Heather Dickson is a woman of taste and culture. She didn’t need to consult designers or colour experts when she decorated the living room or remodelled the kitchen and bathroom of her Oak Bay bungalow. The only taste besides her own she takes into consideration is that of the local deer population.
For her front garden, she carefully selected plants that don’t tempt the ungulate palate. Several years ago, the long, narrow raised bed that divides her garden from that of her neighbour was a brilliant display of tulips, but then the deer arrived in the neighbourhood. The glowing scarlets and yellows of tulips have given way to the soft blues of salvia and nepeta interspersed with boxwood.
A drift of silvery pink peonies spill a delicate scent below front windows, which are adorned with cedar window boxes, all filled with small plants that have visual appeal for the humans, but no appeal for deer.
Heather says the Korean spice viburnum occasionally gets nibbled, but the lady’s mantle and jewel of the nile plants are left alone. Other deer-proof plants she recommends include astilbe, bee balm, lavender and alliums. The skeletal remains of a Spanish broom plant have been left in place, and Heather plans to bring it back to green glory by training a trumpet vine over the bare branches.
Walk by the side of the house, toward the garage door, and a sturdy wooden gate leads into the back garden, which is completely walled or fenced, Not that you can see all the walls or fences — a garage wall is almost hidden by the climbing hydrangea rambling over it.
Here, Heather’s passion for colour and fragrance have no limits. The wisteria was already past its best two weeks ago, but roses of all sizes and colours are coming into their glory.
Walk to the far corner of the garden, treading carefully on the circular stepping stones set into the lawn, and you reach a sitting area to delight the heart of any aromatherapy aficionado. As well as roses, jasmine, honeysuckle and perennial alyssum scent the air.
Large containers of sweet peas are poised to add their delicate colours and fragrance to the area.
The table and chairs are set on a stone dais, and the steps up to this platform are edged with delicate pink and white Mexican daisies, an idea Heather said was inspired by the English architect Edward Luytens, whose garden designs include a few stone steps with daisies bursting out between the stones.
A lot of Heather’s touches are inspired by famed European gardens. The green of her plant boxes is close to the shade of green used for outdoor furniture in the Tuileries garden in Paris. When she visited Claude Monet’s garden in Givenchy, France, Heather bought nasturtium seeds to add to her garden.
Heather is an admitted Europhile. She learned to love the style of European gardens and interiors as a child, when her father’s position in the air force took the family to Alsace-Lorraine for four years. These days, she spends her vacations in Europe, and brings back ideas for her gardens from the Chelsea garden show and from historic gardens she visits on her travels. She particularly enjoys river cruises, with lots of stops to look at gardens. Her most recent trip took her along the Rhone.
Gardens, she says, are always “a work in progress.” You never finish — there’s always something else to do. Heather has made inordinate progress considering there was nothing but grass when she purchased the home in 1988. There was an apple tree, which seemed to promise spring beauty and limitless applesauce in season. But when she discovered that its fruit was insipid at best and its blossom was unimpressive, the tree had to go. This delightful lady turns out to have a ruthless streak, and her philosophy is proclaimed on her refrigerator in a quote from William Morris, the 19th-century designer: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
At first, she said, gardening was done in fits and starts, when she had time on weekends or summer evenings. As a single parent of a young boy, working full time, she didn’t have a lot of leisure for the exterior of her home at first. Since retiring from a senior government position in 2012, Heather has been able to make gardening a big priority in her life. She tried a lot of things over the years: the hardscape of the garden has changed a few times and she constantly experiments with plants. A recent addition was the raised beds in a rather shady part of the garden. There she is growing hostas with the intention that the different varieties will spread out to form hosta “quilts” in the boxed beds.
The house itself was built in 1932 from good quality materials, and it is standing the test of time very well. Although it has grown a bit since then — an addition by a previous owner was very well done, Heather says — the house is still a modest size, small enough for a retired woman to manage alone.
Heather has made a few changes herself. She has a degree in art history, and she studied architecture, so she was well able to design the kitchen and bathroom herself.
In the bathroom, she liked the 1930s flooring of small tiles, so she kept that, and selected fixtures that suit the style. Because the bathroom is small, she didn’t want a medicine chest sticking out of the wall. Instead she got the tradesmen to set a little cabinet into the wall, in the recess between the studs.
The kitchen involved a few arguments with the tradesmen. Heather insisted on large rack for pots and pans hanging over the cooktop rather than a big ventilation hood. Heather got her way: the vent is set into the cooktop, sucking steam down instead of up, and Heather just has to reach up for the needed utensil.
A wall was partially cut away so cabinets are now hung from above, Heather had them made with glass-panelled doors on both sides, and filled them with glassware. The cupboards are still there and functioning, but letting more light into the kitchen.
Heather’s love of gardening is evident in the house. Botanical prints are displayed in several rooms. A kettle on the stove is green, sprinkled with bright flowers, an unexpected find from a Chintz and Co. store. Her coffee mugs are brilliant with summer flowers such as pansies or poppies. “I change them every season,” she said. “The spring mugs have irises and daffodils.”
They come out in January and stay until the summer mugs replace them. Later, she’ll use her fall mugs, then mugs with a Christmas theme. A large chest of drawers in the office (once a child-sized bedroom) contains her off-season items.
Even the laundry room declares itself the property of a gardener, with potted plants thriving beside the glass block panels in the exterior wall.
Another room off the kitchen is a video library containing comfortable seating, a TV screen and bookcases filled with DVDs.
The house also contains a guest bedroom, decorated in a soft green, and a master bedroom with blinds that are barely noticeable when fully open.
The spacious living room is very striking, painted a deep rose shade. Even the coved ceiling is rose. There are neither blinds nor drapes at the window, so in daylight the eye is drawn to the garden outside. On winter evenings, a fireplace provides a focal point.
Heather will be happy to share her knowledge of garden design with visitors on Fathers Day Garden Party tour next weekend.
