Port Washington Garden Club
2003 Garden Walk

July 12, 2003, 9AM - 3PM

This garden provides privacy on a busy street. The front yard has been redesigned to separate the house from the traffic on Spring St. A gentle berm filled with native shrubs gives the front of the house a pleasant vista, blocking the view of the traffic on the street.

The backyard centers on a patio surrounded by a perennial garden. An island garden and a children’s area with play set and lawn complete the yard.

The Asian feel of this front yard gives a feeling of serenity on busy Spring street but the well known lakeside tip-of-the-hat provided by the floral rowboat, and the whimsical metal art created by gardener Bruce McDonald lets you know there’s more here than meets the eye.

In contrast to most of the gardens on our tour lately, McDonald loves annual flowers. He’s solved the problem of limited bloom time for perennials by loading the yard with season-long flowering tender plants.

In the private backyard, a child’s former play set becomes a stand for hanging baskets and is surrounded by beds of annuals like marigolds. Large containers full of tender plants like brugmansia burst with bloom. There’s also a fenced vegetable garden and greenhouse, and more of McDonald’s original wood carvings and metal art.

A lovely front yard with perennial beds welcomes you to the door but the real treat here is the steeply sloped backyard that’s home to a garden railroad. The G-scale trains run out of the basement depot and up the slope through miniature forests and past a lake and lodge, newly constructed by engineer and layout designer Gary Kelly.

The train is easily viewed from the upper deck adjacent to the house, from the path that travels down the hill or at eye level from the lower lawn. The lower lawn also features a patio, shady perennials and seating.

This garden was on the tour several years ago as a fine example of a shade garden. While the wooded lot is still filled with spring bluebells, trillium and native woodland flowers, a storm several years ago opened the backyard to more sunlight.

As a result, the small pond at the center of the yard has been enlarged and a new perennial bed has been installed around it, complete with a comfortable sitting area pondside. A shed for potting and planning new beds has been added.

The garden will also serve as the setting for a display of bronze sculptures by Port Washington artist Andy Schumann.

Located directly west of the Baganz house, this garden offers another way to deal with a steeply sloped yard. The front shrub and perennial borders welcome you to the house. Perennial beds of hostas, peonies and perennial grasses continue down the driveway and carry you into the backyard.

Here, the terraced rear garden is landscaped for a great view from the detached screen porch and patio. A panoramic view of the plantings is also available from the seating area on the upper garden terrace which overlooks the yard.

These longtime homeowners have created mature plantings from an empty lot. The front yard has floating beds and shrub borders with maroon and yellow foliage. A lilac shrub has been carefully pruned to form a blooming standard tree form.

In the backyard, the homeowners have created the perfect area for bird watching from a patio and lawn nearly enclosed by woodland trees and beds of shade loving perennials highlighted with splashes of color from containers of impatiens. There’s also a patio water feature and small vegetable garden at the rear of the yard.

Garden Walk Map

Click on the image below to display a full-size map to the gardens!

Click HERE for the report from the 2001 Garden Walk!
Click HERE for the report from the 2002 Garden Walk!

Questions?  Please Email us!

Back to Port Washington Garden Club home page