A St. Clair revival
The textures of the garden became a metaphor for life in the neighbourhood
THEY CONSIDERED BUYING A HOUSE IN TORONTO, but when Tom Couchman and David Wood saw the elegant house for sale on St. Clair Avenue they fell under its spell. “My dream was to live here,” Wood says.
HIS MOTHER HAD MOVED to Hamilton from Cambridge, and Wood patrolled St. Clair looking at houses for sale, but always losing when the couple put in offers.
They finally landed their turn of the century home in the St. Clair Avenue Heritage Conservation District with a midnight offer that pleased the owner.
The house needed buffing and polishing, so they started by replacing windows and doors, rebuilding the chimneys, repointing the brick and putting on new siding. A year-and-a-half ago they were ready to move on to the garden.
“David has the vision, he gets me to agree, then he plants and I follow him around and clean up,” says Couchman, a semi-retired IT specialist.
David Wood is a hair stylist at Raymond & Associates; prior to that he was a floral designer. It was easy for him to see the potential for the backyard. When they moved in there wasn’t much more than railway ties and sparse plantings. So he went to work outside, ripping out the old, bringing in the new.
“I like layers and textures to add depth to the garden. In the winter I like to be able to look out the window and see shapes covered in snow,” Wood says.
Trees form the biggest layer, with columnar maples, hornbeams and Japanese maples placed around the perimeter. The middle layer is made up of shrubs including hydrangeas, dogwoods and boxwood. Pachysandra fills in the ground layer with its evergreen foliage persisting through the winter.
After giving careful thought to the bones of the garden, Wood went for the dramatic with large scale urns, window boxes and wall planters overflowing with greenery.
Early in the season they load up with palms, mostly purchased at big box stores. Then come the Boston ferns, the ivy, and finally the white begonias. A chandelier here, a bar cart loaded with champagne there, and what you have is resort living without having to leave home.
“I like layers and textures to add depth to the garden. In the winter I like to be able to look out the window and see shapes covered in snow.” DAVID WOOD
With so many pots, urns and wall planters I envisioned hours of hand watering. But they had an irrigation system designed by Greenskeeper Irrigation and Lighting; the owner happens to be their neighbour. So manual watering is kept to a minimum.
ON THIS WARM October day it’s hard to believe summer has ended, but Wood and Couchman are ready to move on to seasonal plantings. They’ll put a notice in the Sherman Hub Facebook page that they are giving away all their ferns and palms, and then start planning for cold weather.
First comes a Halloween display, but the big show is December. Wood puts up seven Christmas trees in the house, and decorates with gusto outside.
“We kick off the Christmas season in the neighbourhood,” Couchman says.
In 2004, the first year they moved in, they had a Christmas open house because they wanted to meet everybody.
“A neighbour told us we helped the neighbourhood gel, we got people talking to each other,” Wood says.
Now it’s a tradition, so is the roving New Year’s Eve party.
The social life on St. Clair sounds swell, starting in the shade of the palms with a glass of wine.