Garden Tours

I had the opportunity recently on successive Wednesday mornings to visit five backyard gardens in the neighborhood as part of a U of MN OLLI seniors' program. I use the word "neighborhood" loosely here. One of the gardens was in West Bloomington, another in Bryn Mawr; one was a few blocks from the Parkway Theater in South Minneapolis, and two of the five were in suburbs not far from my house: Crystal and New Hope. All five were owned and tended by Master Gardeners, a designation reserved for those who have completed a program of instruction run by the University's Extension Service.

I haven't taken a "class" in many years. For the most part, I'd rather just read a book, proceeding at my own pace, following leads and digressions and taking a break or "dropping out" when I lose interest or another subject attracts my attention. I have a row of books sitting near at hand that I intend to get back to soon: The Beethoven Quartets; The Unity of the Odyssey; Susan Sontag: as Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh..

But seeing a garden is a lot different than reading about gardens, and I enjoyed both the variety of styles and the unstructured character of the presentations. The hosts described their efforts and offered bits of advice as they led us—a group of maybe thirty women and men—across swards of grass and along flagstone paths through varieties of hosta, for example, that would almost rival those at the U of MN's landscape arboretum.

Some of the students knew each other. One woman told me she meets every week with five or six friends, some of whom were also there, to go walking. "Where do you walk?" I asked. "We pick a different route every week," she said.

One of the gardeners had dedicated most of her yard to edibles. Her peach tree was laden with 210 peaches, she told us. And there they were! She also told us how to prepare beds to grow blueberries, described the advantages of creeping thyme as a substitute for grass, and advised us when to eat the leaves on our linden trees. (Early.) 

As we made our way around the house she paused to eat a pod off a radish plant that had gone to seed weeks ago.

"Not bad," she said.

Once the group had continued on into the back yard, I tried one myself. (Terrible!)

The highlight of the garden in West Bloomington was an impressive waterfall cascading down to a stream, under a bridge, and into a swamp lined with colorful pink Joe-Pye Weed (I think). The plantings themselves were gorgeous, but I lost interest when the woman began to describe how the waterfall actually worked--I'll never build one--and I ducked out the back.

From the master gardener in Bryn Mahr I learned why we shouldn't have planted Amur maples along our fence-line (he had planted a few himself), and what we should sprinkle on our lawn in spring as a pre-emergent inhibitor: corn gluten meal. I was happy to learn that he treated his compost pile to benign neglect, the same way I do, though he emphasized that it's important to keep it wet. And he also offered this sage advice: Never divide a hosta. I don't know why he said that, and I never got around to asking.

Before long I found myself offering authoritative-sounding advice to bystanders who wanted to know if wild ginger spread (not that much) and what color the blossoms on a redbud are (not red but pinkish purple).

On our final week we met at a house in Crystal that was build in the early 1960s. The owner described his back yard as a woodland garden, but it looked very prim and open to me. The pebbled paths occupied more space than the plants, and the patio/entertainment center, located well away from the house, was like something out of House Beautiful. All very nice ... but not the way I would do it.

If you want to see a woodland garden in all its ragged glory, come to our house. 

But isn't that one of the pleasures of gardening? You work with your soil, and your patterns of light, your budget, your level of enthusiasm, and your sense of taste. It was obvious to me that the gardeners featured in the tour were spending a lot of time on their gardens, whether in the spirit of recreation or religious devotion. I didn't see a familiar annual anywhere. No impatiens, no browallia, no ageratum.

I can well imagine that many of the students finished the round of visits inspired by a few new ideas, but also gratified to recognize or reaffirm that the garden waiting for them back at the house wasn't all that bad, either. 

And by the way, did I tell you about our new volunteer cherry orchard? Or the hummingbird summer-sweet we brought home from Gerten's the other day?