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Running into a brick wall couldn't stop this gardener
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Mary-Louise Morgan’s backyard was created by a retaining wall required to make the lot suitable for a house.
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Published: October 11, 2008
Mary-Louise Morgan's garden is a lemons-to-lemonade situation.
Her house is midway down a long slope. To accommodate the house, the builders scooped out the hillside and supported the resulting cliff with a tall, brick retaining wall. Atop the wall, two very large oaks funneled leaves, acorns and shade directly into the cove created by the retaining wall and the house -- in other words, the backyard.
Morgan had little good to say about the oak trees, and rightfully so. In this situation, even the finest trees would be a nuisance, delivering nothing but trouble to the backyard. The topography also served as a recipe for drainage problems, which required several thousand dollars to solve.
Over 6½ years Morgan has found the candy-filled center of these issues and turned the imposing brick wall into a framework for a beautiful backyard garden. It is neat, compact and uses the architectural form of plants to further enhance and define space.
Sinuous flower beds follow the base of the wall until they jut out in one long peninsula. The wall is festooned with cascades of variegated vinca vines and sprays of juniper. Three lattice-work frames attached to the wall display bas-relief frogs and flowers. Such decorative shrub groupings as a deep, purple-red lorapetalum named Pizazz combined with gold-mound spirea perch atop the wall.
And the wall serves as backdrop for a glossy-leaf, little-gem magnolia; a sasanqua camellia with small red flowers; cleyera; and the deeply lobed leaves of a fig bush. Crape myrtles line one side of the wall, their braches supporting hanging baskets full of impatiens and spider plants. Two Emerald arborvitae forming tight cones mark a focal point in the back.
At their feet, a constantly changing display of perennials and annuals add color and interest. Morgan uses many pass-along plants that are shared between family members from her native West Virginia. These include such diverse characters as spring-blooming columbines in blue, white and pink, and Goliath tomatoes, still heavy with fruit, tied to the post and beam fence.
Dwarf dahlias that Morgan said usually return for her each spring offered brilliant yellow or purple flowers, and the deep rust of well-tended chrysanthemums formed perfect autumn mounds. Morgan said she cuts them back every time they put on 6 inches of growth until around July 10. This keeps them compact so that they form cushions of flowers in fall.
Morgan grew up on a farm in West Virginia and learned gardening at her grandmother's apron strings. She has been an art educator for most of her life, teaching from kindergarten to college. She was the art specialist for Pender County schools and taught at the middle- and high-school level in West Virginia after receiving her master's degree. She moved here after retirement to be closer to her daughter and her family. Morgan sees her gardening as an extension of her art. She has designed gardens for family and friends and her church.
Some things in Morgan's garden are worth a double-take.
All the plants beneath a medium size dogwood are planted in pots and then sunk in the ground. This is not to protect them from the dogwood but rather from the encroaching roots of a nearby maple. She said that despite her efforts a few roots have found their way up into the pots.
My favorite feature of the garden was an extensive ground-cover planting of everbearing strawberries along one wall of the house. There were plenty of flowers and fruit on the vines, and Morgan said this time of year it is easy to get a quart or more in a picking. She said they can keep on producing even into December. They made an attractive and dense ground cover at the foot of a lacecap hydrangea.
Morgan clearly is not afraid of work. And when up against the wall, she makes the wall part of the garden.
"Gardening is a good healthy outlet to get you to move your body at this stage of life," she said.
And this trim garden is proof that Morgan has moved hers quite a lot.
■ If you have a gardening question or story idea, write to David Bare in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27101-3159, or send e-mail to his attention to gardening@wsjournal.com.
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