course surrounded by plantings, including many rhododendrons and fruit trees, and two greenhouses to accommodate early starts for fuchsias, veggies and other weather-sensitive plants.

Bill passed away in 1990, and by then Kay had joined the Vashon-Maury Island Garden Club, a group she still avidly supports. “That’s how my fuchsia frenzy got started,” she says.

A third greenhouse was added, complete with exotic

tropical plants, a koi fish pond and a thatched-roof sitting area — a year-round summer paradise she fondly refers to as Gilligan’s Island.

Then there’s Kay’s “woodland park,” which started small and has

steadily expanded over the years. “Just about everything you see is some-thing we planted,” Kay says. Among the mix are lovely maples — Norway, Japanese and bigleaf — a forest of stately poplars and the Lath House, an open-

sided structure shaded in summer by dozens of hang-ing fuchsia baskets. Even in the winter, the garden offers color — bountiful mounds of pink, white and purple heather against a dark green palate of mature holly trees and rhodo-dendrons. When summer arrives, the roses bloom, dozens of fragrant varieties in a myriad of colors.

“We’re gradually elimi-nating the lawn,” adds Steve Amsden, estate man-ager since 1984. “There was never a master plan. It’s been an evolutionary pro-cess; it’s constant change. We’ve all learned through our mistakes, like planting trees too close together and not allowing for the space they will ultimately need.”

Property assistants

Myrna Hollis and Suni Kim primarily work in the greenhouses and help with Kay’s pride and joy — her field of bearded iris.

Kay’s garden was on the Garden Tour five years ago, and Amsden points out several areas that have evolved since then, includ-ing more raised beds and barrels for all the organic veggies and berries, new walkways and a kiwi-covered arbor. Within the woodland park is a tucked-away formal Japanese gar-den surrounded by a dozen sentry-like contoured Chamaecyparis trees.

A Vashon treasure, this garden is one to savor, something Kay does almost daily. “I love to walk the garden. It’s like a winding labyrinth,” she says.

Wednesday, March 10 , 2010 • Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber WWW.VASHONBEACHCOMBER.COM Page 21

# [email protected]

20th Annual Vashon Island

2010

Monotype, Summer Flight by Lisa Guy

Friday Pre-Tour EventsGarden Connoisseurs

Friday, June 25, 1 to 4 pm

Sunset Garden GalaFriday, June 25, 6 pm ‘til sunset

The TourSaturday & Sunday

June 26- 27, 10 am - 5 pmFor information and ticket reservations

call 206.463.5131 or visit VashonAlliedArts.org

or brownpapertickets.com

Generously sponsored by:

www.giraffevashon.com

463-137211-6 Mon–Fri

10-5 Sat / 12-4 Sun

A thing of beauty can also be very functional. See hand painted mixing

bowls and casseroles look good and do good.

Giraffe now brings things from over 200 artisan groups in 68 countries

Janice Randall Photos

Kay White finds her garden meditative. Right, a sitting area overlooks her pond with koi fish.

Kay White’s expansive landscape is one of the jewels of the Garden Tour.

Documents

Giraffe