“If I’m home, I’m in the garden,” says John Albers. After long days working as a medical researcher—a job that he describes as “all facts, occasionally opinions, never passion”—Albers savors his hillside retreat in Bremerton, Washington. Fall is an especially magical time here: That’s when the garden explodes with color, the yellow katsuras, burgundy sourwoods, and red maples displaying their autumn finery over blond grasses and purple barberries.
Albers, a native Midwesterner, discovered his passion for plants when he moved to the Northwest for a job at the University of Washington back in the 1970s. “As soon as I saw the Northwest—the beauty and the plants and the possibilities—I was inspired to learn more,” he says. During his off-hours, Albers sat in on the university’s landscape design classes, and by the early 2000s, he had bought a house and 4 acres of land (a former orchard) to transform into his own garden. Trees went in first, to give the garden structure. Paths came next, following the hillside’s topography. Then Albers chose an array of plants, focusing on those that could survive wholly on their own after the first year. Large sections of the garden are devoted to dwarf conifers, heaths, and heathers; between them, he carpeted shaded grounds with woodland perennials and tucked in plants that attract pollinators.