Debra Prinzing

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Chocolate flowers for your garden

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

 

BH&G's August issue features my "Debra's Garden" column about "hot chocolate" plants

Chocolate flower and plant update:

Better Homes & Gardens readers who see this month’s “Debra’s Garden” piece on cocoa-colored and chocolate-scented plants might be interested in reading my post from last July. You can find it below.
Just last summer, I visited the famed Chocolate Flower Farm in Langley, Wash., on Whidbey Island – and wrote about my tour of the charming and inspiring nursery with owner Marie Lincoln.
Several readers have already contacted me to mention Chocolate Flower Farm as a great source for dark-colored and sweet-fragranced plants, including the chocolate cosmos, featured above right.
 
In fact, if you turn to the Resource section in the August issue, you’ll discover that we did indeed feature this great resource for all things chocolatey. The web site is: www.chocolateflowerfarm.com.
As with the edible kind of chocolate, one can never have too many yummy, delicious chocolate plants. Enjoy – and please let me know how you are using this sultry color in your own garden.
Dark chocolate brushes the tips of this multi-petaled dahlia called 'Karma Choc'

Dark chocolate brushes the tips of this multi-petaled dahlia called 'Karma Choc'

chocolategardenThe flowers that Marie Lincoln and Bill Schlicht cultivate at their Whidbey Island nursery specialty nursery are good enough to eat. That’s because Chocolate Flower Farm’s mocha, bittersweet chocolate, cinnamon, cocoa and espresso-hued blooms and foliage plants are as satisfying to the senses as a Fran’s caramel-filled chocolate sprinkled with grey sea salt (well, almost).

My friend Stacie Crooks, of Seattle-based Crooks Garden Design, was my escort to Whidbey last Tuesday. We’d only slightly recovered from our late night festivities in her superb, often-photographed drought-tolerant  garden, where a gaggle of garden gals gathered (isn’t that alliterative?) for a lovely sunset soiree.  I spent the night at Stacie’s and we set off the next morning for the ferry from Mukilteo to Clinton on Whidbey Island.

The ferry crossing was short – 20 minutes – but beautiful in its grey-blueness with sunlight pushing through the morning haze. I breathed Seattle’s maritime air and that made me happy.

I had a lovely visit to Marie Lincoln of Chocolate Flower Farm on Whidbey Island outside Seattle

I had a lovely visit to Marie Lincoln of Chocolate Flower Farm on Whidbey Island outside Seattle

After visiting one of Stacie’s inspiring and impressive design projects, the subject of which I hope will soon appear in one or two of my articles, we drove to Chocolate Flower Farm to meet Marie. I first met this dark-plant purveyor by telephone when I called her last December to request an interview. I wanted to include her “sweet” plant passion in my February “In the Garden” column for 805 Living.

Like most of my writing efforts, there’s a back story on the piece, entitled “Brown is Beautiful: Sweet Tips for Growing a Chocolate Garden.”  Last fall, my editor Lynne Andujar made an off-the-cuff comment to me: “Oh, our February issue is going to be the CHOCOLATE issue, but I’m not really sure if there’s a fit for the gardening column,” she said.

“You bet there’s an angle,” I replied. “We’re going to feature chocolate-scented and chocolate colored plants!”

A little shed houses the nursery sales area

A little shed houses the nursery sales area

Marie Lincoln shows off her plants to garden designer Stacie Crooks

Marie Lincoln shows off her plants to garden designer Stacie Crooks

Marie and Bill started the Chocolate Flower Farm in 2005 to grow and promote dark-colored plants. 

The display beds and nursery area have expanded around their 1923 farmhouse and outbuildings (sheds!) to the former horse pasture.

As the “hot chocolate” trend grew, the couple searched for even more plants on the dark end of the spectrum, selecting unusual sports to propagate and sell as exclusive named cultivars. Marie jokes that her nursery reflects “a collision of two passions,” as it introduces new and veteran gardeners to the beauty of chocolatey colors in the landscape (not to mention a few very special chocolate-scented plants that invoke memories of grandmother’s Nestle Toll House cookies coming out of the oven).

READ MORE…

Low-water garden design

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Lessons from a Low-Water Landscape and a Garden Evening with Friends

Back-lit by the late afternoon sun, the phormium glows in Stacie's front border

Back-lit by the late afternoon sun, the phormium glows in Stacie's front border

Last week’s Seattle visit included quite a bit of garden touring, and I feasted my eyes on some gorgeous places. One of my stops was to see fab designer Stacie Crooks, whose work has set a standard for sustainable beauty. Stacie and our friend Tina Dixon, also a widely published designer who specializes in container gardens, hosted a Garden Soiree for some of their gal pals. They were sweet to arrange the dinner around my time in town, ensuring that I got to see some of my very favorite women, including those shown here: 

Back row, from left: Tina Dixon, Nita-Jo Rountree, Gillian Matthews, me; Center row, from left: Janet Endsley, Wendy Welch, Kathy Fries, Marty Wingate; Front row, from left: Lorene Edwards Forkner, and Stacie Crooks

Back row, from left: Tina Dixon, Nita-Jo Rountree, Gillian Matthews, me; Center row, from left: Janet Endsley, Wendy Welch, Kathy Fries, Marty Wingate; Front row, from left: Lorene Edwards Forkner, and Stacie Crooks

My article about Stacie and her husband Jon’s vibrant, textural garden appeared in the May 2008 issue of Seattle Homes and Lifestyles, accompanied by some pretty awesome photography by Allan Mandell. I have included the full text of that story below – it explains Stacie’s inspiring design philosophy and tells the story of how she created this very special place. I snapped a few photos at the party, to share with you here:

Wine and gold textures are lovely and drought tolerant

Wine and gold textures are lovely and drought tolerant

 

Stepping stones make it easy for Stacie to garden and lure visitors through the sea of foliage, blades and blooms. She uses punches of orange to brighten the scheme (Epilobium californicum 'Dublin' and Calluna vulgaris 'Firefly' are favorites)

Stepping stones make it easy for Stacie to garden and lure visitors through the sea of foliage, blades and blooms. She uses punches of orange to brighten the scheme (Epilobium californicum 'Dublin' and Calluna vulgaris 'Firefly' are favorites)

 

A shady path in the back garden leads to an inviting fire pit and seating area

A shady path in the back garden leads to an inviting fire pit and seating area

Debra in green, on the path

Debra in green, on the path

Colorful Adirondack benches, each painted a different color to match the foliage

Colorful Adirondack benches, each painted a different color to match the foliage

 

A perfect end to an unforgettable evening with my garden friends

A perfect end to an unforgettable evening with my garden friends

 

Here’s the story:

staciecrooksstory001Water-Wise & Wonderful: Lessons from a lush, low-water landscape

Written by Debra Prinzing | Photographs by Allan Mandell

(May 2008, Seattle Homes & Lifestyles)

The rich palette of golden, green, burgundy and silver foliage plants thriving in Stacie and Jon Crooks’ Shoreline garden north of Seattle suggests that theirs is a well-pampered landscape.

But the opposite is true.

Stacie, owner of Crooks Garden Design, has transformed a sloping half acre into a harmonious tapestry of beds and islands that explodes with interest in every season. The design features trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses, succulents and perennials that are adapted to harsh conditions: western exposure, maritime gusts, poor soil and no irrigation.

staciecrooksstory002That it’s also gorgeous offers an inspiring lesson to countless young designers and students who have taken Stacie’s classes through the Saving Water Partnership, a consortium of local water districts.

“Among our focus groups, there is a misconception that a water-wise garden is a bunch of unattractive natives, cactus and gravel, that it can’t be beautiful,” says Elizabeth Fikejs of Seattle Public Utilities, organizer of the Savvy Gardener workshops. “Stacie allows people to truly experience the water-wise garden in three dimensions,” rather than just seeing plants in photographs, she raves.

Having trained with painter William Cumming at Seattle’s Burnley School for Professional Art, Stacie spent several years working as a commercial artist before embracing horticulture as her preferred medium in the early 1990s. Her passion included founding a neighborhood garden club and joining the executive board of the E. B. Dunn Historic Garden Trust, an Olmsted-designed landscape where Stacie developed the education and docent program.

In 1991, Jon, Stacie (pregnant at the time with her second son, Trevor) and four-year-old Dylan, moved to a 1950s rambler in Innis Arden, a neighborhood overlooking Puget Sound. The half-acre lot and sweeping views were the property’s best features. “Because of its age and architecture, this house had teardown potential, but we worked with it,” Stacie says. Although overgrown rhododendrons and shrubs dominated the property, they saw the potential for creating a vibrant, new garden here

staciecrooksstory003Stacie and Jon wanted to work within their resources and abilities. “We haven’t spent a lot of money and we’ve built the whole garden ourselves,” she says.

The landscape’s transformation has paralleled the growth of Stacie’s business, which designs residential gardens large and small. She tests plants and design ideas here before suggesting them for her clients’ gardens.

One hundred percent organic in her practices, Stacie challenged herself to transform the playground-like front yard into a textural tapestry. She did so, despite the vast lawn, western exposure, rocky soil, and almost twenty-percent grade change.

“I faced a lot of limitations with this project,” she admits. “But after one high water bill, I chose drought-tolerant gardening as a solution.”  Choosing tough-as-nails plants solved another challenge, as well: “There’s nothing planted here that can’t handle two boys, soccer balls, a Frisbee and a Jack Russell terrier named Rita. This isn’t a fussy garden.”

Stacie and Jon rented a sod-cutter, and removed and gave away the turf in their expansive front yard. They tilled up rocks and roots and incorporated 30 yards of organic planting mix to improve the native soil. Stacie borrowed extension cords from neighbors, laying out the shapes of her new planting beds to create a sinuous wraparound border that encompasses a 70-by-40 foot irregularly shaped island at the center (grassy strolling paths link the beds, allowing for people and pets to navigate the “circuit”).

Her artist’s eye looked beyond northwest native varieties to include plants adaptable to similar dry summer-wet winter growing conditions, regions considered “Mediterranean”: Australia, Chile, South Africa and countries on the Mediterranean Basin.

Sophisticated in its palette and overall composition, the garden uses a surprisingly ordinary selection of plants. Mostly evergreen varieties appear  and are often repeated, including wine-colored barberries, Viburnum ‘Davidii’, Osmanthus burkwoodii, dwarf golden false cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Mops’), winter-blooming heathers, Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald n Gold’, New Zealand flaxes, golden carex and Cotoneaster glaucophyllus.

“I choose colors I like – golds and burgundies,” Stacie says, likening her saturated palette to the medieval tapestries she loved seeing in Europe both as a student and later in the mid-1990s. “Plus, I am the texture queen.” As a designer, she is drawn to strong plant shapes that play off of each other. “I like to alternate spiked, round, lacy and layered forms. It’s like a puzzle that has to fit together.”

The garden gains architectural height and fluid movement from ornamental grasses like Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’ and blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens). Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum ‘Gateway’), a long-blooming perennial, soars overhead. While foliage delivers volumes of color, flowers are strong accents. Planted en masse, low-water perennials punctuate the design, including purple coneflower, fire tail persicaria and show-stopping ‘Pikes Peak Purple’ and ‘Sour Grapes’ penstemon.

Last summer, this garden existed on minimal watering, Stacie says. “When temperatures hit 85-degrees, I finally turned on the water for a couple of hours at night and gave the roots a deep soaking.” But she resorted to this method only four times between May and October.

In addition to saving natural resources, the easy-care plants are compatible with Stacie’s busy schedule. Like many baby-boomers, she wants to enjoy, but not constantly tend to, her garden. “I’m choosing plants that can care for themselves and accommodating the space they require to reduce the need for any pruning.”

This philosophy has led to judicious editing out of a few perennials that require extra attention like deadheading and dividing. “As this garden matures, I’m using only low-maintenance perennials that have seasonal interest and great fragrance,” she adds.

Stacie takes comfort in knowing that her pioneering design philosophy is beginning to inspire some to try a different way of gardening. Dwindling water supplies and global warming may influence others. “Eventually, everyone will have to garden the way I do – they won’t have a choice,” she says.

Lucky for us, she proves sustainable can be beautiful too.