WATERDOWN GARDENS
A potter and a musician created enchanting oasis featured on this weekend’s Waterdown Garden Walk
INTERESTING GARDENS reflect the personalities of their owners in ways large and small.
I was reminded of this when I visited the Waterdown garden of Kari Bennett and Ron Hiegelsberger. It’s one of 39 gardens in the historic village that are part of Waterdown Garden Walk on Saturday and Sunday (June 30 and July 1).
Kari is a potter (temporarily retired, she says) and Ron is a musician. Their artistic sensibilities show in the creativity, design, attention to detail and eclectic taste they have brought to their lovely front garden and their astonishing rear garden.
The property is large — just shy of an acre. She and Ron began gardening in earnest in 2009.
The front garden looks, well, traditional. From a distance. It’s when a visitor gets a little closer that you appreciate the deftly placed mix of shrubs and perennials.
Spirea is flowering now, adding bursts of pink in front of the whiteand-black house.
You also see the four-metre-high stump of a massive old pine that was irreparably damaged in the big ice storm in December 2013. The stump was carved by an artist friend, S.T. Thomson, into a marvellous visual rendering they call “The Wood Spirit.”
There’s also a great old wooden wagon axle and wheels that Kari found on Manitoulin Island. Kari worries that the old weathered wood is beginning to collapse, but for now it is a great piece that speaks to Ontario’s rural history.
The back garden is even more reflective of the artists’ sensibility. Flower borders wrap around the sides and deck. The back of the garden has two buildings — the smaller “cabin” is Ron’s “man cave” and a large structure is Kari’s pottery studio. Both enhance the garden’s “country casual” look. Lawn, pathways and a patio are carefully delineated.
“Ron and I built this,” Kari says. “All of it.”
Kari has a carefully selected collection of plants: Lilies and cranesbill geranium, Summer Snow shade clematis and full-sun early clematis, Solomon’s seal and false Solomon’s seal that has berries, ferns and several varieties of hosta, coral bells and northern sea oats, false blue indigo and evening primrose, cotoneaster and Annabelle hydrangea and an unusual variegated-leaf lilac.
The cotoneaster, which survived uprooting and too much time on its side, is nicknamed “Fred” and Kari says it is the best pollinator plant in the garden.
Their plants are set off by a remarkable collection of old tools, farm implements, iron wagon wheels and their rims, collected things and found objects. An old bench built by her grandfather overlooks one long bed. A Japanese maple is grouped with an old Japanese-style lantern and temple ornament.
“I just collect things,” Kari says.
Someone asked her why she would pick up a battered old garden fork and a worn rake for her garden. The better question, it occurs to a visitor, is why she would not.
Kari and Ron share the garden with five rabbits. These are not shy little bunnies but big bold ones, and they eat some plants to the ground while Kari and Ron just garden on, resigned to sharing the space.
It’s just the two of them. “We couldn’t do this if we had kids,” Ron says. “This takes all our time.”
Kari grins: “We love other people’s kids.”
“She has the vision,” Ron says of Kari, “and we work as a team. As a team, we’re amazing. And we work our butts off.”
Rob Howard is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach who lives and gardens in Hamilton. Find him on Facebook at Rob Howard: Garden Writer, or email him at gardenwriter@bell.net. Special to The Hamilton Spectator.
“She has the vision and we work as a team.” RON HIEGELSBERGER The back garden is even more reflective of the artists’ sensibility.