Ed’s and Mary’s Garden, Bay View, WA

Ed and Mary Epps’ backyard garden

Sunday’s “Let’s Sketch Bay View” gave a few of us the added pleasure of a mini-garden tour by Ed Epps.  He and Mary have garden plots on all sides of their home, with plenty of places to pause and enjoy the variety of colors, patterns, and natural forms.

Rarely have I seen such exuberant variety in a garden.  Ed seems drawn to all manner of flowers and plants — from the odd voodoo lily, to the uniquely colored chrysanthemum ‘bright eyes,’ or to the more traditional sweet peas and poppies.  Something lovely is always in bloom, and each plant is worthy of joyful attention.

Desiccated bloom of weird voodoo lily

Chrysanthemum ‘bright eyes’

Sweet peas

Poppies

Ed and Mary’s garden exhibits all manner of things done well, but surpassing all is the celebration of foliage.  The foliage provides its own beauty in the variety of colors, textures, and structures it displays.  I was particularly taken with the jagged-leaf melianthus, whose early leafings are folded like intricate origami (another of Ed’s interests), and whose mature leaves bring intriguing spikiness to the garden beds.

Melianthus leaves, folded like a miniature origami fan

Melianthus

Melianthus

The spiral of the rex begonia escargot

The under leaf of the rex begonia escargot

Succulents

I was also most impressed with the many ways Ed incorporated chocolate browns, deep dark purples, and (almost) blacks into the foliage and flowers of the garden.  It made me wonder if a chocolate garden, similar to Vita Sackville-West’s white garden, could be executed in an exciting way.  I imagine cafe au lait dahlias and black leaf dahlias combined with  . . . what else?  Ed would be the one to pull this off, I’m sure.

Black leaf dahlia with yellow bloom

Thank you again, Ed and Mary, for opening your private gardens for the participants of Sunday’s “Let’s Sketch Bay View.”