Plymouth Magazine, April 2005

Paradise in Plymouth

By Kelly Westhoff

Spring is just around the corner. Soon, pots of red petunias and white pansies will appear on neighborhood stoops. Beds of tulips and daffodils will compete for first bloom. Tightly rolled hosta leaves will push through the ground before slowly unfurling into the ubiquitous, lush, low-lying green trim of a Minnesota summer. Ah. It is almost gardening season.

While some Plymouth residents just can't wait to get outside and start digging around in the dirt, others are more wary about the thought of renovating their backyard design. It may be nice to have a new flower bed over by the fence, but the shoveling, the tilling and the planting just sound like too much work.

But sometimes, landscape designs do need an overhaul. Jeanna Smith, a horticulturist for Bachman's and a Plymouth resident, has reworked her own backyard many times. "The garden I planted 15 years ago," she said, "has evolved. As a neighborhood grows, shade develops in different spots and that changes where you will want a bench to sit or where certain flowers will grow."

Surely, Smith isn't the only Plymouth homeowner to experience growing shade in her backyard. As the once newly-developed neighborhoods of Plymouth become more and more established, trees are filling out and shade is moving in. This year may indeed be the year to tackle a backyard redesign. In the following pages, we'll feature three Plymouth residents who took on their aging backyards and couldn't be happier with the results. Perhaps their landscape successes will help motivate you for the planting and landscaping season ahead.

Jeanna Smith

Jeanna Smith, the Bachman's horticulturist, remembers moving into her Plymouth neighborhood 15 years ago. &They had mowed everything down to develop the land," she said. "There were no trees. The yard wasn't even grated. And my backyard sloped down to a pond so the lower yard was all wet."

Yet Smith didn't panic at the sight of her barren land. Instead, she saw it as an opportunity. The first thing she did was plant trees that would grow quickly and bring shade to her open space. In the moist dirt near the pond, she planted river birch and chokeberry bushes.

Then, because her home was on a corner lot, Smith planted ash and dogwood trees along her side yard. The ash and dogwood promised to spread their foliage wide and block her view of the road. In addition, the dogwood's branches turn red in the winter, adding a much needed jolt of color to the dullness of January.

Another gardening project Smith tackled that first spring in her home was the planting of peonies. Before moving to Plymouth, Smith dug up peony bushes from her previous yard. The peonies held sentimental value for her—they had belonged to her grandmother. Peonies, Smith noted, grow well when left in the same site for years. Because of this, she wondered how they would handle a move across town. Yet the peonies survived and continue to bloom in her Plymouth yard.

Since that first summer in her yard, Smith has continued to add new perennials to her backyard mix. She counts shrub roses, Asiatic lilies, anemones and baptisia among her blooming plants. By paying attention to bloom times listed on plant labels, she has been able to fashion a garden that blooms continually throughout Minnesota's growing season.

"I love the quiet of spring," she explained, "when the garden is just waking up. The first blooms are the blues and purples. And then there is the riot of summer's reds, yellows and oranges. And then there are the rich rust colors of fall."

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of Smith's garden is her absolute commitment to organic methods of growing. After moving into her home, it wasn't long, she said, before she realized that because her yard slopes, any fertilizer she used would eventually drain into her backyard pond. To avoid polluting her pond, which is a breeding ground for frogs and toads, as well as a drinking source for birds and other wildlife, Smith decided to stop using lawn chemicals all together.

Since that time, her plants have thrived and wildlife has made her backyard its home. "In the spring, I can lie in the grass by the pond, stretch out my hand and touch 50 baby toads," she said.

While some may see the wildlife as a nuisance, Smith knows otherwise. "The frogs and toads are beneficial to me. They eat mosquitoes and slugs," she pointed out.

"Because I encourage birds, and humming birds, and butterflies in my yard," she added, "I know that if I see aphids on my flowers, they won't last long; birds eat insects."

"Any plant that is doing well," Smith added, "has its own system for fighting off disease—like our immune systems. As long as a plant is healthy, it will fight off disease itself."

Healthy plants fight disease, but so does a diverse garden. "Don't plant a monoculture," Smith warned. "If a garden is diverse it forms its own little ecosystem. The more the garden puts back into the soil, the fewer problems you have with anything—from aphids, to ladybugs."

Peggy and Wayne Willenberg

When Wayne and Peggy Willenberg bought their Plymouth home in 1993, they knew they would need the help of a landscape designer. Their home was on a five-acre lot that included a small prairie, a wooded area and a low lying spot that seemed to continually hold a pool of water. This was clearly too much yard to tackle alone.

In 2001, The Willenbergs called Diane Hilscher of Hilscher Design and Ecology, an independent landscape design firm. Years earlier, Peggy Willenberg, intent on turning the low-lying, water-holding area into a pond, had hired a backhoe to dig out the space. The makeshift pond quickly filled with rain and water runoff. However, just as quickly, cattails sprouted and spread. The Willenbergs' pond was choking.

"Diane drew up a plan for our pond and the area around it," Peggy Willenberg explained. "Now there is the pond, which is a fairly large basin, and a small stream that runs into the wooded area. There's a bridge over the stream and a natural looking waterfall. It's about three feet high. It's a real pretty little cascade."

The waterfall serves dual purposes. Not only is it pretty, it also helps to aerate the pond. A weeping willow grows nearby and a bench has been placed in the willow's shade. The cattails are gone. In their place, masses of wildflowers and ferns rim the pond. Irises add color along the banks of the stream.

Once the pond was completed, the Willenberg's introduced minnow and gold fish to the water. Turtles, frogs and toads have since made the pond home as well. Wood ducks, ducks, egrets and great blue herons come often to the pond to breed, drink and eat.

But with five-acres of land, the Willenberg's needed more than a pond design. Since completing landscaping work around the pond, Hilscher has continued to work on the Willenbergs' property which now includes a fire pit, a rock garden, a vegetable garden, a formal English garden, a strolling garden and a patio/entertaining area that features a small wading pool.

Plus, the entire front yard has been allowed to grow as a natural prairie that provides much-needed habitat for meadow larks and bobolinks, two native birds that depend on unmolested prairie grounds for breeding.

In fact, Hilscher has done such extensive work designing the Willenbergs' yard that she just won the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association's highest award. In December, the association awarded Hilscher the Honor Award for the Entire Landscape category. The yard has also been featured in the both the Star Tribune and Midwest Home and Garden.

In past years, the Willenbergs' yard has been featured in the Twin Cities Parade of Ponds. No word yet on whether or not it will be on the list this summer. However, if it is, this full-yard design is sure to create some envy.

Debbie Enyeart

Debbie Enyeart needed to do something about her patio. Over time, the once flat concrete slabs had heaved and cracked. Plus, the timber retaining walls that divided her flower beds were rotting. Her backyard was in need a massive makeover. Enyeart was willing to do away with practically every aspect of her old landscape design—everything, but her rose bushes. She had nearly 80 growing in her backyard.

To help her get started, Enyeart contacted Dundee Nursery. Dundee has a staff of landscape designers that specialize in helping homeowners conceptualize and plan their yards. Enyeart worked with Dundee's Polly Stevens to make her dream backyard a reality.

"Many homeowners," Stevens said, "call up a landscape designer in May and want their garden by June. But they aren't taking into account the planning process. The designing stage is a very organic process," Stevens continued. "We do a lot of talking back and forth to make sure you get what you want, and it does take time. But if you start planning in February, then you can get things in the ground right away in May."

Enyeart started her design process with Stevens during the winter. The two met numerous times to hammer out details for Enyeart's backyard. As soon as May came around, Enyeart's property was first on the list for a Dundee crew. By Memorial Day, her redesign had been finished.

And the redesign was just what Enyeart wanted. Her rectangular patio has been turned into a circular entertaining space. The buckled concrete slabs are gone. In their place are neutral-colored paver stones laid in the repeating pattern of a water ripple. "The curved space has a much more intimate feel," said Enyeart. People turn their chairs in to face the circle. It just fosters communication."

Additionally, short flights of stairs now divide what was once a large, flat space into a multi-tiered, terraced patio. The terraced design allowed Enyeart to have garden space built into her patio. It is here that she found a place for the rose bushes she so loved. Before the Dundee crew jack-hammered her old patio, they carefully dug up the roses and moved them aside. Once the paver stones had been laid, the crew then replanted the roses in the spaces opened by the terracing. Now, when the roses are in full bloom, Enyeart's patio is filled with their scent.

The terracing also allowed Enyeart to add a waterfall and small pond to her backyard, a dream she'd harbored, but didn't think possible. But now, Enyeart said, "The sound of the waterfall is just so relaxing. In the summer, when I open the windows, I can even hear it inside."

Since her backyard makeover in 2000, Enyeart's roses have continued to spread. She has filled in the terracing with day lilies and irises to supplement the textures and colors of both foliage and blooms. Thinking back to her flat patio, Enyeart laughed. "I spend so much more time outside now," she said. "The backyard just has a great sense of privacy. And it's just such a timeless design. It's classy. And it's just so relaxing."

back to top