A Glimpse of the Garden—

Growing New Memories Among The Old

 

By Nancy K. Crevier

“A Glimpse Of The Garden” is a series 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?

Michelle Ferris started her adult career dressing up the floors of the Gap stores where she was a merchandise manager, but in recent years she has been dressing up her Newtown property, using the fashion sense she gained from school and the wisdom gleaned from her mother, father and grandfather.

“I guess gardening is in my blood,” said Ms Ferris, gazing over the gardens that wind completely about her house, spring up from the center of the lawn, and beautify every border of the property.

“My mother is an avid gardener. I remember as a kid, playing under a shady tree as my mother gardened. My dad is a designer and did a lot of landscaping, and now my younger brother has taken over that business,” she said. Her father’s father was also a gifted gardener, said Ms Ferris. “He could make anything grow.”

Her husband and brother-in-law built the vintage-style shed on which she displays her grandfather’s gardening tools, and were responsible for tidying up the meandering stonewall at the rear of the property. The shed has become the backdrop for a dramatically blue hydrangea framed by several types of rudbekia, false sunflowers, day lilies, lamb’s ear, sage, and a lush rhododendron PJM. She is proud of the stone fountain pool that she built from rocks found on the farm, but credits her husband with building the stone walls behind it that create a terraced garden.

“The stones are all from the farm, including all of the ones that border the walkway,” Ms Ferris pointed out. Rustic gates, fences, and an arbor were built from cedar posts found about the farm.

Along with a love of plants and gardening, Ms Ferris shares a love of primitives with her mother, Linda Manna, owner of Newtown Country Mill on Route 302.

“That’s my décor,” she said, “and because I’m involved in my husband Brendan’s family farm, Ferris Farm, I’m always looking for antique implements and tools to incorporate into my gardens.”

Included in her collection, and used throughout her gardens as novelty trellises, planters, plant supports, and as visual enhancements are a full-sized antique tedder (“It was used to fluff the hay as it is cut,” Ms Ferris explained), a rusted wagon wheel, a small, seatless ladder-back chair, a hand plow, the top portion of a water pump, numerous metal and wooden buckets and watering cans, statuary, and a grouping of older oil cans from her grandfather Mannon.

“I like to do a lot of container planting, which is another thing I learned from my mother, so I use old items to plant them in. I love the old watering cans and pails, especially,” she said. A chicken feeder serves as a planter for red and pink dianthus, and even the last of the original Ferris Farm apple trees has received new life as a planter. Where once a large branch protruded, an arrangement of geranium, dusty miller, begonia, and other greens has taken root in the deep hole.

The tedder has become the centerpiece for tall sweet Annie, salvia, various types of sedum, purple bee balm, variegated coleus, and bright yellow rudbekia. A bushy clematis and morning glory vines clamber up a pole, on which leans the antique wagon wheel. Decorative grass, striped with green and white, black-eyed Susans, heuchera, and nettle nestle at the base of the wheel.

Hidden in a shady spot, an unusual garden piece takes a sharp eye to spot. A shoemaker’s last, or shoe form, peeks out from the greenery.

“This is a memory thing for me,” said Ms Ferris. “For many years, my mother had a shoemaker’s form in her garden when I was growing up. So I saw these at a flea market a few years ago, and had to get them for the memories,” she said.

Also bringing back good memories are two of the several birdhouses perched about the gardens and in the trees.

“My grandfather built the bigger one from a planter, I think, and shingled it, and the tiny birdhouse is one of many he built and sold for $5, way back when,” Ms Ferris said. A lone sunflower in the side border has special meaning as well. “Melinda, our 4-year old, planted a seed from a bag of bird food, and it has grown. It’s her special sunflower,” said Ms Ferris.

If the gardens seem filled to the brim, it is because she trades plants with her mother and sister-in-law regularly, and divides many into new plantings. “I like to get new plants, but I like to separate and move my plants around. It’s neat to see what happens when you move a plant. All of the snowball hydrangea on the property came from one little plant,” she said.

Raising her children, working at Ferris Acres Creamery, and her primitive painting artwork keep her busy, said Ms Ferris, but not so busy that she cannot fit in time in the gardens.

“I love the early mornings,” she said. “During the summer, I’m out here pretty much every day.”

That is what is down the garden path at Michelle Ferris’s home.