Potok
Karen and Charles Potok
311 East Springs
This area around Clark Lake is one of the prettiest in Spring Valley. The garden of Karen and Charles Potok certainly adds to the appeal. The setting of the house as you approach would be remarkable on its own, even without the lake background. There is a leafy softness everywhere in the tree shaded yard. Whatever you admire about traditional Southern landscape design can be found here in its best incarnation.
The Potoks have a border collie and consequently the ceramic sheep near the driveway, a purchase from Delaware’s Winterthur Gardens, are well behaved and seem to enjoy their Southern home. Notice the Cryptomeria . They are a perfect choice for a soft evergreen accent as well as being a defined border planting. Further along is a bed where the Potoks do some experimental planting to find a specimen that won’t be regarded by the lake’s resident beavers as a salad bar. (And you thought Japanese beetles were unwelcome guests!)
Charles is the original gardener in this twosome…he now maintains the grassy areas and the vegetable garden. Karen says that her first criterion in plant selection and layout is color. She uses it with the soft outlines of an Impressionist painter. The beds along the lakefront are blue, coral, white and purple and these colors will change to different palettes as you walk through the gardens. The blue Ajuga ground cover could grace the pages of a seed catalog. Spider lilies, not often found in residential gardens, are a perfect lakeside plant choice
Karen and Charles use their garden as a three dimensional scrapbook of their travels. Karen especially cherishes the table on the patio with its tree of life mosaic design. It is a souvenir of a trip to Jordan and is a fundraising gift from a children’s charity effort headed by Queen Noor. The kissing bench and other pieces are like jewelry among the lush plantings. Karen’s artistry doesn’t stop at ground level……take in the Spanish and Mexican Talavera pots bursting with color.
Karen and Charles have combined their considerable gardening talents to create a peaceful and private landscape of calm and beauty. Their neighbors…and the Potoks themselves…are most fortunate. They can enjoy the garden here and then again in the reflection on the lake--the best kind of a plant one, get one free result.
