A Glimpse Of   The Garden:

A Pleasurable Transformation

By Nancy K. Crevier

“A Glimpse Of The Garden” is a miniseries focusing on the heart of a gardener’s work — a special spot, an extraordinary plant, a place of respite, or a place that evokes a heartfelt memory. What is down the garden path of your friends and neighbors? What is down your garden path?

For nearly all of the 40 years that Diana Johnson and her husband, Wayland, lived in their home, the 80-foot long bank behind the house “was a disgrace,” she said. “It was just a wedge of ivy and some horrible juniper, and I didn’t know what to do with it,” she said. Ending just feet from the house, it offered no redeeming view, said Ms Johnson.

“Then one day about five years ago, I heard Rob Dietter, a water garden expert from North Haven, speak at one of the Town and Country Garden Club meetings, and I knew this was someone who could help,” said Mrs Johnson. She had been to the premier flower garden show in Philadelphia, and had served as a docent at the Hartford Flower Show, but it was really Mr Dietter’s talk that caught her imagination and made her realize “that we could do something with this bank area.” She contacted Mr Dietter and the seeds of imagination took root.

Today, she and her husband awaken to the burble of a meandering waterfall that cuts through the bank from the base of a crabapple tree at the top of the ridge to a goldfish pond at the base of the bank, where a great blue heron has been known to enjoy fishing on occasion. They gaze through the sliding glass doors of their bedroom onto a scene that is a joyous burst of color. Around the pond, clumps of umbrella palm cyperus spread their fronds next to the bobbing white blossoms of lizard neck plants. Tiny clusters of barley straw edge the pool, adding not only texture to the scene, but aiding to abate the growth of algae.

Not the usual pond flora, sweet potato vines thrive at the edge of the pond.

“I just threw them in one day to see what would happen, and they went crazy there,” said Mrs Johnson.

A crimson colored blossom blooms on top of lily pads that shade the nearly two dozen white and orange goldfish darting about in the pond.

“We had a wonderful landscaper come in after Rob installed the waterfall and design the garden for us, and then we installed the plants,” said Mrs Johnson. The curves of the foundation plantings reach out into the flagstone patio, creating a smooth transition to the bank and rock-edged pond swathed in a low growing sedum.

Above the pond and stretching to either side of the waterfall, the bank retains no memory of its former drab days. Mounds of cotoneaster shrubs are covered in tiny blossoms in spring, and provide greenery through summer and into the days of winter. Dark green Christmas ferns add contrast to waves of lime green hay-scented fern. Lavender flowers nod at the ends of the long stems jutting upward from the variegated leaves of hosta plants, and frothy flowers of deep rose astilbe, bright red bee balm, and mustard yellow black-eyed Susans add bright dabs of color from start to finish along the bank.

“I moved just one or two little Echinacea plants from further down, where I have a wild flower plot, to other spots on the bank, ” said Mrs Johnson, “and they love it.” The lavender-pink flowers spill down the bank in several areas, each orange cone-shaped center a nectar-filled heliport for circling bumblebees.

At one end of the bank garden, spring-blooming bergenia shade the ground with summer’s broad, deep green leaves. More astilbe lean over them on the steep slope, and every few feet the entire length of the garden, clumps of ornamental grasses rustle in the breeze. Bleeding heart have been cut to the ground for mid-summer, but are a welcome spring flower each year.

“The landscaper suggested the Japanese ornamental grasses on either side of the waterfall, and then we have added other grasses since,” Ms Johnson said. “A lot of them are gifts from friends.”

The challenge, she said, is to have a succession of blooming flowers all summer. Potted flowers and a few annual plants help resolve the seasonal blooming gaps that occasionally occur. A potted hibiscus tree boasts huge red flowers, and a deep red clematis climbs up the trellis from another urn set into the bank. Lime green coleus, shot through with maroon, hover over a footing of pale green sweet potato vines in another planter. They pale in comparison, though, next to the intensely blue blossoms of the hydrangea bush that acts as a colorful summer anchor at the far end of the garden.

Even in winter, the evergreen cotoneaster and spikes of yucca provide contrast to the white snow that drapes the bank, she said. And large rocks, not visible under summer’s foliage, add variety to the winter scene, Mrs Johnson said.

The bank garden is not the only garden on the Johnson property, but it is the one that gives her the greatest amount of pleasure. “It’s easy to maintain, now that it has filled in. I spend a little time in it in the spring. There’s maintenance to do, and weeding for that first clean-up after winter. Then, I probably spend just an hour or two each week doing a little up keep,” said Ms Johnson. “It’s really something, and such a wonderful difference from what we put up with for years,” she said.

That is what is down the garden path at Diana and Wayland Johnson’s.

A slideshow with additional photos, including those shown here, can be seen at www.NewtownBee.com. Look for this story under the Features tab.