Playful front yard

When Ketzel Levine bought her North Portland bungalow, it had all the elements she hoped for—almost. “What I really wanted was a backyard, and the house didn’t have one,” Ketzel says. So the journalist—you may know her from National Public Radio, where she was called the Doyenne of Dirt—reinvented the front yard for relaxing, entertaining, and expressing her vivid personality. After enclosing the yard with a mostly see-through fence, Ketzel created a playful garden packed with colorful artwork and textural plants, a perfect escape from the busy street just steps away. “When I walk through the gate, I feel cosseted by beauty,” she says.

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