When I took my Mom to see this house I had bought-she cried. She was aghast. Then she was mad-eventually she was just plain scared. I was 30 years old-I had sold my little house in Ferndale at a profit of 7000.00-and bought this decaying uncared for wreck of a dwelling for the princely sum of 60,000.00. I say princely, as I was blithely unconcerned about what it would take to make it liveable. All I could see was the land-almost 5 acres. I barely glanced at the house. Too bad I no longer have the picture that showed a drive-in garage below grade. The furnace in a dirt hole under the house. The garage had stacked, unmortared concrete block for columns, and roof from interior plywood. Needless to say, I was unable to obtain any reasonable homeowner’s insurance; I had to go into a high risk very expensive insurance pool. I did hire an excavating company to tear down the garage, and bring in fill. The hill you see above-fill dirt. The rocks-I persuaded a neighbor with a 1927 Ford tractor to haul rocks up that slope. My idea-a rock garden. Why not?
My first house ever in Ferndale did not have a garden. I had been making my living in my late twenties, such as it was, in fine arts. A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts awarded me a grant to teach, and have a studio, in the Ferndale school district- in an artist in residence program. I had to live in Ferndale, so my grandmother fronted me the down payment money for a house-5000.00. I did pay her back, by the way. My 15,000.00 a year salary/stipend was lots more than I was accustomed to. All of my exposure to gardening, via my Mom, was only barely beginning to surface in an adult way. Gardening is a solitary pursuit. Not so social. Once I turned thirty, things changed. The house in Ferndale-I had no garden. But I did have a huge collection of bearded iris. This second house I bought for the property, as I was determined to garden. I was 31.
The house had lots of problems. The brick was falling off. It was heated with oil-filling the tank took 600.00-at 65 degrees, that oil lasted for 10 days in January. Out of money, I turned the thermostat down to 45. My first March in the house, the hole under the house housing the furnace flooded-the furnace was ruined. The place falling down around me, all I thought to do was plant. I piled on the clothes, and lived without any heat. The red heuchera you see here-an Alan Bloom introduction. This is my memory of this time-more about the future, than the present. The house you see here-a shambles. The inside was just as bad; it smelled terrible. I was young, and had a particular vision. I lived through it.
I had lots of energy-the kind that borders on and crosses over into obsession. Politely put, I was so passionate about growing plants I could barely sleep. Composition was an idea I brought to bear in a painting. My efforts at composing my garden ran into trouble. I knew next to nothing about growing plants. To this day I still say, if you want to learn how to garden, start gardening. Put something in the ground, nurture it. See how you like it-where you have placed it. You will grow up eventually, if you keep at it. 
I hauled no end of soil, rock, and plants around. These Siberian iris planted in the shade of some old spruce-a beginner’s mistake. I would learn plenty by virtue of what prospered, and what languished. What was going on in this bed-not much, besides a collection of plants. Every gardener has to start somewhere-there is no shame in that. I got my feet wet.
A few years passed. Every spare dollar I had went to plants, and more plants. My cat Babyhead was in his glory outdoors-much like I was. Most of my first gardening choices were perennials. Later I would add dwarf Hinoki cypress, and other shrubs/evergreens that seemed interesting.
The rock garden-I planted into that noxious fill dirt- thymes, dianthus, antennaria, saponaria, dwarf spirea, calamintha, iris pumila-iris; how I loved them.
Iris-how I better loved them. This stand of spuria iris still looks good to me. Though I loved the bearded iris, I grew as many types and species as I could. Louisiana iris. Japanese iris. Siberian iris. I grew species iris native to Turkey under hats that would keep the late summer rain off of them. Nuts I was-for iris.
The concrete steps out the front door eventually got a bluestone cladding. I had no idea how to do this-I just went ahead and did it. My first garden-the encrusted saxifrages, the martagon lilies, the paeonia tenuifolia, the clematis Sho-Un, the iris species, the peonies-I had a mind to grow plants. Just like you.
