It was Patsy Faulkner who gave the name of the Inverness Secret Garden to the Inverness garden she and her husband, Phil Jonik, discovered and lovingly brought back to life and nurtured for 32 years.
It was a nod to her favorite childhood book, “The Secret Garden,” that she would think of often as she and Jonik cleared their overgrown three-acre property, stumbling across surprise plantings and the remnants of a long-forgotten, one-acre cultivated garden planted in the 1950s by its original owner, Hazel Krebs.
Krebs had been a bookkeeper at San Francisco’s Strybing Arboretum and was an avid gardener.
According to Jonik, Krebs’ plan had been to create a private arboretum and woodland garden, so she planted redwoods and an array of different maples, rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas, all of which would become the foundation of the garden that Faulkner and Jonik would reimagine.
Nestled in a pine forest above Tomales Bay, the garden had good roots but, by the time Faulkner and Jonik arrived, it had been neglected for more than a decade.
“Deer fences collapsed, bramble and blackberry took over, massive bishop pine trees fell and were never removed,” Jonik says. “It was a complete mess, when we arrived. It was not recognizable as a garden.
“We started from scratch, with little experience, but plenty of motivation. No garden paths or trails were evident, but as we cleared and cleaned up the property, it seemed that we would discover something ‘new’ during many changing seasons.”
Faulkner, who died three years ago, and Jonik, were both teachers in West Marin at the time. They both had grown up with simple backyard gardens, Faulkner’s in Oakland and Jonik’s in Philadelphia. They had met, married and lived in Benicia before moving to Inverness for its nature and beauty.
Over the next 32 years, and with the help of a friends and experienced local gardeners, they would create a showplace garden that hosted family and the community, including weddings, anniversaries, Easter egg hunts, memorials and fundraising tours for the Inverness Garden Club, and served as a backdrop for their bed-and-breakfast cottage.
Their vision was to create a woodland garden of meandering trails and paths with more than 12 distinct garden rooms, with different themes and with vistas of the bay, forestland, Mount Vision and Inverness Ridge.
Among the rooms are several rose gardens, a Moon Garden of all white flowering plants and two of Jonik’s favorite rooms — the Red Garden, where almost every plant tree or flower is red, and the Variegated Shade Garden, where all plants are a combination of green, cream or white.
They cleared, pruned, fertilized, installed water-saving rain gardens and efficient irrigation, and laid out the hardscape.
The couple toured private and public gardens in America and the world for inspiration for their own garden, particularly from the cool climate gardens of the Pacific Northwest, Japanese temple gardens and English woodland gardens.
They made trips to nurseries “far and wide” to find plants that would complement Kreb’s original shrubs and trees, bringing home roses, hydrangeas, lavender, salvias, lilies, ferns, geraniums, daffodils, flax, dwarf evergreens, smoke trees, hellebores, lilac, daisies, wisteria, iris, fuchsia and fruit trees.
Along the way, Faulkner earned a Master Gardeners certificate, and both she and Jonik developed their artistic sense of color and design.
“It was exhilarating,” says Jonik, who nurtures and maintains the garden, and is thrilled that it’s still thriving, blooming and full of seasonal color. “Fall is stunning with all the colorful maples, wild cyclamen, Sasanqua camellias, crocus, deciduous azaleas and holly berries. Winter is unique since there are 65 camellias blooming, along with winter-blooming azaleas, which provide a counterpoint to all the evergreens.”
Late winter and early spring bring out the first rhododendrons, Tibetan magnolia blossoms and a burst of color from 500 daffodils.
“Spring is the time for the big showy rhodie blossoms, cherry trees, maples and wisteria, jasmine and clematis vines,” he says. “Spring and summer is for roses, lilies, iris, gladiolas, dahlias, lily of the valley, hydrangeas, hellebores and more.”
As he reflects upon the garden, he appreciates how it changed his life.
“The garden gave us a theme for our travels, became a living legacy and memorial for Patsy, brought us a host of new gardener friends, became the basis for much of our shared experience and allowed us to share our gardens with our guests at our B&B, the Inverness Secret Garden Cottage, which we ran for 14 years.”
These days, he especially enjoys the quiet beauty and spiritual ambience the garden affords him and likes to let his guests “wander the garden on their own and take in the horticultural surprises on their own.”
That way, the spirit of the secret garden, and the woman who celebrated it in her own garden, lives on.
Show off
Since so many of the popular home tours are off the calendar this year, please consider this your invitation to share with fellow readers the images and description of your garden or newly designed or remodeled Marin home.
Please send an email describing either one, what you love most about it, and a photograph or two. I will post the very best ones in upcoming columns. Your name will be published and you must be over 18 years old and a Marin resident.
PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com.
