The lagoon Pamela Claussen designed in her Bellevue garden harbors graceful specimen koi. Any hungry heron hunting at this pond is shooed away when motion sensors trigger a jet of water; only the bronze heron sculpture (right) resides in this parklike setting. It’s not unusual for plants and flowers to become Amazon-sized here, thanks to a boost from the bloom-enhancing formula concocted by Claussen’s grandfather. “All I’ll say is, it’s organic,” she says with a smile. “The secret stays in the family.”
Landscape & Gardens
A Spectacular Obsession
Pamela Claussen’s Bellevue garden abounds with frills, ferns and flowers. Within 14 months, she took an acre of brambles behind her new home and made it into paradise



Even before she turned a shovel, Pamela Claussen (top) envisioned the entire design of her garden complete with waterfalls, streams, a variety of outdoor sitting areas and more than 9,000 plants and 72 flower pots. She commissioned a sculptor she met at a street fair to create the calla-lily copper bridge.


Her husband, John, built a river-rock wall bordering the side-yard rainbow garden.


Grace and whimsy make delightful bedfellows in this eclectic garden. Lawn and antique sculptures exude Victorian charm.


Iron chairs chiseled with cherubs depicting the seasons rest in a 150-year-old British gazebo.


Just a few steps farther along a stepping-stone path, Cheshire cats smile from a tropical setting.

A self-professed Type A gardener, Pamela Claussen blanketed the sun-baked hillsides of her former home east of Redmond with a Victorian garden of 2,200 roses. But when she and her husband, John, moved to the Bridle Trails State Park area just outside Bellevue four years ago, she found herself surrounded by fir and cedar woodlands and was inspired to experiment with a more eclectic landscape. “I decided I wanted something between Jurassic Park and an English garden,” the mortgage broker and realtor says with a laugh.

Even though their one-acre lot had been left to the whims of rampant blackberry vines and a dilapidated horse barn, Pamela was undaunted. Within five months, neither the 1980s house nor the property would resemble their former selves. The house is now double its original size. And in the garden, waterfalls, ponds, a minibeach, red-leafed banana trees and Tasmanian tree ferns mingle with antique gazebos and sculpture. They look as if they’ve been there for years.

“Even my dad, who was the ultimate master at growing vegetables and ‘working’ plants, wouldn’t believe this place,” says Pamela, who is proud to be a fifth-generation “obsessed” gardener.

With those genes, it’s no wonder she designed and orchestrated the garden herself. She brought in 3,200 cubic yards of compost, created three waterfalls and planted most of the 9,000 plants with the help of two laborers. She recalls planting the beds in torrential rain, soaked to her wellies. With that passion, and the jolt of her secret bloom-enhancer (a formula passed down in her family that she will not divulge), her mostly perennial garden with its 27-zone irrigation system is now brazenly luxuriant.

A former antique-mall owner, Pamela adorned the English-garden side of her outdoor spaces with 120-year-old olive pots, antique cherubs that represent the four seasons, statues of children, animal topiaries and charming birdhouses. A 150-year-old iron gazebo from England perches on the highest slope. Pamela commissioned a local artisan (now living in South Africa) to design an extravagant silver, bronze and copper bridge over one of her koi pods. “I told him to pattern it after one of my favorite flowers,” she says: “the big white calla.”

On a whim, she hauled in sand to create a mini-lagoon, and added artistic glass starfish and a life-sized bronze crocodile. Her garden paths shimmer with beads and gemstones. At night, 114 lights illuminate paths and streams. “It’s over the top,” she says, “but that’s just me.”

The garden is not just a fanciful face. Produce thrives here. Pamela has set aside a section for herbs, grapes, berries and tomatoes, as well as olive, apple and cherry trees. Four varieties of edible pears surround the gazebo.

But the side garden is all cottage beauty. Around a maiden statue, John Claussen, a contractor, built river-rock walls inlaid with Italian antique tiles that Pamela found at an auction. Here, she planted a rainbow garden with beds following the color spectrum—beginning with white (Asiatic Lily, Shasta daisy), then orange, yellow (roses), red (Hibiscus), green and blue (Hydrangea), indigo and violet (Rhapsody Rose, Mondo Grass).

With all the groundwork laid, only the pots need to be redone every year—all 72 of them around the patio and ponds—filled with giant white calla lilies, spurge, fuchsia, geraniums, sweet William and honeysuckle. Now the Claussens can sit in their outdoor room—furnished in antique white wicker and vintage fabrics—and enjoy the setting and cascading waterfalls. Even passersby are drawn to the sight of this voluptuous garden brimming over picket fences. Many try to sneak a peek, despite the gentle warning posted on the gate: “Trespassers will be composted.”