Some gardens grow more than plants

Annual garden tour planned to raise money for local schools

By Barbara Sherman

The Times, Jun 25, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Barbara Sherman / Pamplin Media Group

John and Mary Jo VanNortwick relax in the garden they will make public for a day during the annual Seeding Our Future Garden Tour and Plant Sale, a fundraiser for Tigard-Tualatin schools.

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Mary Jo and John VanNortwick love their beautiful garden in Tualatin, and now the rest of the world – or at least people who purchase tickets for this year’s Foundation for Tigard Tualatin Schools’ Seeding Our Future Garden Tour – will be able to appreciate it, too.

The annual garden tour is always a big hit with the people who tour different local gardens. A foundation committee visits and chooses the gardens a year ahead of time so its members can see how the landscapes will actually look at the time of the tour.

With the exception of a few plantings, including trees, rhododendrons and azaleas, Mary Jo and John created their garden from scratch with a lot of help from garden designer Paul Taylor, who has been a big supporter of the annual garden tours, according to Becky Hurd, co-chairwoman of the tour and art show.

The VanNortwicks moved into their Tualatin house from 4 acres south of Fischer Road next to King City 4½ years ago in January 2005 because they wanted to downsize.

“We like this area,” Mary Jo said. “We were driving around and wanted a single-level house. It was a dark day and depressing. Then we saw this one.

“The garden was stark and ugly. The house was a fixer-upper. But it had promise. We had the interior done before we moved in.”

The VanNortwicks had a built-in garden consultant in Taylor, whose brother is married to John’s daughter.

“Paul started on the garden that spring,” Mary Jo said. “It took a couple months to do the design. I love to garden. But I need to have things set up for me, and then I can tweak and change them a little.”

The VanNortwicks keep photos of the yard the way it used to look, which included lawn and “poodle plants,” according to Taylor.

The lot is 10,000 square feet, but it seems more spacious because of the way the garden is laid out and appears to extend beyond its borders.

To connect everything, the VanNortwicks installed a Pennsylvania stone path (which doesn’t get slippery when wet) that meanders completely around the house, starting in the front on one side of the driveway, going around the back and ending up on the other side of the driveway.

“You have different perspectives, depending on which way you look,” Mary Jo said of the garden. “I wanted everything to work, no matter what angle you’re looking at. Paul and I had the same artistic vision for a garden.

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