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A mountain goat would feel right at home in Cindy Gartner’s backyard garden.
With a hillside that rises steeply into a wooded area, the garden has required intensive planting, mulching and shoring up so the plants stay where Gartner puts them.
“I add every year,” Gartner said, pointing to a small circle of stones that delineates a new planting bed where calla lilies are just starting to push through the soil.
Gartner’s garden will be among those featured this week on the Holmen Area Garden Tour.
She has dotted the hillside with blue spruce, spirea, rose bushes and other large plants to help anchor some of the smaller perennials and annuals that provide a wild riot of color throughout the summer and into fall. Spiderwort, a volunteer that arrived in the garden without invitation, has proceeded to take over the bare spots, filling in where Gartner has yet to plant.
“When I first started, everything had to be pink,” she said with a laugh.
She abandoned that pale color palette soon enough and embraced the blues, purples, yellows and even some bold reds. Whatever catches her eye is a candidate for this hillside garden that grows larger every year. Thriving already are dianthus, hostas, roses, lilies and daisies. And sitting by the side of her house is a wheelbarrow full of plants donated by a neighbor.
On Packer Drive, everyone knows where to send their orphaned plants.
The rocks that line the garden bed and help to anchor the hillside come from her dad’s farm. She has hens and chicks nestled among some of them, a memento of her grandmother’s garden, which was planted the same way.
Because she shares the steep hillside with neighbor Cindy Gile, their hillside gardens have flowed and merged to look like one large garden.
On Gile’s side there is order and a lot of mulch. On Gartner’s side, it is rambling wild abandon.
“A flower garden is a flower garden,” Gartner said, and flowers should spread as they want to spread.
Neither of the gardeners can just put down mulch and expect it to stay there, though. That’s why boulders and bushes and small trees dot the hillside in an attempt to anchor the garden in place.
“We had to think of things to make it stay,” Gartner said.
IF YOU GOWhat: Third annual Holmen Area Garden Tour, sponsored by the women of Holmen Lutheran Church
When: 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday, rain or shine.
The events: There will be food, music, vendors, crafts, a farmers market, perennial sale, and flower show. Judy Rockwood will give a presentation on perennials at 6 p.m. at Ethel’s Attic.the Gardens:
Holland Sand Prairie: Located at McHugh Road and Garden Street, Holmen. A group of local citizens are working together to preserve these 61 acres of prairie plants that are native to the area. You may take a 15- minute walk and or have your questions answered by experts regarding the plants that will be blooming/growing here. Bring insect repellent.
Cindy Gartner, 921 Packer Drive, featuring a steep hillside garden that flows with neighbor’s garden
Kim and Dan Valiquette, W74777 Sylvester Road, with a large lot with space for all the flowers.
Alice and Lloyd Dresen, N6944 Garden St., featuring a huge variety of established perennials on a corner lot.
Kathy and Steve Koch, N6915 Bice Ave.
Janet and Chris Thompson, N6923 Bice Ave. These neighbors share garden space between their homes. Parking is available in the church parking lot across the street
Cost: Tickets are $5 and will be available at Ethel’s Attic and the Holmen Meat Market. Tickets will not be available at the gardens.
To be a vendor: Contact Ellen at ehesselberg@
gmail.com or call (608) 781-2238.
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