A Glimpse Of The Garden—

Garden Offers ‘Dirt Therapy’ And Enjoyment

By Nancy K. Crevier

“A Glimpse Of The Garden” is a miniseries focusing on the heart of a gardener’s work — a special spot, an extraordinary plant, a place of respite, or a place that evokes a heartfelt memory. What is down the garden path of your friends and neighbors? What is down your garden path?

The garden grows and flows around the expanded saltbox house and all about the property that Barbara and Bob DeCosta have called home for the past 24 years. Edging one side of the house is a rich collection of hosta, delphinium, lady’s mantel, catmint, white phlox, Bishop’s weed, primrose, and Shasta daisies, each adding its special quality to a particular season of the year. A tall holly rests at one corner, and at the back of the house the DeCostas take a break in Adirondack-style chairs. The stone patio is decorated with planters and urns artfully planted by Ms DeCosta, including several lightweight planters she has crafted from a mixture of perlite, peat moss, and cement.

“We moved in 24 years ago and the garden has been an evolving process,” said Ms DeCosta. “It’s amazing how it has changed in those years. None of these big trees were here, none of the gardens were here. I think I started planting them even before we finished working on our house.

As their children grew and flourished, so did her gardens, but now it is the gardens that are in need of her nurturing, Ms DeCosta said, and she is happy to give her time to this passion. “It really is ‘dirt therapy’ for me,” she laughed. “Gardening clears my head.”

An employee of Marvin Gardens in Wilton, Ms DeCosta is able to indulge her love of plants both at work and at home. “I have access to so many wonderful plants there, and to all kinds of interesting planters and urns,” she said.

One urn hosts a favorite plant of Ms DeCosta’s, a Meyer lemon tree. “I’ve had it for eight years, and I get 40 to 50 beautiful Meyer lemons from it every December. We bring it in off of the patio every November, or before the first hard frost. The blossoms are so fragrant and the fruit is delicious,” she said. A miniature orange bush keeps the Meyer lemon tree company, producing several tiny, sweet oranges every year, as well.

In the backyard is a playhouse, filled with memorabilia of her grown children’s younger days, and offering support for the Constant Spry climbing rose that covers the side and roof with cabbage-like pink blossoms each spring. Tall deutzia bushes lean against the side, the white blossoms brightening the scene in early June.

Along the back line of the property, a shade garden snakes along a thick privet hedge, filled with ferns, hosta, astilbe, bleeding heart, sedum, and peonies given to her by her sister-in-law. It all frames the focal point of the garden, a brilliantly white bench built by Mr DeCosta, and a place that offers the gardener a resting spot after a morning of weeding. “There was an old apple tree there that we took down, and it left a gap in the hedge, so we replaced it with that bench. It’s somewhere to go when I have a moment to meditate,” she said. Roses cling to two trellises in the garden, and clematis plants creep up the latticework toward the light. Silvery Artemisia edges the border that crawls forward, more and more every year, said Ms DeCosta, into the lawn.

All of her gardens highlight foliage, said Ms DeCosta, something that she learned from Newtown’s famous garden writer Sydney Eddison. “I read her essays and books, I go to her lectures, and I’ve learned so much from her,” Ms DeCosta said, “especially about the use of foliage in the borders. If you have beautiful foliage, the garden looks great all season long. Flowers come and go.”

The gardens are her “children” these days, said Ms DeCosta. “I think the most satisfaction I get from gardening, is just the act of gardening.”

That is what is down the garden path at Barbara and Bob DeCosta’s.