Dolson Garden

THIS PLACE looks like an oil painting! Then again, since homeowner Patsy Dolson is an artist with a studio on-site (built by husband Roland), the garden is featured in more than one of Patsy's paintings.

RESIDING at the base of Blossom Peak, in South Fork Estates, the custom-built storybook home boasts a yard based on a traditional English country garden. You know, the romantic ones with greens from grasses and mosses and every imaginable color of bloom coming from the flowerbeds, the trees, and the climbing vines, all of which is accessible by gravel walkways leading to garden nooks, crannies, and secret places. A rock drainage was designed to divert rainfall to the garden's frog pond.

HUNDREDS of bulbs dominate the landscape. In early spring, daffodils, forsythia, empress trees and native redbuds are in full bloom. California pepper trees, Japanese maples, and native oaks shade the grounds.

THE UTILITARIAN part of the garden includes cherry, apricot, peach, Fuyu persimmon, Golden Delicious apple, nectarine, Oklahoma Black apple, and citrus trees. There is a raised-bed vegetable garden behind the studio that also supplies the kitchen.

PATSY DOLSON is a former president of a Visalia garden club, and is one of the founding partners of the Art Co-op in Three Rivers, where she displays her oil paintings that depict her interest in country cottages, landscapes, and floral designs. Her studio will be open for viewing on the tour.