Our home is situated on a cul-de-sac, which consequently gives us a "pie slice" shaped yard. The lot is very narrow in front and wide in the rear. The original lot is about 1/3 acre including the area that the house and driveway occupy. We have converted our front lawn into a perennial flower garden with the newest daylily cultivars and our favorite Siberian iris being the focus of the garden. The back yard is landscaped into many different flower beds and also includes two small water gardens. The backyard is much shadier than any other area of our yard and we find it quite restful and relaxing. It's a great place for bird watching when time allows and we are always hopeful this will be year when we have more time. 

Our garden emphasizes mainly daylilies (around 500) and it is a registered American Hemerocallis Society (AHS) Display garden.  At one time there were over 700 cultivars but that is a very large number to "deadhead" every day.   We are gradually downsizing this collection and saving only the best representations and acquiring the "latest and greatest".   Even at that, we expect to maintain approximately 400 to 450 daylilies in the garden.   We've had to make a lot of hard choices this last year to downsize this collection. 

Steve and I are gardeners who love to see the whole yard in bloom. We have collected many different plants, trees and shrubs to bloom throughout the growing season. The season starts every year with  hundreds of daffodils.  Over 100 varieties are grown throughout the yard.   The early iris are next to bloom and with Siberian iris being one of our favorites. Every fall we add more peonies and there are close to 70 varieties of peonies represented here both new and old, including tree peonies. 

The roses were definitely not Steve's favorite plant and most have been given away.   In the shade beds, the many varieties of pulmonaria and epimediums are planted between hosta.   Hosta are another favorite to collect and there are over 100 varieties represented in the yard.  We seem to add a few more cultivars of hosta every year.  We have many clematis as well as oriental, asiatic and orienpet lilies that fill in the beds for continued bloom. 

After the daylilies put on their show during June and July, we finish the season with the mums and asters in the early and late fall. We have left only enough "lawn" to provide paths around the various beds for ourselves, visitors and our  Labrador, Angel. 

The wind sculptures in the yard are the work of Lyman Whitaker.  No matter how brisk the wind is, the sculptures are always graceful and beautiful to watch.

In August 1999, along with our older daughter, Kim, we purchased three additional lots adjacent to our existing property. One of those lots has been incorporated into our existing back yard and is commonly referred to as our South Lot.  The new lot gave us the space to expand our daylily and iris collection which has since been downsized also. There are wide borders of mixed perennials, annuals and small summer blooming shrubs.   The iris collection is now primarily located along a stone wall in the front garden.   Siberian iris are mixed in all the beds.

The big split horse shoe beds on the South Lot that were strictly iris were all redone the fall of 2006.  Most of the iris have been given away.  We decided we wanted more continual color.  Steve brought in 15 yards of top soil to mound them and they have been planted with peonies, our favorite iris, more daylilies, perennials and some annuals. 

The front of this South Lot is on Sixth Street and we think it is finally finished.   Steve completed this area this spring  (2005) with a rustic handrail made from red cedar.    (Thanks to Rick and Irene Johnson, for that last tree cutting trip).  The rock with the natural whole in the center is from their pastures also.)    Half of the slope is faced with limestone.  Topping the limestone wall are different sun loving sedum planted in a patchwork design.  We are still trying to find the perfect sedum for these beds.  It seems we lose several sections every summer.  Some of these sedum are not as sun loving as you would think.  Other varieties are flourishing.   The problem is finding contrasting colors which will do well and compliment each other.   Clematis tangutica is now covering most of the arbor into the yard with yellow blossoms most of the summer which contrasts nicely with the buddleia. 

The other two lots have been planted with special trees.   We don't have any other plans for those lots for now except we use part of one lot for a very large holding bed for daylilies we are phasing out of the yard.  Also, we now have a purple martin house that successfully housed martins two years running.  Steve played a "morning song" for them every dawn for about six weeks and one day they arrived.  We were thrilled and hate to see them leave every summer. 

Much of the joy of gardening is sharing the beauty of the garden with others. Our garden gates are always open. If you cannot visit in person, we hope you enjoy our web page and the links we have provided.

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This page last updated December 30, 2006