Happy Friday GPODers!

I hope the first couple days of 2025 have treated you well. To get the year started on the right foot, we’re back in Nancy Heckler’s garden to see more of the tour Cherry Ong was treated to last fall. Nancy’s garden in Indianola, Washington is a wonderful collection of colorful and lush plantings woven together with an artful eye. If you’ve missed the first two parts in this series, you should absolutely go back and check those out (Part 1 and Part 2).

Today we will be entering a new garden room known as Nancy’s Hideaway @nancy.heckler. The paths are narrow but filled with all kinds of treasures so be sure to look left, right, above and below. One of these is a fern table. I’ve been inspired by them after watching Richie Steffen’s videos (Check out a full, in-depth video from the Hardy Fern Foundation, here) and plan to make one for my own garden someday.

Again Brocc welcoming you to our virtual tour.

From bright and light to dark and glossy, Nancy has an incredible mix of just about every kind of foliage you can imagine. She also doesn’t miss any opportunity to add additional interest and art. This little bed is confined by an amazing fence of woven branches.

An another example of a great foliage vignette like the ones we saw last week. All of these plants have similar color and shininess, but the vastly different textures and forms make the combination still incredibly interesting.

As Cherry so perfectly describes above, the paths that lead to Nancy’s Hideaway are teeming with fascinating details. You can tell everything is added to Nancy’s garden with attention and meaning, not just her plants. From the stack of drift wood on the left, to antique watering can and bright red water pump.

Nancy confides that this is a very sentimental piece made by a dear friend who died of cancer.

What a delightful fern table! Here’s how to build one: Building a Fern Table with Richie Steffen

Another immersive path, this one stepping stones that are even more beautiful this time of year with the added sprinkling of fallen leaves. I love that Nancy’s garden is very reminiscent of hiking trails I saw when I visited the Pacific Northwest in 2023, dense with plant life and tree cover. Her landscape is a fabulous reflection of the landscape that surrounds, with the added beauty of a gardener’s touch.

So much of the foliage in Nancy’s garden is gloriously glossy. Even when not flowering, this rhododendron is a stand out.

While we’ve seen a lot of the amazing vignettes that Nancy is able to create from grouping container plants together, she is also able to craft incredible combinations in a stand-alone pot. Without a single flower, she is able to thrill, fill, and spill with all kinds of glorious colors and textures.

I’m not sure what I’m more envious of, Nancy’s incredible plant collection or who amazing assortment of containers! Anything growing from this stunning planter would become a focal point. And more shiny and bright foliage really makes this area glow.

Lastly, another example of Nancy’s interesting garden art. In the last part of this series, Cherry showed off an example of the bird sculptures and art that can be found near each of Nancy’s garden gates. But this adorable trio of moss-covered skunks shows that she represents other animals throughout her space.

Thank you again for sharing more of your visit to Nancy’s garden with us, Cherry! It’s been such an exciting garden to explore, and I’m sad that we only have one more submission in this series.

 

Have a garden you’d like to share?

Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!

To submit, send 5-10 photos to gpod@taunton.com along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

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