2024 Edmonds Garden Tour

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By having the courage to make change and learn as she goes, Julianne Thal has created a flower-filled, scented, evolving place of beauty.

When her family moved into the home of a master gardener 30 years ago, Julianne was excited to make the landscape her own. And when it came to reimagining the gardens in her own style, favorite blooms and fragrance were key elements.

The center bed is graced by the original owner’s 60+-year-old Eastern Dogwood with unique, apricot- colored blossoms. Borders filled with abelia, hydrangeas, mature rhododendrons and azaleas surround the space, highlighted in summer by Julianne’s enormous dahlias.

As you open a gate covered in Boston ivy, you walk past tumbling roses into the secluded backyard. Shaded by the branches of a Japanese maple, a water feature with arched bridge peeks out among ferns, hellebores, and shade-loving plants. Personal touches include unique rocks from her grandfather in California, repurposed art projects from her children and iron accents from estate sales.

By the house, two cardinal vines lure hummingbirds with their yellow and red blossoms making the backyard come alive with motion. Roses alongside the house wander through a small community of hand painted bird houses.

If Julianne were to give one word of advice to someone moving into a home with an established garden it would be “wait.” She thinks that it’s valuable to get to know a new garden, and school yourself before making major changes. “I’m learning, I take classes, now I go visit professionals and I bring pictures of my yard.”

We are so pleased she has included us all on her journey of discovery

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When Gail Lonergan walks in her garden she walks among memories. Antique peonies from her great Aunt, her sister’s camellia, and rhododendrons from her family’s yards have found their forever home with Gail and Bob. “I love the fact that my family has always treasured plants and moved them when they moved,” said Gail, “because we were always in the garden.”

When Gail and Bob moved to Walnut Street in 2015, they were greeted by a yard that had been neglected for years. Working with a landscape architect, they edited out old plantings, rejuvenated the lawn, and created curved beds to add structure.

Italian Cypress and Cedars were planted to soften the angles of their home. A climbing hydrangea, fatsia and heuchera accent the entry, adding layers of texture. The lawn, tended by Bob, provides a lush carpet that highlights the surrounding borders.

Passing by heirloom peonies and her sister’s camellia, you are greeted with the trickling of a new waterfall and mini-stream. Edged in moss, it provides an escape from the summer heat. Trees surround the woodland space, providing privacy and dappled sunlight that accents the hydrangeas, dogwood, epimedium, ligularia and hellebores.

A wetland area, home to mountain beavers, corners the backyard, left in its natural state to feed neighboring streams. As you pass to the west, a sourwood tree provides fall color surrounded by hostas and sword ferns. Take time to search for touches of whimsy: a face in the trees, a sleeping garden fairy, cranes and stone carp.

This summer Gail and Bob are focused on building up their soil and adding outdoor lighting to illuminate their memories for years to come.

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Hard work + a secret ingredient = pure joy in Donna Ernst and Doug Fauld’s garden. Their creation is loaded with four-season color, accented with interesting focal points and laced with paths that invite visitors to wander and explore.

Their story began nineteen years ago, with the construction of an addition to their home. Using her garden design experience Donna got to work. To provide privacy from the street she created a circular driveway with an elevated garden in the center, and topped it with a Camperdown Elm – one of her favorites. Loaded with azaleas, rhododendron, a bird’s nest spruce and tree peonies in spring, it makes a dramatic entry to the yard.

A corkscrew willow anchors the north border along with a small water feature. The artfully pruned Coral Bark maple, courtesy of Doug, adds a shock of color especially in winter, against cold, blue skies. Shades of chartreuse, burgundy, purple and yellow mix harmoniously beside colorful perennials.

In the backyard, a Caribbean mural graces the private space, with a patio where Donna and Doug spend time entertaining friends. A windmill palm brings a tropical touch, adding texture against their English laurel.

But the most important element of the backyard garden lives in a “condo” in a world all her own. Molly, Donna’s bunny brings a charming air and fertile addition to the garden. Twice a year, Donna makes a compost tea courtesy of Molly, and credits it for her garden’s success.

On warm summer evenings, Donna and Doug can be found sitting on their deck, relaxing after a hard day in the garden, feeding a curious crow who stops by to say hello.

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It’s the setting that impresses you first. Built on a slope, steps from Puget Sound, Debbie and Glen Read’s home is quintessential Edmonds. Eagles cruise the shoreline, sea lions bob and call, and the sound of ferry horns and freight trains echo up and down the beach.

Coastal gardens have a unique set of challenges, constant wind, salt air and fast-draining, weak soil are just a few. So as Debbie and Glen garden around their 12-year-old home, they sometimes feel it’s with a bit of trial and error. Conservation guidelines drove their first plan with native plantings to preserve the shoreline, but as those needed revising, they wanted gardens that would blend into the landscape.

Flanking the entrance are windmill palms. Glen is a sailor and loves their tropical feel. A bed of hosta and heuchera lead to the front door and nearby, day lilies are accented with spikes of New Zealand flax and phormium.

As you head north and walk down broad steppingstones, a seaside border edges down the bank. Gatherings are warmed by a stone firepit surrounded by barberries, heuchera and a money puzzle tree. Pampas grass makes the border come alive as flowerheads glow when the sun sets behind them.

Fatsias, viburnum and ferns soften the foundation and lead to the south-facing bed, shaded by weeping birches topped with an angel’s trumpet. Debbie has placed an old dinghy there and fills it with flowers that draw raves from local walkers.

Some nights when Debbie drives home, she turns the corner and sees her house silhouetted by the sea and sky and thinks – “That’s my home? Oh my gosh – I just feel so fortunate.

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It made perfect sense when Keith and Olga Soltner designed their home it was a project they kept in the family. Head of his own architectural firm, Keith created a house that melded Northwest, Modern, Craftsman and Industrial styles, as functional as it is unique. And he applied those same principles to guide the landscape design.

The goal was to create gardens that complement the architecture, as well as incorporate year-round color, texture and layers to draw the eye. They also wanted to minimize the lawn and use drought-tolerant plants.

Along the street you’ll see a wandering dry creek bed with wooly thyme and wild strawberry carpeting the yard. Walking up the steps, astilbe, lady’s mantle, pee gee hydrangeas and Japanese maples provide color and a variety of textures along with stainless-steel containers filled with monochromatic plantings.

Flagstone walkways take you around the home to the back, past two variegated box-leaf azaras. Entering the private backyard, white roses, stonecrop and hydrangeas add dimension. Water flows over a staggered stack of granite, down to a pool below surrounded by Japanese forest grass, ferns, and granite steppingstones. It’s the ideal space for Keith and Olga to entertain, with a firepit providing warmth on chilly nights.

Olga loves flowers and there is always something blooming. Wallflowers, euphorbia, hardy geraniums, daylilies, Japanese anemones, stonecrop, astilbe, some with blossoms echoing the terracotta color on their home.

Keith says he’s generally a “straight angle” guy, but when it comes to gardens, he looks for something more natural, “I think it’s really beautiful how the curves soften the architecture.”

It is the perfect combination for such a special home.

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Step off a busy street to a private, one-lane road to a modern home with echoes of the past. It was a tall order, to convince Scott’s mom to move from her farm on Whidbey Island to the mainland. But a 40’s vintage home and barn on a holly farm convinced her to make Edmonds her new home.

After her passing, the home and yard were reimagined from the ground up. Now a contemporary house with a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright sits upon sloping park-like grounds, home to Scott and Cathy.

As you enter you are greeted by one of their favorite spots, a small waterfall and pond surrounded by Japanese maples, ferns, moss and mugo pines. It is the ideal place to spend summer evenings relaxing and greeting neighbors, in the shade of large mature cedars.

As you step into the backyard you see curving borders with boulders that flow down the slope. A break in the hillside creates two levels of garden and encourages strolling. The addition of 24 species of trees has created a small forest of katsura, birch, heritage oak, and Eastern dogwoods, including a Red Point maple, to honor Scott’s mom.

Bringing four-season color to their landscape with flowers and fragrance was a priority. There is always something blooming: lilacs, daphne, escallonia and jasmine, plus fuchsia, hydrangeas, and heather. A covered swing provides a spot to survey the grounds and rest on summer days.

And if you look carefully, overseeing the backyard is a vintage deer statue, treasured by Scott’s mom. It’s a gentle reminder of her presence and love of nature that inspired the beauty of this gracious space.

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The laughter of children, the ooohs of discovery, these are the sounds of the College Place Elementary School Garden. In a courtyard surrounded by classrooms, sit 12 raised beds, the source of the sounds of learning.

College Place has had a history of growing, with an original “gardener,” long-time resident Greg Jorgenson, who plants bulbs and containers with first graders every year. And then in 2017, a new program started to take root.

Teachers and educators received a grant to start a growing program. Now, each grade has its own trough with a few community beds – all dedicated to growing plants. Even the kindergarteners are involved, starting seeds under grow lights in classrooms, and planting them outdoors.

Parents Liz Cooke and Linsi Moy manage the efforts, providing support and encouragement to teachers who opt into the idea. “Essentially it gets kids in dirt, says Liz, “we all know the things it does for their mental health and well-being.” “There’s more than just the classroom, the education goes beyond the walls of the rooms.”

The program continues to grow with a grant for an irrigation system from Edmonds In Bloom. And there are plans to rebuild College Place Elementary, to combine it with a middle school. So, Liz and Linsi are lobbying to incorporate a garden into that new space. “Gardens are important to kids because they are vital to our life cycle,” says Linsi, “everybody feels better when you eat a whole food.”

Liz agrees, and feels that gardening not only sparks knowledge, but connects children to a larger community. “Every single kid deserves to have a place where they can put seeds in the earth.”