Home of the Week: Asheville garden tour home

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Peter, whose professional name is Peter Rocks, built a river rock creek that uses storm runoff from the roof to water the plants and landscaping in the front yard. The couple often bring home rocks they find on hikes to place in the creek. They can tell you a story about each one.

“My morning ritual is to wander the garden with my coffee,” said Samantha, who’s also project manager at the Housing Authority of the city of Asheville. She checks up on all the plants, dispensing a pat or two here and there. It’s a calming way to start her day.

Birds big and small

Peter has seen pileated woodpeckers and, recently, an owl in the trees in their yard. Two kinds of hawks nest somewhere nearby, he said. Until that very morning, baby Carolina wrens were nested nearby, but it appeared they had flown the coop, Samantha said.

She and Peter collect sedum and have a large variety of the cheerful plant everywhere. Strawberries grow next to the house, on the side that has a fire pit that their neighbors were giving away.

The pit is at the end of the driveway that Peter has inlaid with bricks, creating the outline of a cityscape.

Peter has worked rocks and brick all around the grounds, in ways so arresting that you don’t realize you’re standing beside lovely ferns spewing forth from the ground, tucked into small ledges on boulders wrenched into place.

Digging in

For most people, buying a home is the biggest financial transaction they’ll ever undertake. Daunted, Samantha took a homebuyer class offered by the housing authority. (It’s now offered by OnTrack Financial Education Counseling.)

“Loans, lawyers, inspections, picking light fixtures — the class was really grounding,” she said. “And it made me realize (owning a home) really was possible and not just a dream I had.”

Working with Kyle Gilliland of Amarx Construction in Asheville, she built a sunny three-bedroom, two-bath house of about 1,600 square feet. After Samantha took the class, “it was really shocking how easy all the pieces fell together,” she said. She moved in December 2011.