Gifts from Mother Nature

I will never forget the day in 1973 or 74 that my father came home to tell us that we were leaving our house in a neighborhood in Jackson and headed to what used to be the country out in Madison County. My parents found some acreage and a fixer-upper off of Highway 51 so we could start living some dreams. We were into horses. This would make it way easier than keeping them at a barn in Jackson. My parents also wanted to start their second garden Center where they believed Jackson was growing towards, turns out they were right. They got the house livable and kept working on the house and the property while we were living there and getting ready to go to MRA. I started going to MRA in the fourth grade and stayed there until I graduated in 1982.

In my memory, none of my siblings had their drivers license yet so I think mom was still dropping us off at school for the first few years until Ginny, my oldest sister, got her license and relieved mom of her duties. At that point, the car that we had to get back-and- forth to school was an MG with a convertible roof. Ginny and Karen sat in the front seats and me and Chip basically sat on the back of the car. Back then it was more of an “anything goes“ kind of thing. It was so much fun to go to a school that was more like family because of its small size and the community that we all came from was relatively small. Everybody knew each other in all the grades and it seems like all the parents knew each other and kind of hung out at the football games and any other excuse that we could come up with to get together.

By the time I got into junior high I started playing on the football team because that’s just what you did back then. My brother and I played football at MRA until we graduated from there. Our team was just big enough to be a team. Once that whistle blew at the beginning of the night, most of us just stayed on the field until the game was over. We didn’t have enough players for anyone to just play offense or just play defense, we all played offense, defense, kickoff, team, kickoff return team, and we didn’t have very many winning years because of it. But we did have a lot of fun! I remember one of the years we won zero games and lost 10. That was not one of the fun years, but it did get downright funny towards the end. We just couldn’t pull off a win.

During those years we developed friendships that will last a lifetime. We all grew up together, goofed up together and had some successes together. That is when my relationship with MRA began. When I drive past MRA now it’s hard to believe how much that place has grown and changed into what it is. It’s still on the same property it always was on, but it has packed in more places for classes and more fields for sports, it looks great! I think us that went to school back in those days were the lucky ones. We had a lot of freedoms that I think kids these days don’t get anymore. Or maybe I should say we got it away with a lot. We didn’t have cell phones or computers so socializing was a very different thing during those days. I know a lot of my friends from those days sent their kids to MRA to have a similar experience.

When the committee that has grown the MRA tour of gardens to what it is today asked Mimi and I if we would be interested in having our yard on the tour I just couldn’t say no. Mimi and I started planning how to best show our yard right after they asked last year. We love to have big color in our yard and May is one of the best times to be able to show some color that is well established, and some fresh new color for the spring. Fall of last year We planted every nook and cranny with winter Hardy annuals that sometimes make it all the way until May. We went to our photos and checked a few years to see what lasted into May when we would allow it. It looked like the Fox Gloves and Snapdragons and Poppies and Delphinium‘s were still showing lots of color by May on some of the past years, but it was definitely showing signs of it being towards the end of the bloom cycle. We decided to risk it and take a little stress off of ourselves by having some of the bigger areas already planted up with established color instead of just having fresh planted spring bedding plants, which aren’t that great to show until they get bigger later in May. As the time has approached, we spend our afternoons dead heading the older snap dragons in Fox gloves and anything else that has spent blooms on it to ensure that we have plenty blooms for the tour tomorrow.

I am relieved to say that it looks like our plan has worked! I planted a few other plants last fall that were new to me that also look like they will be there for us when we need them the most. I planted Campanula next to all the fox gloves in case we need it back up for tall spiky blooms. The type of campanula that we grew by seed is one that puts up a spike that is 3 feet tall and covered in pastel blooms, it’s in full bloom right now so it has become my new best friend. I also grew from seed lots of other plants that take our winters and bloom well into the spring, such as Mullien, four or five different kinds of Poppies, Wallflower and Cardoon. I knew that card was in the artichoke family, but it turns out it is actually artichoke and my Cardoon plants that are two years old are making artichokes just in time for people to see it tomorrow. Some of the plants that I grew from seed are really showing off right now, and my Centauria, bachelors button, is blooming in blue red or pink all over the yard. I planted sweet peas last fall and put obelisks above them, hoping they would be blooming this time of year. As soon as it started warming up the sweet peas filled up the obelisks and are blooming perfectly in pastel blue, pink and white.

Mimi and I were handed a few nice gifts for mother nature that we didn’t expect. We have a very old agave that decided this is the year to go into bloom. We walked past this plant nearly every day and never saw it coming. One day we stopped to look at it and it had a giant asparagus looking bloom beginning to come out of the center. Two days later, the spike was two or 3 feet tall and it is now 20 feet tall with more growth to go, it is stunning. We were gifted with lots of red yucca blooms in places around the yard where we strategically placed them in large groupings of 10 or more. The magnolia trees that surround our yard and give us our final dark green layer are going into full bloom this week, we couldn’t have asked for anything more than that. For some reason this year, all of our kniphofia, red, hot poker, is blooming its head off. We have tried to do well with that plant over the last 10 years and just never could get as much out of it as we’re getting this year. In our native area of the yard our buckeyes are in full bloom and our Oakleaf hydrangeas are looking great with their white blooms.

The folks in charge of getting this together are really good at choosing the right dates. So much has happened in the last two weeks that has transformed our yard into more than we could’ve ever expected as far as the plants being flushed out and ready. We also added a lot of spring annuals in case my gamble on the fall annuals didn’t work so you will see lots of well established blooming plants as well as spring and summer hardy annuals and perennials that are a bit younger and fresh. There is a certain color orange that Mimi decided she loved years ago that it turns out there are quite a few plants they provide that color orange that is just electric and can be seen from all the vantage points in our yard. We can get that electric orange from a certain Geranium that we grow, Sunpatients, Dipladina, bronze Snap dragons and we even have two chairs and a giant umbrella that

are the exact same color as that electric orange that she chose. That orange is everywhere you look in our yard up high and down low. My roses were cut back on time and then we had a cool snap and my new Growth got burned back so I worried about the timing on the roses.

Just last week we realized that the blooms were going to be right on time for this weekend’s show which was a huge relief because they are a major part of our color palette all over the yard. We use red knockout roses where we need blooms up high and we use coral drift roses where we need color down low, they have all kicked into full bloom right on time for the show. We created a new bed in the center of our yard where we used dark red barberries flank by golden barberries by blue Juniper, flanked by hundreds of lambs ear providing tons of color, following our dry river bed down to the pond. The color beds are ripping right now and I think will make an astonishing show for the people who get out to see the yards this weekend. There are so many ways to see our yard, from when you enter the yard, people will be tempted to head straight down towards the native plant area, but when you get to that side, you will look across the pond and see the big gravel paths. They’re gonna draw people over towards the garden that is full of color and lots of things to see. We are going to provide a handout when you walk into the yard to describe and name some of the plants that people might be unfamiliar with. I hope people will bring their notepads and their cameras because most likely they’ll be seeing lots of plants that they just don’t recognize. I gave up on trying to control which way people go first when they enter the backyard because there really is no bad way to see this garden.

I know it is supposed to cool off this weekend into the 60s and lower 50s at night which is the very best temperature to see the garden. There may be a little rain that falls, but I think mostly it’s going to be pleasant and cool and people can take their time checking out all our weird stuff. I’m going to do a talk on Saturday afternoon around 4 o’clock about using our garden as a pallet. It really does look like a painting with all the different colored and texture foliage’s that Mimi and I have slowly, but surely added to this yard in a purposeful way. From everywhere that you stand in our yard you will see chartreuse and burgundy and blue and all the other colors that come from layers and layers of plants over the years, they go all the way back to the tall trees and the bamboo that surround our bowl shaped yard.

I think we picked a great place in the yard to have that seminar where the vantage point is the entire yard so I can talk about each area while we stand there to take notes. I know there will be at least one new business there that will be near the entrance where they will take up tickets. This business offers charcuterie boards for events or for your use at home. I think it goes perfectly with what we’re doing over the weekend. Hopefully the rain this week hasn’t been too much and our plans for parking people in our side field will work. I checked the winch out on my truck just in case I have to help someone get out. I doubt that will be the case as the parking area is pretty high and dry. I have seen a little bit on all the yards and the Montgomery house in Madison that are on the tour and people are in for a

very special treat this year as all of the homes chosen are spectacular.

At every location, someone will do a tablescape which we have done for years at different homes on the MRA tour and it is one of our favorite things to be a part of. Mimi is doing our tablescap so you know it will be something special. Our niece Carly Mckie will also do a presentation at our place using flowers from our yard to show how she puts together some of her work for her business named Bellini blooms. Carly has a very special eye for floral arrangements and if nothing else you should come see the work that she does. It’s very unique and special and some of the most gorgeous floral work I’ve ever seen. Hopefully this will be the perfect weekend for you to involve yourself in this tour for gawking or just good old inspiration and ideas for your garden at home. No one has the same taste and no one gardens the same as another person, but it is always good to plant a seed in your head for future projects in your yard and this is a great way to do it in a casual, “botanical garden“ atmosphere.

Mimi and I will be on hand in the yard to answer any questions that we can help with but mostly it’s a very free and relaxed atmosphere and we welcome you to wander all around our yard and hopefully overlook our flaws that we have and love. You can buy tickets to the tour online or at Garden Works and probably other garden centers around town. You’ll see lots of other fellow gardeners that you know and lots that you don’t know. It’s a great way to bump into people and have a little fun. Gather up your bottle of water and a notepad and a camera and have a little fun this weekend nosing around our yards. We have to mostly thank mother nature for the gifts that she has given us in our yard as we have been sweating the bloom times on so many blooming plants at one time for this very important presentation of our yard. She has pulled through beautifully for us once again! We even managed to get our pond a beautiful clear blue color that we strive for all year long by

using Pond dye and aerators. The blue pond in the middle of all of this is the anchor to the

whole yard. We’ve been sweating that pond acting right for a whole year and it looks like we’re going to get that gift as well. See you Saturday!