Exquisite gardens

Carolyn Starner spent much of her career as an interior designer.

As a retiree, she has created a masterpiece on the exterior of her house.

Starner’s passion is gardening. Through hours of labor and her keen eye for color and details, Starner has turned her yard into a private garden worthy of horticultural royalty.

The Inland Empire Gardening Club judging panel was so taken by Starner’s garden, it selected it as the May Garden of the Month. However, had the panel walked through Starner’s yard as recently as four years ago, it would have had to stomp through tall weeds and wild grass.

Starner moved from Seattle to Spokane 13 years ago and bought a house on Desmet Avenue on the North Side. Most of her free time was spent pulling weeds and preparing the soil in her 50-by-150 foot yard. Every now and then she’d plant a tree.

Starner said it took 10 years for her to get the yard in tip-top shape before she was ready to do any serious planting — and that she did. From hostas and ferns to climbing rose bushes and rhododendrons. The two small patches of lawn in the front and back yards+ are so perfectly manicured, they could make Major League Baseball groundskeepers green with envy.

Starner has divided her yard into an entrance garden, a front garden, two transition gardens, a perennial garden and a rose garden. The entrance garden, dominated by two large maple trees, is the only garden visible from the street.

An ivy-covered trellis separates the curbside garden and the front garden. She calls this garden her “green garden.” It has a quiet, meditative feel and is spectacular in the spring, accented by white flowers from her star magnolia, dogwood and cherry trees.

Starner also has planted shade and sun gardens with trellises of climbing roses, clematis, Virginia creeper and trumpet vine along the east and wide sides of the house. Flagstone, edged with old roofing tiles, forms a path that leads into the back yard.

Starner, who has married electrical engineer Duane Starner since moving to Spokane, is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Art. More recently, she graduated from the English Garden School of London. She earned her degree through correspondence courses.

Starner’s back yard is the most awe-inspiring of all. If it weren’t for the arborvitae hedge and a wood fence, one might think he or she was in Manito Park Botanical Gardens. And just like the South Hill public gardens, Starner’s yard has a rose garden.

Her and her husband’s favorite place to sit and read is a spot that looks out at the entire back yard. Starner purchased high-back chairs at a second-hand store and freshened them up with green paint and new cushions that she sewed herself. It’s heavenly.

Now that everything is under control, Starner said, she spends about eight hours a week maintaining her yard. This has given her time to focus on another hobby which is photographing — you guessed it — gardens and flowers. She has put her collection of photos in a 216-page book called “Emerald Journey: A Walk Through Northwest Gardens.” It was released June 1 and will be sold at bookstores throughout the Northwest.

The book features 34 public gardens in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.