By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine
Photographs by Jim Guthrie
Describing his garden in Woodinville, Washington, Jim Guthrie says “Yes, this garden has lots of Asian influence, but it’s not ga-ga Japanese. It’s my style.” That’s a good thing because Guthrie, a professional panoramic photographer, has a terrific design sense. (Too see some of Guthrie’s remarkable images, go to his Panoscapes website, and click on “thumbnails.”)
Before Guthrie started serious work on this garden in 2001, it was mostly lawn, with some evergreens that screened neighbors. Guthrie changed it gradually. “I’m not a perennial person,” he told me, “I like evergreens.” So he skewed his planting palette in that direction, adding just enough deciduous and perennial plant material to keep it interesting. His trees are trimmed, “but not poodled to death,” as he would say it.
Still, he felt that the garden was missing something. That’s when he added the tea house pictured above. It gives the eye a natural resting place and the feet a destination.
The transition between stone path and tea house deck is over basalt steps that cross a koi-filled pond. It could only be better if he lit it at night—and that's just what he does.
