Nurturing Tomorrow’s Garden

With deep admiration for my husband’s artistry and labor to create this splendid garden.

Jean Nordlund

It has been thirty-three years since we moved to this plot of land at 43.08°N, 9.50°W. Thirty-three years seems to me to be a good time to sift through the images Ken has captured, from the first saplings planted to the vibrant landscape seen during the Olbrich tour. I expected there might be some new plants in the future, some minor changes, but within days after the tour, Ken began to create a new reading garden for me, a private area just outside my studio window near the house looking out into this nurtured landscape. On the right side of the photo above, my reading garden will be planted where the pile of brush sits on the dead grass. There will be a serviceberry tree and beneath it, at my request, a fragrant Cimicifuga racemosa. Waves of pale blue geranium and carex grass will add to the calming sound of water gently falling from a new fountain.

With an urge to freshen border plantings, Ken armed himself with long, thick sleeves and a reciprocating saw to cut out the old wood from the thorny barberry hedge that screens our yard from the neighbors, creating the piles of brush in the yard. The huge piles of brush were later put through his grinder and added to the compost pile, in keeping with his policy that whatever grows here, stays here. The thinned hedge appears to the right of the middle in the photo above, looking so open compared to its appearance two week earlier. The bare stalks should begin to offer privacy again by the middle of next summer. The evolution of this extraordinary garden continues. There was a beginning, but not an end. I know I will be surprised again next spring by what is just below the surface now, ready to pop through, waiting for its time.