Pretty Gardens All in a Row

by Mary Jasch

Bebe’s Garden: Fruit of the Land



There were a few tenets that Bebe followed beginning 30 years ago. One is that the beds be orderly and the other that most plants came from just a few, like Noah’s Ark for plants. Propagation and sharing enabled the transformation from grass to garden.

“Bebe knew flowers – how to take them and plant them,” says Dan. “She had the knowledge and ability to buy a plant, separate it and move it all around. My wife landscaped the all of the property and I worked along with her.”

A home grown business of exotic birds, crafts and plants had allowed for many hours of tinkering in the garden by Dan and Bebe. Now Dan handles the extraordinary attention that an acre packed with perennials, shrubs and trees demands.

The butterfly koi are already 16 years old that live in the shale-edged pond under the sugar maple. Yellow iris embellishes their beauty. A tiny bog garden tucks into more flamboyant iris.

Around the maple and down into the side yard. The garden’s intensity is unexpected! As far as you can see – linear beds and beds of burgeoning botanicals. Down a grass path through a grass garden to the left and rhubarb and asparagus patches to the right. Near the house, hosta and astilbe grow ten feet deep. Perennials jumping everywhere.

Potted fig tree with the sweetest fruit, hardy kiwi, gooseberries, honey berries, grapes that ripen sequentially, black currants. Dan makes yummy liqueurs from them all. And he can tell you how.

Lots of bird houses once provided nesting for interesting birds: titmice, bluebirds, chickadees, swallows – before the local feline hunter came around.

“I like gardening, but she always had a passion for it,” Dan says. “She was the architect and I was the digger. We did everything together.”

A row of plum trees underplanted with lily-of-the-valley, rows of apple, pear, cherry… Bebe canned things up, made preserves, gave fruit away. She started quince trees from seed; Dan pollinates pawpaw with a paintbrush. (People in the Catskills really like their fruit trees.)

Another row grows Cornelian Cherry. Next, a patch of Fall Gold raspberries. Perennials and blooming shrubs grow with the fruit trees. Kiwi is bordered by peonies and yucca.

Why so many fruit trees instead of, say, flowering dogwood? “I love the fruit. I love the flowers. I have ornamental cherries. I like the idea of the fruit that I can pick. I got a lot here. We would use some and give some away: apples, peaches, plums, cherries.”

In the butterfly garden, tall perennials stand upright in wire cages: stock, phlox, monarda, gooseneck lysimachia, eupatorium, salvia, buddleia. The quince hedge, eight feet high in some sections, stops deer from coming into the garden.

There is hardly a lawn to be seen – just grass in the paths. Everywhere, there’s a place to park in an Adirondack chair in the shade.

....................
More grounds articles

Print this story: Printer-friendly page

published July 09, 2010