Slideshow: Island views
Bring Bainbridge home with tips for your garden
Exploring Bainbridge Island

If you were going to choose one place in the West where people live to garden, Bainbridge Island would be it. The 32-square-mile island in Puget Sound is just a 35-minute ferry ride from Seattle, but a world away in spirit. Here is an entire community of people who have organized their lives to get their hands dirty: The Boeing senior manager who cultivates huckleberries for pie, the lawyer who traded dockets for a garden supply company, and the Nordstrom exec who weeds lavender for his weekend gig as co-owner of Frog Rock Lavender Farm.

As some Bainbridge residents describe it, the island’s love for gardening almost blindsided them. Linda Cochran was a lawyer when she arrived here. She found herself spending more and more time in the garden and, finally, walked away from her career. For a while she ran a well-regarded nursery called Froggy Bottom, then realized that was a sidetrack too. Now she maintains one of the most beautiful private gardens anywhere. “I’m just a passionate amateur gardener,” she admits, “so that’s what I do now.”

Vital stats
Size: 32 sq. mi.

Population:
People: 22,200 (2005)
Median age: 42 (2002)
Private boats: 1,438 (2005)

Density: 1.1 people per acre

Average annual precipitation: 54 in.

Average April high/low: 59°/41°

Who was here: Native Americans, who incised a petroglyph at Agate Point between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 500; George Vancouver, first European to set foot on Bainbridge, in 1792

Home prices (2005):
Median: $590,000
Low: $38,000 (houseboat)
High: $3 million (5,324-sq.-ft., 5-bedroom, 6½-bath house)