Local landscape designer Susan Calhoun — whose recent NHS webinars on grasses and shade plants you may have enjoyed — will treat us to on-site visits to four of her gardens on Bainbridge Island and the Kitsap Peninsula, including her own personal one. Starting in Bainbridge Island at Arrow Point, we first visit a “forest getaway” with a luscious shade garden surrounding a modern home with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Olympics. The beds combine native salal, huckleberry and ferns with more cultivated plants for a quintessential Pacific Northwest landscape. Next we head north to Port Madison where Susan performed a deep redesign to create a magical space for a family wedding. The result: a picture-perfect lawn for the ceremony, graced by a shade garden on one side and fruit trees and a vegetable garden on the sunny side. Susan’s own 3.5 acre garden in Indianola is our next stop and we’ll enjoy lunch here (choose your meal option during registration). When she bought the property in 2015, it was nothing but lawn, blackberry, horsetail and overgrown trees. Since then, she has brought much to life: a streamside garden, a shade garden, a large grass garden and productive vegetable beds. She is experimenting with a bulb meadow under white birch trees, a wildflower meadow and a rose garden. Our final stop is nearby: A south-facing modern house that looks towards Mt Rainier. Here Susan developed a fabulous beach garden, using the owner’s narrow color palette and many plants from nearby Windcliff Nursery. Grasses, yarrow and agapanthus abound alongside drought-tolerant salvias, rosemary and unusual shrubs that offer structure and privacy.

We will meet on Bainbridge Island and end in Indianola. Addresses will be sent to registrants a few days in advance. Coming from Seattle you will take the Bainbridge ferry in the morning and the Kingston/Edmonds on return (or return back to Bainbridge and take that ferry). Carpooling is encouraged.

Guide’s Bio:

Susan Calhoun is a landscape designer, writer and speaker with over 25 years of experience gardening in our shade-rich region. Based on Bainbridge Island, she is the owner and principal designer of Plantswoman Design. She received her horticultural training at South Seattle College and RHS Garden Harlow Carr in the UK. Susan’s work has been featured in Sunset, Fine Gardening, Monrovia’s Be Inspired blog and many other national and local publications. She is a frequent speaker and contributor to the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival, having created award-winning gardens for many years.