Email
Print
del.icio.us
digg
Comments
FeedGarden Crawl
Good fences make good neighbors, but so do great gathering places
By Meleah Maynard
Photo by Andrea Rugg
All very textbook Brit, until you factor in a few artful landscaping twists: an oversized yew trimmed into the shape of a box with a pyramid on top; a spiraling maze of bricks in the front yard; and several lattice-backed arbors with built-in benches. “We may call it our English country garden, but I don’t know that your average Englishman would recognize anything as English,” says Rick.
No matter. There are no Englishmen about, only neighbors—lots of them. And they’re all perfectly content to pull up a chair around the fire pit in the Walshes’ cheerful, welcoming backyard.
To say the neighborhood is close knit is an understatement of limitless proportion. Jeanne and Rick chafe at the suggestion that they inspired those around them to do more gardening of their own, but the landscape they created clearly makes visitors want to try these ideas at home.
And several neighbors have. A quick stroll down the alley behind the Walshes’ house reveals numerous backyards with an arbor, a deck, or a little gazebo designed by Rick, who owns a set-building company that works on projects such as the Macy’s Flower Show. When it comes time to build the structures scattered throughout the neighborhood, Rick handles that part too, with—you guessed it—help from neighbors. “If someone says they want something built, I tell them that I’ll design it and they need to buy materials,” says Rick. “Then we’ll put out the call that we need bodies on Saturday morning and people will show up to help.”
This sort of all-together-now spirit has not only led to a lot of well-made outdoor living areas, it also gave birth to a neighborhood “pub.” A couple years back, the gang was sitting around saying that it was getting cold and wouldn’t it be great to have a place to hang out indoors? Before long, they had the “Recumbent Wombat,” as it’s called, built above a neighbor’s garage.
Photo by Andrea Rugg
Most Fridays, neighbors gather to watch “Jeopardy.” Crowded around the TV eating peanuts and goldfish crackers, they shout their answers at the screen. There’s only one rule: no talking until commercials. When they do talk, they cover the ground of familiar friends, catching up on the health of people’s parents, asking about new babies, and telling stories about their kids’ graduation ceremonies. Behind the bar is a calendar with everybody’s birthday and anniversary in it. They keep track of other special days, too. “One neighbor is an accountant,” Rick explains. “So we put tax day in the book so we’d remember to have beer waiting on his back step that night when he got home.”
And they travel together, too. A few years back, a group went to Las Vegas so they could be there when neighbors, Ann and Dan, got married. Two years ago, they all flew to England to celebrate Rick’s 60th birthday. Though no date has been set, plans for a future trip to the Philippines are currently in the works. “It’s an amazing neighborhood,” Ann says. “You always know people are there for you and there’s always someone to do something with. I feel really lucky to live here.”
Despite Jeanne and Rick’s protests, Ann thinks the pair helped spark a neighborhood-wide interest in gardening. “They’ve inspired me by giving me bits and pieces of their garden like those peonies over there,” she says, adding that Mimi, a Master Gardener down the block, is also a big help because she takes in sick plants and nurses them back to health before sharing them with other neighbors.
Still, gardening is far from Ann’s favorite thing. In truth, she’d rather spend time in the Walshes’ backyard where Rick and Jeanne usually have some kind of project underway. “We never really know what we’re going to do next,” says Jeanne. “A lot of the big projects are done now, but we used to go out to eat in the winter and Rick would be drawing weird scenarios on his napkin. We’d go off on grand tangents and have to rope it in by spring. You know, the yard really is kind of a big doodle.”
“Yeah,” Rick laughs. “She’s right. It is a big doodle.”
Meleah Maynard is a Minneapolis writer.
For more information on featured products and suppliers, please see our Buyer's Guide.
11 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
Comments may be edited for length, clarity, or appropriateness.