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SPRING GARDENS are all about fresh beginnings and possibilities borne on the promises of a darker season. It’s an annual chance to witness nature hitting the reset button, showing us that life is a cycle, that death is integral and that beauty, hope and life renews us.
That’s what Phil Jonik and Patsy Faulkner experience every year when they first see the burgeoning buds of trees, shrubs, plants and bulbs emerge as their two-acre property awakens from its wintery sleep.
This April 19, the couple will share their spring garden with the community when they offer a garden tour fundraiser for a neighbor going through a difficult season of life.
In January, Alex Porrata saw her exuberant 4-year-old, Ezequiel, hospitalized with a rare form of childhood cancer, requiring extensive treatment.
And suddenly, she lost his father and her husband, 43-year-old Ron Powell, a former star basketball player at Dominican University who later worked as a data recovery engineer at Novato’s DriveSavers.
More than 600 people attended his memorial at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station.
Porrata posts updates of their son’s progress and offers appreciation for the many kindnesses she receives on a Caring Bridge page set up for Ezequiel (www.caringbridge.org/visit/ezpowell).
Now Porrata, a former teacher, must take care of Ezequiel and 7-year-old Yolanda, as she navigates Ezequiel’s ongoing medical situation and keeps their family afloat without Ron’s income or any life insurance.
That’s what prompted Jonik and Faulkner, who have known Alex for 28 years, to offer the garden tour.
“People want to help but they don’t know how,” Faulkner says. “Our garden is an act of love for us and it seemed like a nice thing to share it for such a worthy cause.”
They’ve lined up a number of musicians, including Terry Haggerty and Tim Cain — both former members of the Sons of Champlin — and the Silver Strings, a Celtic group, to perform in the garden every half hour. There will be refreshments and guests are welcome to wander the gardens, which were begun more than 60 years ago by Hazel Krebs, a former Strybing Arboretum employee, and her husband, an amateur camellia hybridizer.
Cultivated as ornamental woodlands, on about a third of the property, it boasts 60 camellias that are more than 60 years old and perhaps 50 rhododendrons, many of them more than 20 feet high.
“We call it the Secret Garden because when we first found the property it was neglected and overgrown with brambles,” Jonik recalls. “We started in January with chain saws and as we worked on it, we would discover how many specimen plants were there.”
And, as spring came along, “things started blooming each week and we were stunned at every turn,” he says. “It reminded us of (Frances H. Burnett’s novel) ‘The Secret Garden.’ Even 28 years later, we still find new things.”
They’ve also added to the old garden — new paths to make it accessible, more azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias and maples to fill it in, and themed rooms, including one just for 50 (mostly hybrid tea) roses, one for variegated shade plants and one solely for red plants for extra interest.
The ultimate goal was to give their garden, which embraces the main house and a rentable guest cottage dubbed the Inverness Secret Garden Cottage, a chance at a new life.
That’s something they hope their fundraiser will give to their beloved neighbor and her two children.
PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday and also on her blog at DesignSwirl.co. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield, CA 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com.
if you go
What: The Inverness Secret Garden Tour
When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 19
Where: Call for directions and parking instructions
Admission: $25; reservations required
Information: 669-7444; info@isgcottage.com
More: Donations can be sent to only Alex Porrata, Box 667, Inverness, CA 94937 or as a “gift” to the PayPal account alexporrata@mac.com