Visit to Green Gables

Saturday morning I picked up Uncle David and headed over to 'Green Gables' in Whitewater for a 'Wild Ones' guest tour of Richard Ehrenberg's gorgeous (8/10 of an acre) garden. Ehrenberg's abode is within the city limits but is disguised by a landscape designed with nature in mind. Natural landscaping leaves room for surprises; Ehrenberg commented to us how each trip along the path is met with something he hadn't seen on his previous trip. This type of gardening leaves room for volunteer plantings and allows itself to mature and reinvent itself year after year. The front of his yard is planted in a deciduous forest to provide a vegetative screen between the house and the city street.

The above picture is of a 'prairie rose'. The size of the rose is eight feet tall by eithteen feet wide. Its hundreds of blooms with single pink petals and yellow centers are at their peak on July 4th; quite appropriate for a Midwestern native. I've put this one on my Christmas list (hint, hint).

This type of landscaping feels like, evolves like, and smells like nature. It's alive with the seasonal changes and the activity of its wild creatures.

The back yard is a prairie-plant community of species adapted to well-drained, fertile soil. He mentioned that in the beginning he fought the invasive plants that ventured in but once the natives took hold they out ranked the invasives.

The gardens provide nectar for honeybees, hummingbirds and butterflies.

Ehrenberg put ALOT of planning and thought into his landscape. He designed multiple activity zones for viewing and experiencing nature, visiting with family and friends by the lake, bird and bat houses, a tree swing, a vegetable / flower garden, fruit trees, and multiple inter-locking paths. He made sure that both humans and nature could co-exist in this space.

Think Gregg will go for this? Sure, Richard has 29 years of professional landscaping in his credentials but I've got at least 29 more years to enhance my garden . . . it's doable :-)