Show us your garden: Creating a small, shady oasis in Arlington

A door at the back of Linda Ezell’s Arlington home leads into a secret garden pulsating with birdsong. Fenced from the rest of the back yard, the shady enclave offers 50 shades of green enhanced by pops of pink in a lush, tranquil setting.

It wasn’t much more than an expanse of lawn when Ezell and her husband, Glenn, moved in in 1976, and the future garden benefited from the immediate addition of three trees — a purple plum and two red oaks. Today, these grand dames provide the abundance of shade that both dictates the garden’s culture and creates a refuge that Linda says is 5 degrees cooler than the rest of the property.

Despite a preponderance of green, Ezell’s garden is deceptively well planned. A mathematician and actuary by trade, she put her analytical skills to creative use two years ago when she began the process of designing this garden space. A patio and a lone circular stone planter — projects from the 1990s — served as the springboard for her ideas.

With an eye toward symmetry and envisioning a walkway from the patio that would skirt the planter and wind through lush garden beds, she decided a second circular planter should mirror the original.

Ezell put it all on paper as she planned, and an online search convinced her that stone pathways fringed with thick, deep-green dwarf mondo grass would give her the natural look she wanted. White stone seemed too stark, so she chose a muted Oklahoma flagstone. And since she didn’t want a garden dominated by rock, she added a seating area in a corner under an oak.

To determine the contents of her plant list, Ezell toured nurseries and scoured garden books and magazines. Pinterest provided ideas, too.

For simplicity, she decided on a core set of plants and repeated them in each garden section. Because the plantings would be new and therefore small, she incorporated hanging baskets at regular intervals around the perimeter to create a taller layer of green.

Finally, to dress the beds, she settled on cedar mulch — preferring its natural color and an ability to deter pests.

In all, the planning process took about six months.

“It was definitely a labor of love. This is my passion,” she says. “If I had to choose a profession over again, I probably would be a landscape architect.”

A walk through the garden reveals a variety of foliage plants deliberately chosen for their variations of green and texture. Aralia, wood fern, hostas, aucuba, cast iron plants, upright elephant ears, and asparagus and foxtail ferns provide softness among larger offerings like flowering viburnums, azaleas, oakleaf hydrangeas and Soft Caress mahonia. Repeated swaths of three annuals — pink begonias, caladiums and Persian shield — add continuity and colorful contrast.

The Persian shield has become a new favorite. “It grows fast. It roots well,” Ezell says. “I take cuttings, plant it some more.”

Distylium, a new cultivar in the witch hazel family, is another new favorite for its evergreen, bluish foliage and compact, spreading habit. Its elongated leaves lie in a herringbone pattern, and Ezell loves the plant’s tendency to produce long branches that grow all akimbo.

“It’s got so much interest with its arms flying every which way,” she says.

Encircling the second raised stone planter, dystilium was specifically chosen so that its compact growth wouldn’t hide the stacked flagstone. Meanwhile, lime-colored creeping Jenny slinks along the stone and spills onto the mulch.

The original planter now features bear’s breeches, recommended by a friend for its dramatic and sturdy 2-foot spires of pinkish-white flowers. Ezell relies heavily on perennials like bear’s breeches.

“I’m trying to get more perennials in here as I age,” she says.

Another strategy for reducing maintenance is a regular “weed walk” ritual.

“Every other morning I go on a weed walk,” she explains. “If I go through every other day or so and pull up the weeds, it’s not a problem.”

Citing a family inspiration, Ezell says: “My father loved to work in the yard. I think I must have inherited that. For years and years I have loved plants. There’s nothing I would rather do than be out in the yard.”

This story was originally published July 26, 2015 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Show us your garden: Creating a small, shady oasis in Arlington."