2024 Garden Fling: Carhart Garden

The Carhart Garden was the first stop on the 2024 Fling, an annual meetup of garden communicators (bloggers, Instagrammers, TikTokers, Facebookers, etc.) who get together in a different city each year to visit gardens, socialize, and exchange experiences. The destination this year was Tacoma and the Puget Sound. Day 1 was spent on Vashon Island, a short ferry ride from Tacoma.

The Carhart Garden is located on Maury Island, a small island connected by an isthmus to the larger Vashon Island. The cultivated garden is 3 acres and is surrounded by 15 acres of stewardship forest. To somebody who gardens on an 8,100 sq.ft. property, 3 acres seems immense – even more so when you can’t see it all laid out in front of you because there are thousands of trees and shrubs.

Whit and Mary Carhart have been developing their garden for almost 25 years. Carving a garden into the steep hillside meant backbreaking labor, much of it done by the Carharts themselves. The largest section, the woodland stroll garden, starts at the top of the hill and features meandering paths leading down to the Carharts’ home overlooking Quartermaster Harbor. Along the way, you walk by an immense variety of native and ornamental plants, most of which I couldn’t even begin to identify. Fortunately, many of them were labeled.

So many stepping stones...

...and neatly placed boulders

Maidenhair fern (Adiantum sp.)

Saxifrage (Saxifraga sp.), a genus I wish I could grow

A few succulents, too, like this Sedum takesimense...

...and this Sedum spathulifolium

Variegated bamboo fern (Coniogramme emeiensis)

One of so many beautiful conifers...

...that were completely unfamiliar to me

I did know what this silver-leaved plant is: Senecio candidans ‘Angel Wings’, a spectacular perennial from the cool-temperate regions of southern Chile and Argentina. I’ve tried (and failed) to grow it several times. It simply hates our hot summers. The weather in Washington is much more to its liking – evidenced by the fact that I encountered it in almost all the gardens we visited on the Fling.

A woodland tableau like this is simply inconceivable in my climate

Mahonia eurybracteata on the left, possibly Dan Hinkley’s selection ‘Indianola Silver’

Oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia)

Mahonia eurybracteata ‘Soft Caress’ on the left, maidenhair fern (Adiantum sp.) on the right

Another kind of maidenhair fern (Adiantum sp.)

Rodgersia podophylla

Korean fir (Abies koreana)

For most of us, the real showstopper in the Carhart Garden was the pond near the bottom of the slope. This area used to be fill dirt before Vashon designer Terry Welch turned it into what is actually a saltwater swimming pool cleverly disguised as a natural pond:

Just below the pond is the compound encompassing the Carharts’ residence as well as a garage with a spacious apartment above it.

Leaves so massive you could lose a child in there

Here’s that Senecio candidans ‘Angel Wing’ again

The garden surrounding the house is a coffee table book come to life. There’s an immense variety of woodland plants, each one grown to perfection. I loved being in the midst of such verdure – an environment almost as exotic to me as a tropical island. Coming from a climate where it doesn’t rain from early May to late October, my first thought was: How often do they water? But maybe there’s enough natural rainfall in the summer so they don’t have to.

What you see below is a fern table. They’ve become very popular in the Pacific Northwest in recent years. If you want to find out how to build one, read this post on Loree Bohl’s blog, the danger garden.

The Carhart Garden had a fair amount of art. My favorite piece was the Relay Racers, a group of sculptures by Zimbabwean artist Dominic Benhura representing children running with batons:

In the Carhart Garden, like in so many other gardens on the Fling, nothing attracted quite as much attention as the hydrangeas. They were in full bloom, and simply glorious. The only kind of hydrangea I was familiar with are the old-fashioned mopheads with their huge ball-shaped flowers. But there are many more varieties. Here’s a selection of hydrangea photos from the Carhart Garden:

Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Star Gazer’

According to a 2017 article in The Seattle Times, Whit Carhart took horticulture classes from Dan Hinkley at Edmonds Community College and studied soils at South Seattle College. He and Mary also consulted with Richie Steffen, the curator of the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle, on woodland plant selection. But beyond that, much of the garden design was done by the Carharts themselves. “I’m not a professional,” Whit is quoted as saying. “This is all by the seat of my pants.”

If flying by the seat of your pants results in a garden of this caliber, I want to learn how to do it!

© Gerhard Bock, 2024. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.