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The garden is a riot of well-chosen colour, above. Below left: a cosy wooden swing is set shyly in the shade. Below right: hostas and hydrangeas. Notice the glass art in the background.


A mulched pathway leads through one side of thegarden.


leading the eye down the garden where beautifully chosen shrubbery throw in tex- ture and colour that caresses the bright hues of the flowers, calming them once again. More gold: double rudbeckia and the


bronzed leaf of a canna; pink dahlias as tall as your head, and then a giant brick firepit where substantial bonfires could be lit illu- minating the park and eventually the creek behind the house. A weathered cedar swing reposes in the shade. The pathway, which ambles behind the


shrubs on the west side of the garden, is now defined by red mulch which adds its own heat to these shady areas. And now a stand of tall Filipendula ‘Queen of the Prai- rie’ radiates pink light over its huge maple- shaped foliage. A large smoke bush is in full bloom sending up plumes of misty flow- ers. More colour comes from annuals such as cosmos that are carelessly sown in the ground by themselves and State Fair zinnias, not accidentally pink.


The trip back to the beginning of the gar- den allows you to wonder at the tidy hostas and gives you time to appreciate some of the well-chosen statuary and its placement. And now back to the deck and the compelling tree trunks that invite you to start all over again because you know you missed much. And there is Anthony, willing to show


16 • Beautiful Gardens 2012 www.localgardener.net


you his wonderful paintings, their genesis steeped in the garden, some like those with the Japanese motif from the same origins but by a more exotic path; others, brilliant with colour and passionate with shape and form. Anthony has a sunroom, more of a studio, that can’t help but inspire. Its giant picture window overlooks his outdoor creation. Leaving the garden, there is a sense of loss, a feeling of having visited another world where the senses took top priority in life. Longing to stay, you have to move on, but the scenes are imprinted on your brain, their memories changing you ever so subtly for the better.


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