You never know what you are going to find when you enter the garden of a potential customer. I was feeling a little tired after a morning watching my grandchildren play baseball. But the show must go on and spring means working 7 days per week. We arrived at our appointment around 2:30 in the afternoon and it was beginning to get a little warm. The house is just off a popular area with a variety of cafes, pubs and restaurants. It was a surprise to find this shady street with lovely old homes tucked away. When you drive up all you see is green through a tall wrought iron fence that was constructed using re-bar. The lines of this bungalow have strong Asian influences. There is no lawn in the front garden just various levels of ground cover and shrubs in various shades of green.

We were there to give a quote on redoing pavers that had been disrupted when the city worked on the water main out on the side walk and right-of-way. The lovely woman, whose home it is, invited me to look around the side, into the back garden and further on to the orchid house, while Shawn was measuring.

I recently found that if you click on a pictures you will see a larger version. I don’t know if that is true in all viewers but it works in Firefox.

People are always asking us to hide their boring fences. I will now think of suggesting they paint on it!

The arbor calls to you and gets your imagination going as you wonder what is coming next, but still obscured from your view.

Through the arch you come to a sunnier part of the garden. There were bees buzzing and butterflies floating in the air.

The house looks like most of the details are original. The gargoyles with custom lanterns are a more recent addition. Shawn remembers her saying she wanted dragons but these gargoyles where the closest she could find. I would love to see this garden at night,  lit up with the glow from these fabulous lanterns.

There are 80 brass bells hanging in the back garden in the trees and along the roof line . They remind the owner of the Buddhist temples she visited in Thailand. Their sound is magical. I could have stayed there for hours enjoying the sense of calm that came over me.

As the path ends you arrive at the orchid house. The doors are placed so your view is once again obscured and you feel you must peek in!

 In each corner there is a Foo dog protecting the orchids.

But the tour is not over…I will share just a few things from the front garden! But not so much someone will guess the location. The owner is a very private person and I want to make sure I don’t expose her little bit of paradise.

I loved the collection of bright orange bromeliads on the front porch. I have some on my porch and they enjoy our hot humid summers and need very little care. I do bring them in when it is below forty degrees.

While relaxing and chatting on the porch I noticed another pair of Foo dogs. While I was taking photographs, we learned that they come in pairs with a male and female. The female always has a baby and the male a ball. You need to place them facing away from each other so they don’t quarrel.

While reading more about Foo dogs also called Foo lions I came across this article in Collectors Weekly.

When we left this garden after the most delightful visit, with a woman that speaks her mind and was for me a kindred spirit, I felt completely refreshed!