Garden

Grow Up

Alyssa Brandt — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Juliann Gardner needed a better bed. Only she wasn’t thinking pillow tops and memory foam, but indigenous evergreen wood and soil packed with critters and organic nutrients. Gardner (yes, it’s her real name) was already well-versed in building custom designed gardens for her business One Small Garden, which she started in 2008. To reach the average home vegetable gardener, she created a tool-free garden bed kit using locally harvested red cedar that is both food safe and rot resistant. The kits come in a variety of sizes and heights—you can even add wheels—so you can put a garden virtually anywhere. “I have a client who has a rolling garden on his terrace and he pushes it into the sunlight as it moves throughout the day,” Gardner says.

By adding a trellis for vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, and peas, small-space planters can increase their yield. “The principals of small bed growing are density and reproduction,” explains Gardner. Layer radish seeds above carrots, for example, and by the time the radishes are done, the carrots are ready to poke through. And certain crops can improve your soil as they grow. Bush beans are rapid producers and their roots create bacteria that adds nitrogen to the soil.

As the summer winds down, Gardner recommends planning fall crops like kale and collard greens, which give good pound-per-square-foot return. And if you really want to plant corn, Gardner says go for it. “I want people to own this,” she says. “I want to empower them to grow their own food.”

Photograph by Jonathan Willis
Originally published in the July 2012 issue.

Get the Look: Winter Color

Marnie Hayutin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:50:00 GMT

Purple is a mainstay in all of Dennis Buttelwerth's winter arrangements. He first saw the color used when he was on the staff that decorated the White House for Christmas during the Reagan era.

It's in the same color family as the evergreens," he says. "It's just a wonderful color."

Here, the purple ornamental kale is the show-stealer, with red-twigged dogwood, toyon berries and winterberry (deciduous holly) as supporting actors. They provide pops of color against a textural backdrop that includes Western cedar, incense cedar, German boxwood, juniper boughs, mountain hemlock, white pine, and Southern magnolia leaves.

This display will last all winter long—provided that unexpected winter heat spells don't turn the magnolia leaves brown. Tuck winter plant materials directly into wet soil in containers. When the soil freezes, it will hold everything in place and keep the display crisp (no watering required).

A few lights are a fun addition, but avoid the garlands and ornaments to keep the design from becoming too Christmas-y.

Birds will eat the berries, so you'll want to place the berries in the center of the planting. That way bird droppings will fall into the arrangement, not on your porch.

Photos by Lemos Photography, design by Dennis Buttelwerth.

Get the Look: Harvest Bounty

Marnie Hayutin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:48:00 GMT

Pumpkins and corn stalks may be a no-brainer, but achieving success with this seasonal style is actually much tougher than it looks. The trick is to create a look of abundance without overdoing it.

Easier said than done. You've got more to work with in this season than in any other—Indian corn, straw bales, fancy gourds, mums of all color, and the entire squash family—so it's easy to get carried away.

You can keep your landscaping from looking like the pumpkin truck dropped its load in your yard by creating depth. Select pumpkins, straw bales and other accessories in three distinct sizes, which in addition to depth also gives the display a sense of order.

Then, balance the design with some less-predictable fall folilage: English ivy, dusty millers, flowering kale, and pansies. The fall watering schedule is two to three times a week, moving to once or twice a week as the weather gets cooler. A good rule of thumb: Keep it moist but not soggy, and don't let it dry out.

Photos by Lemos Photography, design by Steve Lichtenberg and Vanessa Back, Lichtenberg Gardens.

Get the Look: Summer Color

Marnie Hayutin — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:31:00 GMT

Light pink blossoms and variagated leaves make this arrangement pop from it's partially shaded porch setting.

Contrasting colors are a good bet for mid-summer, too. Patrick Greeson of Natorp's blended cool purples with hot pinks using an assortment of flowers and plants that includes Dragon Wing begonias, spider plants, New Guinea impatiens from the Celebration series, and Summer Wave Large Violet torenia, a trailing plant that yields purple flowers all summer long.

Like any good still-life, the taller plants are in the back, and the trailers are in front—but Greeson suggests mixing it up every now and then to allow a few trailers to weave through.

Gardeners tip: Diligent pruning is the key to maintaining this look all summer. The more you water, the larger the plants will get. Trim them back to keep them tidy and to prevent overcrowding.

Photographs by Lemos Photography

Catch "Coniferitis"

Marnie Hayutin — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:47:00 GMT

It takes a certain kind of person to lovingly protect an heirloom rose through a harsh winter, or amend the soil for a temperamental rhododendron, all for the reward of few sweet weeks of seeing the plant in bloom.

Those aren’t conifer people.

No, conifer people will tell you they’re not interested in waiting for a three-day window to run out to the garden and see their precious plants looking nice. For them, it’s all about year-round color.

“Perennials are really colorful, but after a week or two the leaves turn brown and they look ugly,” says Bernie Bolte, a conifer gardener from Florence, Ky. “I have color that doesn’t fade in two or three weeks.”

For those of us who think that “color” means green, green and green—or who think that evergreens are the “invisible” part of the landscape, growing there on their own or left behind by the last homeowner—we’re about to get an education. Bolte’s 50-by-150-foot mobile home lot hosts about 60 different conifers. The variety in color and textures is nothing short of astounding—from the legal-pad-yellow Juniperus horizontalis ‘Mother Lode’ that spreads like a living mulch low to the ground, to the white-tinged Pinus parviflora ‘Tani-mano-uki’, to the Kelly-green Picea abies ‘Pusch’ with its ruby-colored cones.

Of course, conifer gardeners get the temporary payoff, too—many conifers have a special season where they show off a new outfit of sorts. Pinus sylvestris ‘Gold Coin’ turns golden yellow in the winter. The new spring growth of ‘Tani-mano-uki’ comes out pink. Also in spring, the blue spruce cultivar Picea pungens ‘Downey’s Golden’ looks like it has been painted with yellow polka dots. But then they still retain their primary colors to enjoy the rest of the year. Except for a few deciduous conifers that lose their needles in the fall, nothing withers and turns brown.

Conifers aren’t fussy or needy like roses or rhododendrons, either. There’s no weekly maintenance schedule for these plants—heck, there’s barely even an annual one. If you select the right ones for your climate and plant them correctly, they pretty much take care of themselves. You might have to check for pests or trim an occasional branch to keep the walkway clear, but that’s about it.

So, with no sprinkling of Epsom salts to do, and no need to run out in the middle of a spring snowstorm to cover a tender specimen, that leaves plenty of time for the real business of conifer gardening: collecting new conifers.

It’s not unusual for Ron and Judy Regenhold to travel 1,000 miles over a weekend to track down a cultivar they located at a nursery in Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or New York. It may or may not fit easily into the trunk of the car. “Who needs luggage?” the gardeners joke. They suffer from a common affliction, know to conifer collectors as “Addicted Conifer Syndrome” or “Coniferitis.”

For the most part, conifer collectors are after dwarf and miniature varieties. Frankly, there’s something sort of enchanting about the little guys. “Some are just plain cute—you can’t help but say that,” notes Chris Daeger, horticulturist and manager of the Rowe Arboretum, as well as Central Regional vice president and a member of the National Board of Directors of the American Conifer Society.

But primarily, it’s a practicality issue—dwarf and miniature conifers are easiest to manage if you’re gardening on a typical suburban lot. Conifers are classified by growth rate. Miniatures grow an inch or less per year; dwarfs grow 1-6 inches per year; intermediates, 6-12 inches per year; and large conifers grow a foot or more per year.

“People always ask ‘How big does it get?’” Daeger says. “That’s the wrong question. You should be asking, ‘How fast does it grow?’” That tells you how long you’ll get to enjoy the plant before you have to deal with its size. If you leave it there long enough, a dwarf can still get big. A dwarf tree that grows 5 inches a year will be more than 12 feet tall in 30 years. “People think that it reaches a certain height and stops growing,” Daeger adds. “If it stops growing, it’s dead.”

And, in 30 years, there’s a big difference between a dwarf conifer that grows 2 inches a year and a dwarf that grows 6 inches a year. Buying a dwarf without checking the growth rate is a typical rookie mistake. Bolte once had to move three oriental spruce trees that grew 7 feet in 10 years. “I couldn’t see the front of my house anymore,” he recalls.

Now Bolte is an experienced conifer gardener. On his small lot, he limits his collection to tall skinny trees or very slow-growing ones. “I’ve made use of all the space I have,” he says. “I’m to the point now where if I see another plant I want, I have to get rid of one first. It’s just constantly changing. Every time I see a new catalog and see something I want, I have to figure out how I’m going to squeeze it in.”

“Something that we have always been guilty of is buying plants for which we have no space,” the Regenholds say. “We rationalize that because bad winters and summers have a way of thinning our collection, we must always be ready with a replacement, or two, or 10.” And, removing plants to make room for new ones is what conifer gardeners refer to as making an “upgrade.” You’ll never see a conifer connoisseur wasting space with, say, a hedge of eight identical arborvitae.

The thrill of the chase stems from the fact that very few of the thousands of conifer cultivars can be found in an average garden store. Conifer enthusiasts say only one local garden store—Lakeview Garden Center in Fairfield—carries an impressive selection.

According to owner Jim Montague, that’s because for years Cincinnati gardeners not afflicted with Coniferitis had been slow to see the value in dwarfs and miniatures. They can be expensive, he notes, and some consumers would rather pay less for a bigger tree. “But people realized that you can get something that lasts 10 years [before it has to be removed] or get something that lasts 50 years,” Montague says. “I like to say they never outgrow their usefulness because of the rate at which they grow.”

Eventually, avid conifer collectors usually start to grow their own new plants. “It is a natural evolution,” notes Dr. Clark D. West, a conifer gardener in Harrison. “Most everyone who gets into conifers after a while has a desire to propagate them.”

The most interesting cuttings to propagate come from finding what’s known as a “witch’s broom.” Occasionally, conifers develop a small section of abnormal growth, kind of like a tree tumor. The name apparently originated in medieval times, when they thought these anomalies actually were witches’ brooms left behind after a night of flying around. If caused by a genetic mutation (rather than a disease), the witch’s broom can be propagated by grafting and shared with other gardeners.

Brand-new cultivars come from growing conifers from seeds. Dr. West, who focuses on growing arborvitae from seed, loves the ritual of walking the yard, inspecting the transplanted seedlings and seeing what they’re evolving into.

“Every little while, I find one that really is attractive that I haven’t seen before,” West says. “That’s where the fun is.”

Intrigued? The Regenholds say searching the Internet is a great first step. “If only it were this easy when we got started!” they lament. Try the American Conifer Society’s Web site, conifersociety.org. If you join the American Conifer Society, you’ll get connected with gardeners all over the country who will be more than happy to show you their gardens.

“Be careful,” West warns. “You might get a hobby.”

Photographs by Daylight Photo, shot on location at the Stanley M. Rowe Arboretum in Indian Hill

Detail photographs (top to bottom): Which is Which? 1. Pine needles are clustered together in bunches. 2. Bald cypress needles turn red in the fall. 3. Arborvitae have short, feathery needles. 4. Spruce trees have single needles and the branchlets tend to be droopy. 5. The signature round berries of the juniper. 6. Fir needles are softer than spruce and smell like citrus when crushed. Cones grow straight up. 7. Taxus is a common foundation planting, often used in hedges.

Greener Pastures

Judi Ketteler — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:34:00 GMT

Organic gardening can be intensely rewarding, but it doesn't have to be labor-intensive. Start small with these eco-friendly gardening tips.

1. Plant Things that Attract Attention

Select two or three plantings that will attract activity from butterflies and bees. Not only are bees fun to watch, these tiny pollinators work hard to help fertilize your landscape. Bees love lavender, clematis, black-eyed Susan, salvia, and Autumn Joy sedum. Try butterfly bushes, zinnia and cosmos to lure butterflies.

2. Switch from Chemical Fertilizers to More Environmentally Friendly Ones

Most chemical fertilizers have phosphorous, which promotes growth but also has a tendency to soak down into the water tables—not very good for the environment. Look for products with reduced amounts of phosphorous, as well as products that are made to stay in the ground instead of washing into the water tables.

3. Ditch the Pesticides and Try Natural Remedies

Insecticidal soap is a good choice; it's an oil-based soap that you spray on plants. But, realize that different methods work for different types of plants, so don't have a one-size-fits-all mentality.

4. Do It Old School

Make a time investment in your garden, and get back to things like good old-fashioned hand-weeding. Many insect problems can be dealt with by hand, too. If you have bag worms on your blue spruce, for example, there is an easy chemical-free solution: Pluck them off, put them in a bag and dispose of them.

5. Mulch

Mulch serves many “green” ends: It helps lessen watering needs, reduces weeds, regulates soil temperature, nourishes and protects soil life, and prevents soil erosion. Options include pine straw, hardwood and pine bark.

6. Select Plants Carefully

Look for drought-tolerant plants that will adapt to your soil conditions (have your soil tested so you know what you’re dealing with). The more drought-tolerant a plant is, the less you have to irrigate—which saves resources.

7. Invite the Creatures In

When attracting bees and butterflies, don't forget to invite birds, bats, frogs and toads. A water feature will do this nicely. Not only does it make your garden more interesting, but also those creatures help keep other creatures you don’t want (insects, namely) in check.

8. Get the Right Tools

Consider purchasing a mulching mower versus a traditional bag mower. Mulching mowers actually recycle the grass clippings. Also, look for spreaders that allow you to target the spread of your organic fertilizer—that way you don't use too much and none is wasted.

9. Start Composting

Compost is oil for the soil. It helps loosen clay-bound soils, nourish plants, reduce disease, and lessen the damaging effect of soil erosion.

10. Find Ways to Integrate Your Garden into Your Life

It can be as simple as planting more vegetables and then using them in your cooking. Or, select shade trees and plant them near the windows in your home to help block the sun and give your air conditioner a break. As you learn how to be greener in the garden, teach your kids as well.

Fields of Dreams

Sue Goldberg — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:05:00 GMT

If you plant it, they will come. Butterflies, those quick-change artists that morph from slinky leaf-devouring caterpillars to fluttering, nectar-sipping beauties are seeking habitats to call their own. If your landscape includes just the right mix of nectar-producing food plants and suitable-for-egg-laying host plants, you’ve got a butterfly garden.

Beginners are in luck: It isn’t difficult to build and maintain a thriving butterfly habitat. Start small, though; one or two 10-by10-foot beds is enough. For a simple, effective use of space, plant a bed with a variety of color and forms, using these tried-and-true plants:

Nectar Plants for Feeding

Bee Balm
Butterfly Bush
Coneflowers
Daisies
Dandelion
Daylilies
Lantana
Lavender
Lupine
Mexican Sunflowers
Milkweed
Passionflowers
Sunflowers
Tall Verbena
Zinnia

Host Plants for Egg-Laying

Dill
Dogwood
Dutchman’s-Pipe
Fennel
Hops
Milkweed
Pawpaw Tree
Prickly Ash Tree
Pussytoes
Pussy Willow
Queen Anne’s Lace
Redbud
Rue
Spicebush
Sweet Bay Magnolia
Viburnum
Wafer-Ash Tree
White Clover
Wild Cherry Tree
Wild Violets

Photograph by Gary Kessler: This blue beauty is visiting us from Brazil, part of the 2011 Butterfly Show at the Krohn Conservatory. Show Details: April 16-June 26, 2011. Open daily 10 am-5 pm. Admission: Adults $6, Seniors $5, Children 5-17 $4, Children 4 and under, free. Family pack, 2 adults and up to 6 children, $20. butterflyshow.com

Starting from Seed

Susan M. Eble — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:50:00 GMT

Seed packets

Growing transplants from seed puts the harvest time weeks sooner than with direct sowing in the garden. Plus, it’s the only way to grow a particular plant variety that interests you when you can’t find it offered at the local nursery. It’s fun to study the seed catalogs with your family, choosing which plants to try!

Seeds are tiny, living entities, so you must store them properly to maintain viability. Once the seed packets are opened, you should label them—name, source, year of purchase—and store them in a small re-closable bag that’s kept in a larger plastic container. Keep the container in a cool, dark location with low humidity, like a refrigerator.

Preparing the soil

Use a commercial seed-starting mix. This is important to prevent seedling diseases; commercial mixes have been sterilized.

Large seeds and seeds of plants that resent root disturbance when transplanted are best sown into small, individual containers such as cell packs, plug trays or peat or paper pots. Larger plastic pots, or recycled yogurt or margarine tubs with holes poked in the bottom, work well for sowing multiple smaller seeds. If recycled containers are used, sterilize them by scrubbing with a mixture of one part bleach to nine parts water.

As with all potting projects, always pre-moisten the planting mix before filling the container. The soil mix should feel as wet as a squeezed-out sponge. Fill the container with the moistened soil and press lightly. Water again, and allow the container to drain.

Planting the seeds

Sow small seeds directly on the soil surface. Plant larger seeds in a shallow depression. Cover the seed with vermiculite or seed-starting mix, to a depth of twice the seed’s diameter. Each seed must be in firm contact with the moist soil to begin germinating, so use your fingers or the bottom of a glass to gently tamp down the surface.

Water, and cover the container with a sheet of clear plastic or one of the inexpensive greenhouse domes found at plant nurseries. If the soil surface gets dry, lift the plastic covering and mist it with water from a spray bottle. Remove the cover as soon as you see germination to allow for good air circulation.
Most seeds require temperatures of 65° to 75°F for speedy germination. If your room is cooler than that, consider purchasing a heating pad designed especially for plant use.

Stages of seedlings

After germination, seedlings need bright light to avoid spindly growth. If you do not have access to a full southern exposure, consider growing the seedlings under lights. Give the container a quarter turn each day to prevent the seedlings from reaching toward the light source and developing weak, elongated stems. Also, gently brush the palm of your hand against the tops of the seedlings each day—this will encourage strong stem growth, too.

When the “true leaves” emerge—those are the first leaves following the initial pair of “seed leaves”—it’s time to begin a half-strength liquid fertilizer regimen on a weekly basis.

To prevent the fungal infection often referred to as “damping-off,” place a small fan near your seedlings. Keep the fan on low and direct it to blow across the containers at the soil level where air may become trapped and stagnant.

Time to transplant to a bigger pot

For the least shock to the young plants, transplant the seedlings into individual containers as young as your fingers can easily handle them. It’s best to transplant from the sowing flat when one set of “true leaves” has developed. Move the seedlings by grasping the small leaves—do not grab the seedlings by their stems, which are easily crushed or bent.

When the roots on an individually planted seedling fill the container, it’s time to move the plant up into the next-larger size pot. Choose a container that’s an inch or so larger in diameter than the current pot.

Ready for the garden

Most seedlings will be ready to plant outdoors in about six weeks. Before the seedlings can be planted outdoors, they need to be hardened off, or acclimated to direct sunlight and fluctuating temperatures. It is best to do this over a three- to five-day period by placing them outdoors in shade the first day, in direct sunlight during the morning only of the second day, then increasing their time in the sun by a few hours each day until they are vigorous enough to be transplanted.

Susan M. Eble is an avid gardener and garden writer, and has a master’s degree in horticulture.
Photography by Ryan Kurtz

A Wildlife Oasis

Michelle Taute — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:08:00 GMT

The birdseed tray hanging from the deck at Glenn and Barb Redmer’s home is busier than a fast-food drive-thru at lunchtime. In less than half an hour, woodpeckers and cardinals have stopped by for a snack, with three birds often sharing this small feeding space at once. “This is the time of year when they are molting, and they have some really bad hair days,” Glenn says.He and his wife know the rhythms of the wildlife around their Harrison home, because they’ve gone to great lengths to attract them. With all the flowers, trees and birdbaths, animals don’t have to look far to find food, water or shelter—and that has earned the garden certification as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat from the National Wildlife Federation.

It’s practically Eden for birds, butterflies, raccoons, squirrels and even the school of goldfish swimming around the pond. You’ll find all the beauty of a traditional garden, but the planting beds and water features have been created with wildlife in mind. This means the blooming irises are just as mesmerizing as the hummingbird you catch out of the corner of your eye as he flies in dramatic arcs near the feeder.

From the Ground Up

It took a lot of sweat equity to get this garden where it is today. The Redmers did much of the work themselves, including many weekends spent clearing groundcover from the lot. “You didn’t hear a bird or see a worm in the soil,” Barb says. Except for the whippoorwills, which sang enthusiastically from the trees, there were few other signs of wildlife.

Undeterred by the weeds, rocks and clay, the couple spent the past 12 years building up a landscape that welcomes plants and animals. During the first year living at the house, the lot was simply too rough to garden, so the couple trucked 16 loads of dirt onto the slanted yard. They amended the soil to make it hospitable to plant life, and gradually they started developing the garden—with no master plan in mind.

The path, which is one of the garden’s most defining elements, went in around year three, while other elements, such as the pond, evolved through trial and error. This water feature originally held 100 gallons, but that proved much too small to keep the water quality in balance, so the couple expanded to 1,000 gallons for easier maintenance.

“Glenn said no goldfish,” Barb says. “But someone gave me plants and there were eggs that hatched the next spring.” Now the pond teems with bright orange fish, which don’t seem to mind sharing the space with the frogs. The pond also includes a simple fountain that helps attract birds with its splashing water.

Ten more loads of soil were later trucked in to turn a steep hill on the side of the yard into viable garden space. This time the couple chose SuperSoil, which doesn’t need to be amended. About two years ago, they added a small hosta bed after a visiting garden expert pointed out a good spot for it. Glenn set about building a path around it, but the bird who built a nest in his concrete saw had other plans. The couple simply put up a sign that said “maternity ward” and put construction on hold.

Popular with Wildlife

Today you’d never guess that this backyard garden started without a comprehensive design plan, because you’d be too busy examining the surprises in every bed. Wildflowers, herbs, ferns…and it doesn’t take long to run across some of the more obvious wildlife-friendly features. There are three birdbaths, four birdhouses and several feeders, not to mention the natural animal attractors. The landscape is packed with blossoms, especially when the irises—ranging in color from violet to white and peach—bloom in mid-May. The garden also includes daffodils, bluebells, jack-in-the-pulpits, roses, water lilies, coneflowers and more.

Countless groupings of shrubs and tress provide shelter for the animals. Gorgeous gold mops sit next to boxwood, and there’s a walnut tree that’s more popular with wildlife than it is with plants. Walnut roots are toxic to some plants, so Barb subscribes to the trial-and-error method, digging up strugglers and moving them elsewhere.

Barb and Glenn spend two to four hours most days toiling in the garden. These efforts pay off in both natural beauty and the sheer number of birds that visit the landscape. The Redmers have attracted a number of woodpecker varieties, including downy and hairy, along with hummingbirds, chickadees, robins and goldfinches. There are also wrens, sparrows and titmouse flying around the lot. The deck, which wraps around the side and rear of the house, sits up a level from the yard and provides the perfect spot to see the action. Once the Redmers even watched a Cooper’s hawk tussle with a flock of blue jays, but most days the birds simply stop by to eat the few cups of seed Glenn puts in the birdseed tray each morning.

To help attract the woodpeckers in the winter, Barb makes batches of homemade suet and birdseed mix using chopped-up pieces of beef fat she buys from the butcher. She simply fills a cake pan with seeds, melts the beef fat, then pours it over the seed. Once the mixture sets up, she cuts it into squares and places these hunks into a cage-style feeder hanging next to the deck. It draws the birds—and occasionally an unwanted raccoon, which managed to make off with the entire feeder one year. Lately, the neighbor’s beagle basset hound has helped scare off these striped-tail scavengers.

Party Crashers

Unfortunately, raccoons haven’t been the Redmers’ only uninvited guests. One night the couple came home to find a room in the walkout basement covered in glass, and Glenn quickly spied a wild turkey hiding under a table. When the bird spotted him, she fled back out the window she’d crashed through on the way into the house. Somehow the turkey had managed to fly through a window and still remain largely unscathed.

But while the turkey story might win the prize for drama, it’s the deer who take the top spot for frustration. As many gardeners can attest, they’ll eat the hostas down to the stems—not leaving a leaf in sight—and the Redmers have found it difficult to locate any plants deer don’t like to eat. Hydrangea, billed as deer resistant, quickly became deer food in the couple’s yard. And after a trip to Italy, Barb was heartbroken to come home and see what they’d done to her daylilies. “The deer had eaten every bud off every daylily,” she says. “They’d never eaten them before.”

They decided it was time to solve the deer problem once and for all or simply give up on gardening. So roughly three years ago the couple put up a fence around the backyard. Since the garden gradually turns back into forest at the edges, you can’t even see the 6-foot wire fence hidden among the trees. But this invisible barrier has kept out the deer. “We’re not kidding ourselves,” Glenn says. “At some point, I’m sure we’ll see a deer in the yard.” For now, the deer are welcome to whatever tasty plants they find in the forest or in the couple’s front yard.

A Work in Progress

Though the Redmer garden looks like it’s ready for a bus full of plant lovers to pull up for a tour, it’s still changing and evolving. Most recently, a spot next to the driveway was cleared to put in a new bed. It features a fountain as a focal point, along with benches and new plants.

As you talk with Barb and Glenn, it’s clear how much knowledge they’ve gained through years of experience. There are wire cages around many of the plants, for instance, to help them grow tall and healthy. “Since we’re on a hill everything wants to go to the sun and fall over,” Barb says. She’s also learned that when a plant says part sun/shade that it’s better to error on the side of shade. But perhaps a simpler piece of wisdom from Barb explains how this whole garden came together: “Plants are like potato chips. You can’t have just one.”

Photography By Daylight Photo

Oh, Deer!

It’s tough to keep your garden from becoming a deer buffet, but the plants you choose can help tip the odds in your favor. The following are known deer-resistant varieties, though as Glenn Redmer points out, “Deer will eat anything if they’re hungry enough.”

Allium
Astilbe
Black-eyed Susan
Columbine
Coneflower
Daffodil
Dianthus (Carnation)
Ferns
Foxglove
Hyacinth
Iris
Lady’s Mantle
Lenten Rose (Hellebore)
Lily of the Valley
Oriental Poppy
Russian Sage
Shasta Daisy
Yarrow

Sharing a Sense of Place

Sue Goldberg — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:07:00 GMT

From the moment Nancy Rosenthal opens the door of her Wyoming home, it’s clear that she and her husband are gardeners. It’s afternoon, and a few streaks of earth are apparent on the knees of Ed’s jeans. They’re dressed for outdoor work, and they’ve been hard at it all morning. Despite dark clouds and a few raindrops, they’ve uncovered plants for spring, tidied up and mulched beds. Professionals assist with mowing and with pruning long stretches of shrubs, but gardening and the land became a primary focus for the couple when they moved into Birdwhistle, an estate originally built for three privileged, free-spirited sisters in the late ’30s.

“We are here [in the garden], full time,” Nancy laughs. “No, not [really] full time,” she says a little more straight-faced. “We do have another life, but we’re not golfers, we’re not tennis players. We’re gardeners.”

Nancy and Ed planted their roots at Birdwhistle in 1979. Their familiarity with the landscape is comforting. Nancy can point out the line of oaks and a screen-like row of junipers that were part of renowned landscape architect Richard E. Grant’s original 1937 design. She can point out the rocky bed that Ed mapped as a water run-off in the woods.

We meander through the more formal areas of the yard, with sculpted beds that nurture perennials, annuals and collections of specimen trees and later take a walk along the woodland trails built by Ed, where she calls attention to a Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick with its gnarled trunk and corkscrew branches. Nancy points out the best views from the choicest spots. She tells me where I am in relationship to every other path we’ve walked. Though she grew up in West Virginia, her sense of place here is indigenous.

Ed, too, has a love of the land and a sense of his place in it, garnered through summers spent in Montana, working on a ranch to renew his health after childhood illness. He eventually purchased a ranch there and became one of the first landowners to set up a conservation easement to protect these great spaces from inappropriate development. He also feels protective of the natural and wild beauty that surrounds his home and wants to share it with others.

“You’re blessed to have it,” Ed says. “You’re blessed that you’ve got the body and will to take care of it, and when you’re done you see the wonderful results of it. And you don’t have to remember your tennis game, or how many times you’ve hit [the ball] into the net,” he jokes.

The Rosenthals’ garden is a study in the blend of human creativity, ingenuity and nature’s fertile imagination—formal beds, well-structured hardscapes and fun sculptures extend and diversify the sensory experiences found in the acres of woods, creek, wildflowers and native plants. Each season, each week really, yields its particular delights. This early spring afternoon, it’s the spring beauties and the dog-toothed violets that carpet the woods with a snowy glaze, while the magnolias and daffodils bloom in ordered beds near the house with early displays of color. Fresh peony sprouts tinged with green and burgundy are pushing out of the earth in the more formal areas with a promise of the show to come.

The 11-acre spread has turned several heads, not least of which belongs to Diane Botnick, the event coordinator for the Garden Conservancy, a national nonprofit organization that strives to preserve the most exceptional American gardens for the public’s enjoyment and education. A recent nod of approval meant that the private grounds were opened to members of the Conservancy’s Society of Fellows for a one-day tour this May.

The Conservancy looks for important elements before they select a garden for a tour. “There’s a kind of engagement factor that I think is very important, and the Rosenthals certainly have that,” Botnick says. “This is a landscape that they have lovingly and carefully created and expanded over the years, and it’s very apparent when you see the care and vision that they have. They’ve created a garden that doesn’t exist anywhere else. It’s totally theirs.”

Often, many of the gardens the Conservancy visits involve the work of a landscape architect. Styles vary from wild and natural to very formal, but they all share a sense of good design, Botnick says. A few other common elements include some shared traits among the gardens’ caretakers, such as a love of plants.

“…which certainly the Rosenthals have,” Botnick notes. “They are real collectors. And, also, almost a sense of obligation to share. A garden is something that really needs to have people in it. They’ve been quite generous with their garden, and we’re very appreciative of it.”

While the Rosenthals, as Nancy says, “inherited a landscape with good bones,” many of the original plantings of Grant’s grand landscape design were cleared away by a second owner whose interests did not include the hours of devotion needed to maintain a garden. In fact, many of Grant’s plant choices, which included 13 varieties of climbing roses, wisteria and ginkgo biloba from among a total 83 varieties of shrubs, trees and plants, were sold by the second owner to Natorp’s in the ’60s. The rest of the property, including the woods, became overgrown with honeysuckle, which the three sisters, who had an active gardening staff of six, planted to attract and feed birds through the winter months.

Nancy recalls a bit of grass around the house, weeds and invasive honeysuckle vines thick enough to swing on when they moved to the property. “That was our challenge,” she recalls.

“It took about five years to clear the honeysuckle out of the woods,” Ed says, making the swinging motion of a pickaxe and recalling the sweat equity involved. “But the joy of it was that it opened up like a curtain. The honeysuckle had covered wonderful wildflowers. So as the years went by, and still go by, there’s been a proliferation of those wildflowers…. Now we have the joy of a wonderful walk in the woods.”

It’s not just the Rosenthals who experience that joy. In addition to garden tour groups on select occasions, friends and neighbors are often invited to enjoy the space. As a child, local naturalist Jerry Lippert and several other kids were allowed to explore and play in the Rosenthals’ woods. The creek was a huge draw, Lippert says, and the neighborhood clan called it “The Falls” in reference to its many waterfalls. As teens, Lippert and friends would head out before school in the springtime and do some amateur bird-watching. Birdwhistle’s mature woods had become home to a variety of species. Now an adult, Lippert found his calling as a naturalist offering tours to the public on birding and other ecological topics.

“One thing that’s important is that the area was always kind of a refuge/exploring grounds for kids like me,” Lippert says. “It really did help me become a naturalist. The fact that Ed and Nancy had this area preserved—that they didn’t develop it [is special]. It was sacred to us kids.”

Almost 14 years ago, Lippert asked Ed and Nancy for permission to propose to his sweetheart, Pamela, in their woods beneath a towering beech tree. Jerry and the Rosenthals strung lights from the covered bridge that spans a wooded ravine, creating a pathway of lights that culminated in an arch under the canopy of the beech.

“Not only did she say yes, but now their daughter comes through, and she’s super,” Ed says. “A beautiful young lady.”

The bridge has its own story. The carpenter who built the Rosenthals’ gazebo noticed Ed maneuvering a wheelbarrow around the steep ravine to transport the raw materials he needed to build his woodland paths. He asked Ed if he could build a bridge for him—not just any bridge, a covered bridge.

“And I said, only on the condition you give me two balconies in the center for seats,” Ed recalls with a smile. He was interested in bringing future grandchildren to the spot, where the family could sit and drink in the natural beauty surrounding them.

If you want to divide up the property into his and her domains, much of the woods falls into Ed’s area of expertise, while Nancy tends to more of the formal and informal beds around the home’s perimeter. A concave cement birdbath lies to the side of the house, a remnant from the original owners of Birdwhistle. A kitchen garden graces a back door, where herbs and tomatoes are within easy reach for a homemade meal. The swimming pool is hemmed with taxus, hostas, sedum, lilies, poppies, baptisia, monarda, peonies, allium and globe blue spruce to name just a few. Other new and interesting specimens are added to the grounds each year.

“I went through a period, and you kind of see these all over, when we added tree peonies,” Nancy says. “We’ve gone through a period of azaleas, too, and there’s a lovely hillside of Exbury azaleas.”

Later, we walk near the border of Exbury azaleas, which Nancy mentions will soon be covered with large, bright orange blooms. For now, Virginia bluebells are popping up from the earth, a stark contrast to the shrubs’ deciduous branches.

Large metal sculptures also seem to spring up from the grounds. An island of landscaping surrounded by a circular drive is home to a contemporary sculpture, “Roots in Agriculture,” by David Secrest. Other kinetic sculptures are worked into strategic spots; still others add a humorous note, such as the stick-figure couple gracing a park bench by sculptor Larry Morris.

“They’ve created a true strolling garden,” Botnick says. “You really need to walk through it.”

And we do—literally and figuratively as we stroll through the garden and as we reflect on the images bound into the Rosenthals’ 2008 garden snapshot album. Every moment offers a new scene. Peonies and azaleas will give way to irises, lilies and poppies. Spring ephemerals offer a last gasp before being covered by a leafy summer canopy of oak and elm. Conifers, plants and shrubs produce prodigious amounts of seeds and berries, enticing the many bird species to continue to nest at Birdwhistle.

Preserving the spacious woods has been a boon to birds and wildlife in the area, too. “It is an important bird habitat, I would say, for that neighborhood,” Lippert offers. “When you combine it with habitat across the creek, which is also mature, it’s a nice corridor. If you go further upstream and across the creek, Charley Harper did a lot of his wildlife paintings up in there. He was a nationally recognized artist…. It’s neat knowing that [particular area of] woods has inspired a lot of people.”

As we near the end of the half-mile of forest trail painstakingly laid by Ed, Nancy says, “Oh, I wish you could come back. Each week it all changes. Every day it’s a different garden.”

Photography by Daylight Photo