A Glimpse Of The Garden

“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 multiple gardens that lead a visitor around and about Arline and Ed Shanley’s home are a wealth of colors and textures, blooming nonstop from spring to fall.

“We have lived here 40 years,” said Ms Shanley, “and our gardens are a constant work of love. My husband and I work as a team. I couldn’t do it all without him,” she said. Beginning as soon as the snow is gone, the Shanleys devote nearly every free hour until the beginning of July to shaping up their gardens. New mulch is laid down, rock paths are rejuvenated, plants are moved, weeds are pulled, and as always, new plants are introduced. Once the foundation for the summer is laid, the Shanleys put in another three hours a week to keep the gardens attractive. “We absolutely love doing it,” she said.

“I get a lot of plants from my friends,” said Ms Shanley, who is a member of the Newtown Town and Country Club, “and everywhere I go, I am looking for something new to try in our garden.”

 Passing through antique metal gates smothered in five-leaf vine, Japonica variegated fallopia stretches its delicate branches full of green leaves shot through with white over the tops of sedum and hosta that tickle the ankles as one walks down the brick path at the back of the house. A glance to the right then takes in a daylily bed in full bloom on a mid-July day, a breathtaking array of oranges and yellows. Around the corner, a walkway made of stepping stones, each laboriously and lovingly placed by the Shanleys, winds through a wonderland of greenery and blossoms. Still more daylilies vie with gooseneck, sedum, and black-eyed Susans to be the most appreciated, against a backdrop of vines and plume poppy, bleeding heart, and bee balm. The front of the house is framed by a curve of garden tidily mulched and filled with giant hosta, Japanese maple, boxwood, and evergreens.

Still more gardens rise from the lawn beyond the driveway. The stonewalls, the work of Mr Shanley, hold back an array of perennials and annuals. Neat mounds of petunias and sweet potato vine and clumps of tall coneflowers and white daisies catch the last rays of the afternoon sun. Zinnias, marigolds, and coreopsis add still more color, and yet another stone path wends its way from the front of the garden to a wrought iron archway smothered in honeysuckle vine, the entrance to a woodlands garden.

But as beautiful as the plants are, it is the artifacts that sprout among them that carry special meaning to the Shanleys and make their gardens the restful spaces that they are.

A hoop of copper on a delicate stem encircles a stained glass butterfly, reflecting the light and colors of the garden in which it stands. It is the creation of her older brother in Vermont, said Ms Shanley, as is the large copper-roofed birdhouse at the far end of one garden. As big as it is, she said, it usually houses tiny wren families.

The birdhouse stands tall on some very special stanchions. “The stanchions are from an old church on Long Island. My husband’s brother, who died 18 years ago, collected architectural artifacts. Donald was very special to us. When he died, he left all of the antique architectural pieces to us,” said Ms Shanley.

Six small sections of deep green, antique wrought iron fencing that dot the gardenscape are also gifts from her late brother-in-law, she explained, as are the antique gates that open on the path to the back gardens. There, another larger section of ornate antique fencing provides tall plants a place on which to lean. It is there, too, that greenery drape an oversized cement urn, a gift from “dear neighbors across the street, who lived there into their eighties,” Ms Shanley said.

“These things are wonderful reminders, as we walk around, of very dear friends, the people we care about,” she said. “Donald is always with us, because we have these beautiful pieces that make our gardens truly beautiful.”

 That is what is down the garden path at the Shanleys.