Tony Overman/ The Olympian
Michelle Auster, 12, plays in the backyard garden of her family's home in west Olympia. The design is patterned after the garden in a French convent.

Tony Overman/ The Olympian
The Auster-Margolin family's backyard garden features quarters dedicated to each family member. Clockwise from bottom left are Michelle Auster, 9, Charlie Auster, 12, mother Carrie Margolin and father Jon Auster.

Tony Overman/The Olympian
Gloriosa daisies (pictured) and gold mums decorate Charlie Auster's "gold" corner. Gold represents wealth in feng shui.

The Auster-Margolin family's formal garden has its whimsical side, including these frogs on a sundial beside a backyard garden fountain.

Tony Overman/The Olympian
Michelle Auster's "red corner" of the garden boasts red gerbera and a Japanese maple.

Tony Overman/ The Olympian
Jon Auster with his wife, Carrie Margolin, and daughter, Michelle Auster.

East meets West in French-style garden

Carrie Margolin and Jon Auster combine feng shui principles with European design

SARAH JACKSON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Aug. 4

OLYMPIA -- Pilots can spot this garden from the sky.

Its sharp quartzite pathways shimmer in the sun and glow in the moonlight.

Lanes of white crystal-like stone, whatever the season, reflect light up and into the house.

"It just sort of glitters," proud co-owner Carrie Margolin said. Her husband, Jon Auster, added: "There is a sparkle to it."

Water sprinkles delicately in a center pond, 100-foot evergreens tower in the background and lush carpets of grass invite tender feet.

Auster and Margolin's garden in west Olympia's Cedrona subdivision had humble beginnings.

The couple started with a barren yard of weeds and wild grasses three years ago. They borrowed from ancient feng shui techniques, cloister gardens of France and facets of Roman ruins in shaping their garden.

"There's something very exciting about being able to create everything," Margolin said. "I never envisioned it. I assumed we'd have a (plain, grass) backyard."

Revelation in France

More an outdoorsman than a diehard green thumb, Auster knew he wanted to spend his summers fishing -- not taking care of a high-maintenance garden.

Stumped at first on what to do when the family moved to Olympia from Tacoma, Auster finally found inspiration when he traveled to the Mediterranean Riviera for a reunion.

While visiting France, where he had spent five years of his childhood while his father worked at an American military base, Auster toured the renowned Romanesque Cathedral and Cloister of the Saint-Trophime in Arles.

There he found a green, peaceful, tidy cloister where nuns reflected peacefully outdoors.

Flowers and plants dotted each corner of the grassy quad, and a system of pathways met at a rotunda of plants at the center.

"As soon as I entered the cloister, I knew this would fit in the backyard," Auster said.

"I had planned to do the minimum garden. Maybe I was too inebriated with French culture. The French gardens are not cluttered. They're very ordered."

But Auster also found himself in the same city, Arles, where artist Vincent Van Gogh enjoyed widespread popularity.

So when he came upon Van Gogh's "Jardin de Hospice d'Arles" depicting a similar garden -- this time with a fountain at the center -- he adjusted his plans slightly.

Then, when Auster was in Italy at a Roman excavation Glannum, he noticed a cistern in the middle of the town with thick edges -- wide enough for lounging.

"People could sit down at the cistern to schmooze," Auster said.

So he incorporated the same idea in his own garden, using cottage stones to make a well-like circular pond and fountain.

Technical details

Deciding to forego hiring a contractor, Auster and Margolin had more than nine months of labor ahead.

"It had to be perfect," Auster said. "It was so much work."

Making exact corners was key for Auster, who had to relearn geometry to line up right angles.

"It took me a month of putting string lines in here."

Eventually Auster and Margolin -- with help from their children Michelle, 9, and Charlie, 12 -- laid out the white rock, five cubic yards of topsoil, red brick and Roman paving stones for the path borders.

Auster hand-planted the grass -- now growing so dense that weeds remain few and far between.

After the paving stones went in to line the outer border and bricks and mortar formed the inner border, Auster laid the quartzite, creating a 67-feet by 38-feet grid of white.

Auster, an X-ray and CAT-scan tech at Capital Medical Center, worked a month on the pond. He wired it for evening lighting and later added accent pieces of ceramic tile.

Today, lily pads and imitation water begonias float around the sun-dial bedecked pool with a sprinkler spouting a symmetrical spray.

Feng shui

European influences were only the beginning for the Auster-Margolin garden.

Fascinated for years by the principles of feng shui (pronounced "fung shway"), the couple set out to design the garden for positive energy flow or ch'i, (pronounced "chee").

Feng shui -- the ancient belief that everything is alive, connected and changing -- involves strategically organized physical surroundings.

Practitioners say the process can promote well-being and enhance everything from personal finance to romance.

Margolin, a professor at The Evergreen State College, found the cloister garden design already fit some feng shui tenets with its soothing, symmetrical balance, square pathways, gurgling pool and circular center.

White-flowering, peeping tom rhododendrons at the left side symbolize the protecting white tiger, and stately evergreens in the back represent the support of the black turtle, longevity and endurance.

With that in place, Margolin decided each family member would have a quadrant with a group of plants in a themed color.

Charlie holds the corner for wealth with the color gold, including gloriosa daisies and gold chrysanthemums, a lucky feng shui flower.

Margolin holds the marriage corner with the color blue, including forget-me-nots and Mexican sage.

Michelle took the knowledge or daughter's corner with the color red with rich gerbera daisies.

Auster took the mentor, or father of the house, corner with the color purple, including a plum tree, a signature feature in many feng shui gardens.

Then -- for a yin and yang effect -- Margolin traded a plant with Michelle and Auster exchanged a plant with Charlie.

"There are many different levels, and we tried to capture all of the levels that would work," Margolin said. "I never would have thought of a monochromatic garden, but when they're all going strong (and blooming), it's really amazing."

While some gardeners might find the Auster-Margolin backyard more of a courtyard than a garden, it's an area of peace and quiet for the family.

And with many rhododendrons and trees just getting started, Margolin believes the garden will only improve.

"This is a young garden. Someday it's going to be awesome," Margolin said. "It's aesthetic. It's soothing. It's beautiful."

Sarah Jackson writes for The Olympian and can be reached at 360-704-6871 or olyjax@yahoo.com

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