Not Everyone LOVED This Garden?

 

I wondered what to say about one of my favorite gardens on the Fling tour, the Grey Garden.  

 The garden's home, built 1999, loomed high above the road.  We de-bussed and walked up a steep stairway.  On one side was a driveway, on the other, a rocky steep slope, beautifully planted.  

 

Didn't get great photos of the front slope.  Sorry.

Note the sleeping baby elephant sculptures at the base of the planter:

 As it was the last garden of the first day, I was very tired.  My new knee was holding up, but major surgery  takes a lot out of a person for some months.  The day previous, I'd quickly skimmed the description of the Gray garden but forgot the details, except "colorful fiberglass panels".  Hmm.  Sounded a little...non-plant oriented, like it was going to be a garden full of stuff instead of plants.  

 At the top of the stairway, aside the home, was a patio.  

A very spiffy patio!

 

With a nifty fountain:

 I was puzzled. "That's it? That bit by the stairway? That's the garden?  Nice rocks, fine plants, great design, but that's all?"   I parked myself on the spiffy sofa while everyone else lined up for wine. 

Someone else's beverages.  I craved a diet cola.

As the line dwindled I realized more garden had been hidden by all those people.  A whole lot more.

With lots and lots of perfectly grown, pristine plants: ferns and Hostas and more ferns and more Hostas and Brunnera, Hakone grass and Rhododendrons, Japanese Maples and a weeping Willow and a Birch grove, all embroidered together by stones, flowing down a steep hillside.

The size of the people in the next photo gives you an idea of how vast this back garden was.

That's the birch grove:

Yeah.  Beautiful plants everywhere.

The much talked-about feature called 'Toadhenge' (upper right), constructed from slabs of rock already on the property:

Chartreuse plants like Hakonechloa macra 'All Gold' and chartreuse and black stone and ceramics created the main color scheme. 

Small art objects scattered unobstrusively throughout  pristine plants:

Feet show the scale of Gunnera foliage:

The property next door with it's old, more modest home was a contrast with the garden we visited.  Puget sound is the water beyond:

Plants flowed down the hill through the rocks like water:

White frosted Brunnera and a silvery Hebe(?) add contrast to all the rich variety of green shades.  In the upper right of this photo, to the right of the Brunnera, was the only plant I found that looked damaged in any way:

The construction of of this garden involved geological investigation, structural engineering, and skilled construction to secure the steep hillside in place.

In addition the plant selection and maintenance were superb.

Small touches of color only besides the main trio of black/grays, chartreuse, and greens.

The lower patio, which was at the base of the slope, behind the home, had a pond.

Is that pollen dusting the foliage, or are the white spots in the leaves?

Rock face, literally!

A stairway I could not ascend.  There was much I could not access.  Standing on the lower patio you felt as you could see the entire panorama of rocky hillside and flowing foliage, but there was more, with paths up and around "Toadhenge".  Hidden places to explore, a delight in any garden.

This visitor appeared to be looking in stunned awe, or maybe that was just what I was feeling:

Nice trunk:

Ah, finally!  There are the fiberglass panels.  Someone commented, I thought, the panels were currently were a placeholder for some future project:

The willow:

I was awed and thrilled by this garden.  It was of course a big-budget luxury--the engineering and construction to reinforce a steep water-weeping hillside in a rainy climate is hugely expensive, but it could not have been more beautiful or more natural in appearance.   I very much admired the discipline in plant selection, so different from my own experimental mish-mash.

Not everyone loved it as much, which surprised me.  I missed comments as to why--the hands of professionals too much in evidence?  But the plants were so beautiful.  The whole thing was beautiful.  An achievement of many different people and much work.