In 2015, Karen and Akin said goodbye to the overgrown shore pines, front yard lamp post, aggregate concrete, and high maintenance perennial beds and replaced them with a more formal but inviting mix of hardscape and plantings designed by Gavin Younie to invite guests through a geometric threshold toward the front door.  Repeated heathers, hellebores, bergenia, hydrangeas and boxwood create a linear structure that echoes the house lines and provides winter structure.
            Along the east side of the house a new path drops the visitor into a wonderful blend of Barbara Fealy’s organic landscape from the 1970s and Gavin Younie’s more modern and formal design.  Hostas surround a 150 year-old red oak tree.  Hydrangeas, andromeda, peonies and dogwood share space outside the broadly curving lawn lines.  Peek into the Garden Cottage, designed and built in 1997 by the Blitz’s middle son, who began with only the window and the concept to create a building scaled to the house.  The window came from an antique mall and the tiny door from Hippo Hardware.  An active, worm-filled compost pile in the back corner reminds us of Nature’s power to cycle and recycle.
            From the Cottage a hidden path leads to a stone bench and on through a secret garden filled with Fealy standards:  salal, viburnum, ajuga, and rhododendron “Unique.”  The back patio (with remnant Fealy aggregate staircase steps) and covered outdoor living room provide a gardener or guest with a place for pause — to listen to the birds, to calm the mind, to feel gratitude for the ever changing seasons. 

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Serenity

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