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The new open garden and wall.
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The Capitol Hill community has experienced the type of expansion that is not typical to many urban communities. For instance, in New York City, SoHo did not simply stretch its arms across Houston Street to become SoHo north. No, instead in the fashion of urban expansion, the new up and coming neighbor hood became NoHo. Even Washington has done some quick thinking in its push to revitalize by giving acronym appeal to some of its revamped neighborhoods. Thus the birth of NoMA, and SoFlo and other renamed, or shortened-when-revitalized neighborhoods.
Only Capitol Hill has flexed and posed much like a professional weight lifter to expand its bounds and become quite an expansive piece of the city. In fact Capitol Hill’s home and garden tour paid homage to the Hill’s ability to pack on the blocks in the 2009 recent CHRS House and Garden tour called “Out of Bounds.” The tour featured homes in the non-historic district of Capitol Hill. Why would the Hill have a non-historic district you may ask? Well perhaps when the historic bounds were being set the areas north of F St. NE and East of 14th St. were, well, out of bounds?
A home on the corner
The corner of 11th. and G streets NE is like many other intersections on the Hill. There is the neighborhood church, the home that has been renovated to the nines, and several homes where the residents gather on porches ever eager to give even the least interested passerby their opinion of the neighborhood, city, or country for that matter. The charm of these city attractions beckoned and lured Mike and Ginger Hendee to purchase the home at 658 11th St. NE and make fast tracks at becoming good neighbors. But military service had other plans and away they went for years to serve and protect.
The return home
While the Hendees were away the gardens, though maintained, became overgrown and in need of a revamping. Perhaps the largest task would be to replace the bulging, ready-to-give-way, retaining wall that wrapped the entire property. The wall and its columns were in bad shape and Mike and Ginger feared that it would not make it through another year. So they took the plunge to renovate a grand old garden from the walls up. What happened in the process is “we realized what great neighbors we have as we have been renovating,” says Ginger.
And they learned some things about their house in the process. The “mayor” of their block, a long time resident told them that their home was once the recreation center for the church across the street.
The Hendee’s were interested in keeping the new garden open to the neighborhood. So they decided not to replace the hedgerows in the garden. “The garden has to be lush and open. We want to be able to be outside and still say hello to people as they pass by,” Giner told her landscape designer. Her landscaper needed a bit of convincing but while doing a follow up visit to discuss another aspect of the renovation, he was struck by the same sense of “wow, this is a great space” and it is a very public garden….so open became the principal design element.
The wall and garden
The Hendees launched into their garden renovation with some very particular requests for their new outdoor space. The wall had to be rebuilt, the patio area had to have a more patio feel and the garden had to be lush and reminiscent of Ginger’s native Hawaii. She says “I was born in Oahu with family from Kauai and the big island. My heart and soul is in Kauai…so a lush, peaceful garden brings it all home for me.”
Their new garden does bring it all home. The once fragmented and haphazardly constructed brick stairs and landings have been redone and now lead to an informal path of random flagstone that gently swoops to the formal patio. Along the way there are peonies and iris that with the spring will caress visitors with sprays of perfumed air. The large crape myrtle now shares its apron with Christmas ferns and has been given a dry stack stone border that winds out from the foot of the tree to wrap the patio and swing back to the entry pathway. There are pockets of low growing perennials to add color and contrast to the garden. Coral bells and Aztec grass, combine with carex and hardy begonia, to dress up daises and lavender and fill the space with a lush four-season appeal.
Large planters stand up like sentinels to break, yet never conceal, the lines between the new iron fence and new brick retaining wall. Mike says “it is everything I wanted and I’m happy because Ginger is happy. Our friends visit and never want to leave. I can smoke my cigars and talk with our neighbors from the new garden…just the way we planned it.” |
