Above: June strolls through the garden with her English Whippet. Echinacea ‘Papaya’ and whimsical coloured globes fill in spaces where flowers fade. Below: a giant castor bean plant looms above the pond while blue lighting rods surround the sumac.
eye is irresistibly arrested by the spon- taneous California poppies that have sprung up without help all along the garden walk. They mingle happily with the sturdy Echinacea and a thriving smoke bush. On the right, your spirit is captured the medieval-type
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now, although greatly changed from its original or even June’s mother’s time. The garden is shielded from the street
by a large, thick and venerable lilac hedge and a wooden gate that is more like a door. The garden contains many rooms and pleasing visual gifts, scat- tered like Easter eggs among the trees and flowers. Ambling down a pathway, paved
with antique bricks June found in the basement, eyes are drawn to big-leafed canna and strappy daylilies interplanted with blue salvia and Rex begonia, all punctuated by good objets d’art. But the
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blowing in the wind in blues and pinks. Where is the knight on his charging horse? Perhaps he left his lance in the large and healthy staghorn sumac which is guarded by four unique sentries: long rods of structural steel wrapped in an electrical blue wiring. They are angled into the ground so that they form an upside down teepee of light at night. In the background, the visible wall of the neighbour’s house has been painted cobalt blue (by June and at her request) to match the light sticks. You can just glimpse the happy rabbit through a veil of trees. At the end of this path, there’s a small
pond beside a raised deck. Its margins are decorated with water plants, its inte- rior domiciled by happy fish; a giant castor bean looms over all. On the right is the old well with its
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