Old dump haven for renewal

When Rick McKinney took his wife to see the site he had chosen to build their new home, he hadn’t counted on her reaction.

“I sat down and started to cry,” Jill McKinney said. “It had been the town dump, and there wasn’t one tree. It was covered in thistles and Morning Glory vines.”

McKinney dried her tears, and after more than 20 years in the passive solar earth-berm home the couple built together, she’s not sorry.

What used to be a barren, debris-filled lot is now a green haven planted with mature trees, native shrubs and flowering perennials.

The McKinney garden is just one of the private gardens open for the annual Palouse Home and Garden Tour. The tour will include two gardens and three homes. Proceeds will go toward the restoration of the historic Holy Trinity Chapel in Palouse, Wash.

After spending the first 15 years in the house bringing in truckloads of topsoil, McKinney says she got composting “religion.”

“I built three large bins, and each one is 8 feet wide by 8 feet deep,” McKinney said. “We grew our own good dirt.” She estimates it takes six months for the compost to mature.

McKinney originally planted cottonwood trees. The trees were removed later, but they had grown to 90 feet by that time. McKinney believes the shade the trees provided in the earlier years contributed to the structure of the garden.

Iris, daffodils and lilies bloom each year in the rich soil and provide a colorful backdrop to the property’s Palouse River view.

Basalt stone walls, built by the McKinneys, frame the garden. Opening the garden is a big step for the McKinneys, but their pride in what they’ve accomplished overruled.

“Looking around at this garden, I feel like the luckiest person in the world,” McKinney said. “This is the place I go to be renewed.”