A garden, like the clothes we wear, the music we listen to and the culinary tastes we enjoy, is a reflection of who we are—a living, growing, blooming expression of our personalities. Albert Austin, who succeeded Alfred Lloyd Tennyson as poet laureate of the United Kingdom in the late 1800s, put it succinctly when he penned: “Show me your garden and I will tell you what you are.”
With that in mind we visited three local green thumbs, learned of their gardening flights of fancy and strolled their delightful grounds. Turns out, all three are extremely artistic, have favorite parts of their gardens and, true to Austin’s sentiments, have managed to infuse the essence of themselves into their outdoor wonderlands.
A Fairytale Garden
In 1995, after Bette DeMars’ daughter left for college, DeMars realized she needed something else to occupy her time. So, she picked up some gardening gloves, brought in a designer from Bachman’s to help her with the bones of the project and got to work. Over the next fifteen years, she bit-by-bit added pieces, like a water feature here and a perennial garden there, to create what truly is a miniature fairy garden.
“I’m artistic, so gardening is a way to express myself,” says DeMars as we meander through one of the “mini-gardens” on the property that once was filled with scrub trees and overgrowth. “By adding different areas within the garden, I could really create something new each time, and that just made it all the more enjoyable.”
And enjoyable it is. There is the waterfall and water-loving plants, including lotus, hyacinth and lilies; the perennial garden with stately baptisias, weigela, hostas and morning glories; a hidden garden near the back of the property that is filled with jack in the pulpit, primrose and a meditative rock garden; a vegetable garden her husband recently added that is the favorite of several not-so-shy bunnies; the formal herb garden created out of cobblestones with a lovely stone bench and trellis filled with meandering clematis and boxwood; the pergola. And that’s just the short list.
But, hands-down, the most beloved part of her garden is the space filled with the most whimsy: a miniature fairy garden, complete with diminutive potentilla, cotoneaster, arborvitae and perfectly crafted fairy houses she finds at a local nursery.
“Yes, this garden is my favorite,” says DeMars unabashedly. “When I was very young and my parents would entertain, I would set up little displays using my Madame Alexander dolls and put on a show for the guests. And one day I went to a garden show and someone had a miniature garden; I thought, ‘Golly, there’s me.’ I knew that’s what I had to do.”
But of course, it wouldn’t be a fairy garden without fairies, so DeMars has fairies on swings, fairies cavorting on delicate moss glens, fairies in tiny doorways. Her fairy garden is so well known in the neighborhood that kids frequently drop in for a visit, and in some cases, have been known to leave dainty winged pixies when DeMars isn’t looking.
“At times I think the garden is finished,” says DeMars as she scans her accomplishment after our tour, a look of satisfaction on her face. “But a garden is always a work in progress. Now I just get to enjoy it.”
Especially Espalier
When you first pull up in front of Katherine Aby’s home on her double lot, there is little doubt you have come upon the home of an avid gardener—and of a consummate artist. From the mosaic front steps to the undulating wrought iron fence and swinging entrance gate to the iron cresting and cupola that adorn the roof of the delightfully blue home, it is chock full of personality and creativity.
And that’s before you’ve even stepped foot in the garden.
This personality and creativity is abundantly evident when you throw open the gate and see some of Katherine’s pride and joy: her espaliers. “Espalier is a method of shaping woody plants into artistic designs that grow only in one plane,” says Aby, who teaches espalier classes at her home and the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, has a website (espalierservices.com) and has written a booklet, Espalier: Essentials of the Candelabra Pattern, on the subject. “It became popular in the middle ages when monks had monastery gardens with little space. I love it because it’s artistic, but it also requires problem solving.”
Aby’s garden features a “K” shaped espalier and a candelabra-shaped espalier using Honeycrisp apple trees (which are 100% fruiting, says Aby), espalier fencing, and an espalier nursery with about 30 plants in “U” and goblet shapes she start growing in preparation for upcoming classes. “I truly love the challenge of it,” she says.
In addition to the numerous espaliers, Aby’s garden is also filled with a multitude of little areas to linger. Behind her home, there’s an ethereal chartreuse garden complete with a sitting area, welcoming stone patio and Little Leaf lindens Aby pleaches to control the size. Elsewhere, there’s a serene circle garden with relaxing chairs, reflecting pool and obelisk under the canopy of a stunning Kentucky coffeetree. Then, there’s a courtyard with a pergola, an al fresco dining table and an annual flowering vine display. Top it off with a vegetable garden and more.
And, as a nod to her creativity, Aby adorns her garden with special touches: Barbie dolls displayed here and there (“I didn’t have Barbie dolls growing up, so I can play with them with impunity,” she says), finials she fashions out of metal poles and dainty teacups, garden sculptures she creates from concrete-filled basketballs, a bird bath that began as an old platter and a tree stump, and a clothesline pole Aby jazzed up with iron cresting.
“I garden not only for myself, but also for my neighbors and walkers so they can have something pleasant to look at,” says Aby. “And, I like to think that my garden is a reflection of who I am and the things I love.”
An Ode to a Grandmother
“Looking back, I guess my love for gardening began when I was very young because I remember always begging my grandmother to water her flowers,” says Pam Rietkerk as we stroll through her large shade garden that covers almost her entire backyard. “I just loved being in her garden.”
Rietkerk, who is also a fiber collage artist and florist, has been in her home for eleven years and knew it was for her from the moment she walked in. “The previous owner was an artist and a gardener as well, so it was just the perfect fit.”
This perfect fit is evidenced by the love and care Rietkerk gives her gardens. With an artist’s eye (she has been known to move plants from one spot to another or just a few inches to make it more aesthetically pleasing) and with a nostalgic heart, Rietkerk has reminders of people she’s loved and those special in her life in her garden. There is an urn that once graced her grandmother’s gravesite that is filled with dainty dianthus, a pine tree that she brought with her from a previous home, an evergreen that was given to her by a neighbor, shamrock plants that were her mother’s, and the beautiful rocks that were left behind by the previous owner and collected by Rietkerk and her family.
And, every year she buys a hosta from Savory’s Gardens in Edina because she has an affinity for the elderly owner. “This year it was a ‘Remember Me’ hosta they had created and named after a little girl who passed away,” says Rietkerk. “I thought that was such a sweet thing to do and I wanted it to be part of my garden.”
Under the canopy of pine trees is an oasis of hostas, astilbe, bleeding hearts, begonias, Georgia Peach heuchera, pachysandra and stunning Annabelle hydrangeas enveloping a handmade 4-person swing that once belonged to her good friend, that just happens to be one of Pam’s favorite spots in the garden. “We sit out here, have dinner here, and the other day I was rocking my grandson here,” she says.
Rietkerk has carried her passion for gardening onto the side yard with a trellis-loving vegetable garden, and to the front yard where she has created eye-catching beds on either side of the driveway filled with the likes of evergreen, viburnum, pulmonaria, phlox, ligularia, Tina crabapple, and another of Pam’s favorites, black lace elderberry. She also planted an Invincible Spirit hydrangea, from which part of the purchase money is donated to breast cancer research.
“The garden is finally starting to come into to its own now,” says Pam. “It really just makes me smile.” Suffice to say, her grandmother would be pleased.
