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Louise started her gardening business 15
years ago out of the back of a Volvo station wagon, with a bunch of
tools at the beginning of the new gardening renaissance. Now, over 75
gardens later, she still develops, designs, plans and creates gardens
for clients the same basic way.
IT’S ALL IN THE
SOIL
“It
all starts with great soil,” Adie says. Her method is not unique, but
is labor intensive. First she sits down with the new client, together looking
through books and magazines to get a sense of color and bed shape ideas. Many
clients have some idea of where they’d like to start a new bed, others
remain open to suggestion. These are ambitious projects, usually something
an aspiring gardener has given much thought to over the years. Once settled
on a plant list, Louise then sets about removing the sod, either by manually
lifting it with special tools and labor, or letting the weed killing chemicals
do the job. She has even killed grass using newspapers left to do the task
over the winter. First the garden is edged to create delineation between lawn
and new garden bed. Next, she sets about breaking up the soil with rototillers.
A small tiller gets into corners while the big tiller tackles the rest of the
soil. Amendments, such as locally created compost or brewer’s waste from
a beer plant are added. A thick layer of this is worked into the soil along
with a balanced fertilizer. The hardest clay soils are supplemented with gypsum
to prevent re-caking. The soil is smoothed, the plants are added and a thick
layer of compost or finely ground bark mulch is dressed on top. Under the mulch
goes a layer of weed inhibitor. Over the years Adie claims this product has
reduced weeding by over 95%. After yearly applications of compost and/or mulch
the soil becomes rich and crumbly.
These steps are critical in creating any garden. In fact Louise once
created a garden out of a driveway which still thrives to this day, using
all the above methods.
“I broke 3 tillers on that job,” she says. “It took
us 3 days with tillers and pick axes but we finally got all the gravel
out.” No new topsoil was added, the soil beneath was merely compacted.
Soil testing is generally not called for.
“Clay soil is traditionally the most nutrient rich of all soils. Trouble
is it’s all locked up. Our challenge is to mechanically break it down
and create a more friable planting medium,” Louise says. “I try
to choose plants that don’t require a special pH. Most plants love clay’s
nutrients.”
RIGHT PLANT, RIGHT PLACE
This is
where the brilliance of Louise’s work shines. It’s one thing to
pick great plants, but quite another to choose plants that will thrive in varying
conditions. Shade, partial shade, full sun, dry, moist, or boggy soil, all
create different environments that plants either accept or reject.
“There’s no fooling Mother Nature,” Louise reminds us. “Plants
can be temperamental, it’s critical they are given the correct site.” Not
only that, it takes an artist’s eye to determine great combinations
and planting companions. To know a plant’s eventual size and blooming
time are the hallmark of an artistic gardener.
Adie says, “The painter chooses color, while the sculptor chooses
bulk and texture to create a work of art. It’s these combined qualities
in plants that I arrange in pleasing ways to create a flower bed.”
Adie claims to love working with plant textures as much or more than
flower color.
“It’s the most delightful challenge to use plants to play
off each other, large, broad leaves against, tiny finely divided leaves, for
instance.” And color doesn’t necessarily come from just the flowers.
More colorful foliage options are available in the nurseries today than ever
before. Combinations or single colors of bronze, purple, brown, rust, maroon,
nearly black, chartreuse, lime green, pale sagey greens, frosted and variegated
foliage provide a rich palette of foliar colors to choose from. A visit to
the Garden Gallery photo pages will demonstrate some of these eye popping combinations.
JOY AND PLEASURE FOR YEARS TO COME
“My
most emotional moment with a client came when I returned the second year to
see how her garden was going. She hugged me and cried,” Adie recalls. “She
told me she’d waited over 20 years to have the garden of her dreams.
She had waited until all the kids were in college or moved on, her husband’s
career had taken off, they had the home of their dreams, totally completed,
two great cars and now it was her turn. I can’t imagine what that must
have been like for her. She told me her garden sparkled and shone like jewels.
And that sometimes she would just stand there in the fading light at days’ end,
just staring at it.”
These gardens
normally look rich and full in one years’ time. They evolve over time,
plants sometimes fade away making room for others. Friends share divisions,
new cultivars become available. Sometimes when a small trouble spot appears
in a garden and it seems nothing will ever grow the spot can be filled with
a small, tough shrub, or even a rock. When that happens, as the case with the
rock, it can be surrounded by small low growing ground covers, charming the
rock’s edges.
Many of
Louise’s current customer’s gardens are over 10 years old, some
nearly 14. Not much has changed, not the customer’s love of the garden,
not the shape, only the passing of a few plants with new ones welcomed. Naturally,
the gardens have become fuller and more luxurious.
Serendipity
is the hallmark of great plant combinations. While working in the garden a
customer may look to one side and see a particularly striking arrangement,
just the way certain stems bend, the colors of the flowers and the way they
play off each other. Louise has taught them to have this eye, saying “I
have at times taken them by the hand and shown them these great combinations
so they can enjoy them on their own. These are the stirring moments all gardeners
are rewarded by. In the end, these are their gardens and I’m just a visitor.”
ANTICIPATION
Perhaps
the saddest part of gardening is the demise of a garden’s presence come
winter. “When the daffodils appear I always expect to see Louise coming
up the driveway,” says a long time client. From the very tiny bulbs of
early spring, through the mid-spring favorites, such as foxglove, lupines and
iris, through the stirringly beautiful charm of the Japanese anemones at seasons’ end,
all gardeners are rife with the anticipation of what’s just about to
bloom. Anticipation runs high throughout the season, leading the gardener from
one blooming phase through the next. It’s this short season that creates
it, says one client. “There’s such an urgency here, that gardeners
in more southerly reaches don’t experience. So much blooms so quickly,
you turn your back and what was blooming one day is gone for another year,
while three more bloom out to take its place. The garden’s always in
such a rush!”
START YOUR OWN GARDEN
Maybe it’s
time for you to start your own garden. With Louise’s help you’ll
have the confidence to carry your own garden into the future. Sometimes all
it takes is a gentle guiding hand and a bit of labor to bring the garden of
your dreams to fruition.
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