HOUSE GARDEN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY

 This garden was landscaped 20 years ago with multiple goals: 

 1.  Privacy without fencing -- We wanted a private picnic area (the patio) not visible from the road or neighbors.  The housing tract behind the house was planned 20 years ago, but not developed until last year, so we planted cedar and fruit trees to screen our backyard from that development.  That plan has been successful and the cedars are now 20+ years old.  Additional seedlings of Douglas fir and cedar were planted last year to enhance this privacy in the future.

 2.   Maintenance/watering simplicity -- All the yard except for the vegetable garden are planted with plants that require minimal watering and mowing during summer.  The lawn is a variety of grass (highland bentgrass) that goes dormant in summer requiring no water, but springs back in ten days in the fall with the cool rains.

 3.  Vegetables and fruit -- The small vegetable garden has provided all of our salad needs in the summer for two people for twenty plus years (not this year, however, when only samples were planted).   Plants that do well include lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, spinach, beets, broccoli, mint, the usual winter and summer squashes, and tomatoes. Fruit trees include bing cherry, rainier cherry, two apple varieties, bartlett pear, and two varieties of Asian pear trees.   2008 was a poor pollination year due to the cold spring but we still got some.

Future opportunities -- the bare spot next to the yard barn until this year was too shady for any planting.  Now that the woods are gone and the sun has arrived at this area, with care it will produce great squashes or prize-winning dahlias from raised beds.  Care should be taken not to disturb the cedar roots within 8 feet of the cedar that provides your privacy.

TRADITIONAL OUTDOOR RECREATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
WITHIN 10 MILES OF DUVALL

 Road Bicycling

West Valley Road and Highway 203 have numerous club events almost every weekend from May through September.
Kelly Road/Big Rock Loop is a 14+-mile rural road loop with rolling hills and numerous cutoffs and add-ons.

 Cross Bicycling

The Snoqualmie Valley Trail is a smooth, gravel, 20-mile trail parallel to Highway 203 from Duvall to North Bend on an old railroad grade.

The Tolt Pipeline Trail is a slightly rougher gravel road/trail from Redmond to the Cascades that includes 5 paved miles that are closed to public motorized access.  Best accesses are at Big Rock Road or Stossel Creek Road.

Lake Fontal Road is two miles of good gravel road closed to motorized access leading to Lake Fontal (60-acre lake with three species of trout).

 Mountain Biking

Numerous back country spur logging roads are off of Stossel Creek Road five miles east of Duvall.  Some of these rough roads can be taken almost to the Cascade Crest wilderness areas up the drainage of the Tolt River North Fork.

 River Fishing

The Snoqualmie River has six species of salmonids and is de facto fly fishing by state regulation from June through October and open to all anglers from December through February.

 Lake Fishing  - All lakes below have public accesses:

1. Lake Margaret - Trout, largemouth bass, yellow perch (also great for swimming and snorkeling for fish viewing)

2. Cottage Lake - Trout in spring, largemouth bass, bluegill, catfish, some crappie, and yellow perch

3. Crescent Lake - Known for catfish, crappie, and bluegill with some largemouth bass (this is a shallow river oxbow lake only 50 yards wide and 3/4 mile long)

4. Lake Joy - Public access is a small and barely visible county park on the south end, but lake is good for smallmouth bass and largemouth bass

5. Lake Langlois - Trout and kokanee salmon with a small largemouth bass population (this is a very deep, clear lake)

 Hiking

Most logging roads east of Duvall are now closed to motorized access. Lake Fontal is about 2 miles by logging road from the gate at the end of Lake Fontal Road.  There is a picnic area and an old campground on the east end.
Logging spur roads from Stossel Creek Road lead to Drunken Charlie Lake (brook and cutthroat trout) passing waterfalls and hidden trails to Cherry Lake (brook trout).

 Hunting

Cherry Valley and Stillwater Wildlife Recreation Areas are popular fall pheasant hunting areas in fall, and, when flooded, the Snoqualmie River draws huge numbers of ducks.  Spur logging roads off Stossel Creek have excellent bear, deer, and bobcat hunting.  In some years, excellent rabbit hunting is available east of Duvall along gated logging roads.