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JIM VALLEY'S RAINBOW GARDEN The Peninsula Gateway
Jim is a colorful and charming character, and his garden in Gig Harbor is a delightful place to visit. It was a likely choice for the Gig Harbor Garden Tour, and we were elated when Jim said yes. On my first visit to this garden with tour chair Karen Beck last fall, he told us how he got started as a gardener.
Rainbow Planet evolved out of his work as an artist-in-residence with the Tacoma schools’ gifted student program in the late ’70s. In 1981 he was staying at the Davis family farm near the Cromwell area of Gig Harbor while he started the Friendship Workshop to help children (K-5) get along with each other. During the summer, he started growing colorful flowers such as sweet peas, zinnias, asters, bachelor’s buttons, dahlias and baby’s breath in a field on the Davis’s farm. He sold them at the grange and Stroh’s and to wholesale flower companies. Zinnias were his absolute favorite, and he still grows tons of them to this day.
In 1983 he moved into a little house that was originally an 1898 general store located on a low bank in Cromwell. In the old days, people came by boat or ferry to the store. In 1993, Jim bought the house and kept clearing areas of natural growth to make garden beds. He grew his beloved zinnias but added delphiniums, some roses and more and more flowers. Today the charmingly remodeled house sits in the midst of terraced gardens connected by meandering rock paths and enhanced by art Jim has collected on his travels, much of it magical and mystical in nature.
Lately the garden has grown down the hill around the sides of the house and across the back toward the water. There are many new rhododendrons, roses, perennials and other interesting shrubs and trees.
If you would like to look at Jim Valley’s beautiful garden, check it out on his Web site at www.rainbowplanet.com. But if you would like to actually visit it and experience Jim and the Rainbow Planet first hand, buy a ticket to the Gig Harbor Garden Tour (June 25–26) and visit seven other excellent gardens as well. Tickets are available for $20 until June 21 at the outlets listed below and online at www.gigharborgardentour.com. After June 21, they will be $25. Hope to see you there!
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What better match for a garden tour whose fundraiser is promoting literacy than local songwriter and educator Jim Valley? He is the inspiration behind Gig Harbor-based Rainbow Planet, a children’s music cooperative.
