Inside the Vashon garden that never stops growing

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, March 24, 2026

When asked how 17 acres of bare land became one of Vashon’s most impressive gardens, Cindy Stockett is the first to admit that she doesn’t know how it happened.

The project started off small — a way to reconnect with her lifelong passion for growing plants after retiring from her position as a schoolteacher at Vashon Elementary School (now Chautauqua Elementary School) and her children had grown and left the house.

But what started as a hobby has become a decades-long endeavor.

”I started just gardening a little bit around the house, and then I just kept going, and planting more things and expanding,” Cindy said. “To be honest, I don’t know how it happened.”

This is Froggsong Gardens. The name is a tribute to the chorus frogs found throughout Washington that Cindy looks forward to hearing every year.

In Vashon’s Burton neighborhood, the garden is five acres of sprawling greenery. Trees hang over manicured lawns among beds of hydrangeas, peonies and roses. Raised beds hold corn patches, strawberries and raspberries. As of March, most of it waits for warmer weather to bring it into bloom.

Under glowing heat lamps in the garden’s conservatory, echinacea, zinnias and leonotis sprout slowly. Once they get bigger and outside temperatures climb, they’ll be transferred to the garden.

The garden is divided into several distinct elements — including a pergola surrounded by roses, a “hydrangea walk,” framed by lush corridors of blooms, a gravel garden with various types of succulents and a “queen’s garden” inspired by Buckingham Palace — all are adjoined by stone paths, bridges over streams, and grassy lawns.

The acres flow seamlessly, as if they were meticulously planned. But the garden evolved naturally, Cindy said — the product of a decades-long process of moving plants around and slowly expanding their reach.

“If I had somebody draw up a design for me, I wouldn’t have had to do that,” Cindy said. “But to me, gardening is the process.”

In preparation for the explosion of bloom that happens in late spring and throughout the summer, she’s keeping busy weeding the soil and covering it in mulch — a garden chore done to keep moisture in, nourish the plants and prevent new weeds from sprouting back.

Because the garden is so big, she said she isn’t able to cover the entire garden in just one year, and works in sections.

It’s a piece of advice she’d give to all home gardeners: “Feed your soil, and the plants take care of themselves.”

Always looking for ways to work cost-effectively while still letting new life grow, she digs up perennials in the spring — plants that come back every year — and splits the clumps of roots into two, doubling their yield.

“With a garden this size, I’m always thinking along economical terms,” Cindy said.

Froggsong Gardens has become more than just a passion project and now hosts around five weddings every summer — beginning 2014. Steve Stockett, Cindy’s husband, says the pair receives help from their kids and grandkids during wedding season.

Flipping through photos published in “Private Gardens of the Pacific Northwest,” I ask Cindy who first came up with the idea of hosting events. She immediately points to Steve.

They say weddings help support Cindy’s plant habit, and push them to keep the garden in shape year-round, “even in the dead of winter it’s gotta look great,” Steve said.

Just as Cindy identifies as a self-taught gardener, Steve calls himself a self-taught architect and designed the pavilion on the property, as well as a separate “Frog Hall,” where wedding events take place.

“He’s got the long-term vision of things much more so than I have,” Cindy said.

He says he’s a “hyperfocuser,” and also helps coordinates event details like catering, music and table florals with the wedding party, he said.

“We curate their wedding; they don’t hire a wedding planner at all,” Steve said.

As Cindy walks through the garden, she beams with joy and pride, showing it off with the easy confidence of someone who has spent decades shaping it. She looks entirely in her element — exactly where she is meant to be.

“You go out there, and you don’t think about what’s going on in the government or in the world — it’s all about the plants,” Cindy said. “I can’t imagine having anything else that I’d want to do.”

Steve teases, “It’s expanded into an obsession,” but also, “It’s a magnificent obsession.”

To learn more about Froggsong Gardens or to contact the Stocketts about seeing it in person, visit froggsonggardens.com.