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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Gardening: Garden showcases color, artist’s works

Pat Munts

Driving into Sami Perry’s Chester Creek Estates home is like driving into an oasis from the dry, late summer forest south of Spokane Valley.

You are greeted with a dynamic entrance gate that is obviously the work of a craftsman followed by beds and rockeries filled with bright, bold annuals mixed with perennials.

It was enough to make me sigh contentedly. This garden is worthy of being named the August Garden of the Month by the Inland Empire Gardeners.

If Sami Perry’s name seems familiar, it should. She is the creator of the high heel shoe sculpture in River Park Square as well as other mixed-media works around town. She created the gate I had driven through.

“I am an artist. It’s always about colors and how they go together,” she said as we sat on her patio enjoying the morning sun. The low morning light backlit the dozens of varieties of annuals that spilled out of pots and the beds built into the basalt rockery that climbed the hill. To get the colors she wants, Sami grows many of her own annuals in a greenhouse

Sami and her husband, Stan Perry, have lived in their house for 10 years and have done all the landscaping themselves. Stan started the project by building the basalt rockery to keep the hillside from collapsing onto the house. Sami then took over.

“I start with a vision of what I want. I then select the plants and begin planting. Sometimes I change directions but my goal is to have the project end up looking better than my original vision,” Sami said.

They say the garden is a labor of love and a source of inspiration for Sami’s art.

Her art has found its way into the garden too. The front walk is flowing lines of large pebbles set around the flag stone. The posts at the front door are adorned with more swirls that add some whimsy to the entrance to the house. In the vegetable garden, Sami created a sculpture of a woman out of a variety of old shovel heads. “We called it ‘Is Martha Stewart Living’ in honor of the well-known garden maven.” While the real Martha was in prison, they added a piece of chain as an ankle bracket.

As we walked around the garden it was pretty obvious the deer had moved in. Hostas were nothing but stems and some of the annuals were missing the tips of their stems. Sami keeps them at bay most of the year with liquid deer repellent but as the fall arrives, she lets them take what they want.

“I don’t have to clean up the plant debris, they eat it for me.” Moose are also an issue. They graze on the shrubs and trees creating a lot of damage in the process. “We had four bulls and a cow here one fall during the rut and nothing would get them to move elsewhere.”

Pat Munts has gardened in Spokane Valley for more than 35 years. She can be reached at pat@inlandnw gardening.com.