Lifestyle - Lifestyle Feature

POSTED: Wednesday, Sep. 03, 2008

Retired Bellingham doctor creates a peaceful, mountain-like oasis

Pete Peterson had the kind of backyard that he said might just make a landscaper throw up.

"This was all just a massive weed patch and scraggly plants," he says of the back half of his Bellingham backyard.

Instead of the plain patio and grass and the wild weed mound, Peterson, 78, a retired pediatrician, wanted something more majestic. About four months ago, he started chatting with his neighbor's landscaper, Russ Beardsley, about ideas.

"He wanted something that reminded him of walking in the mountains," says Beardsley, owner of Edison-based landscaping and masonry company Borrowed Ground. "Like up in Mount Baker."

And with that, Peterson's rock garden began, and the messy pile of weeds was transformed into a silvery slope of rock, sprinkled with drought-resistant plants and twisted cedar logs. Beardsley picked up five tons of the jagged schist rocks from a quarry, hand-picking the larger, more dramatic pieces.

"The stone has so much character," Beardsley says. "It's very much a meditative garden as well. The longer you're with it, the more it will reveal itself."

The schist rocks he chose are lustrous in colors of pewter, copper and rust, some with icy veins of crystal. Paired with the worn cedar logs, the effect almost tricks the eye.

"It's cool," Beardsley says. "It looks like petrified wood."

The free-flowing feature is something Peterson can't imagine he'll ever tire of looking at.

"For me, as I sit here and stand here and look, every rock I see something different," Peterson says. "In different light it has a different appearance. In that regard it's different than all the rocks you see up in the mountains. It's very unique."

What's especially nice for Peterson is that the rock garden is low-maintenance. Aside from a bit of watering and plucking stray sprigs of grass here and there, the garden takes care of itself. The look of the garden will change through the seasons as the plants grow and bloom.

"We have colors that will come up seasonally and the ground cover will spread," Beardsley says. "Next year this will have a totally different feel."

In addition to the rock garden, Beardsley also added a rock pathway to expand the patio, some gravel and a small, peaceful water feature that has taken on a bittersweet significance for Peterson.

"When my wife was alive and she was home, that's exactly where she would sit," Peterson says of Beardsley's coincidental placement of the rock pool. "It really was a spirit thing to me. It brings a lot back to me."