By LYN DESMARAIS
I love to ask gardeners how and when they first felt they truly started gardening. Our next gardener, Ellen Walter, has a fun story to tell.
“I was at college in Boulder, Colorado and was spending my freshman summer there. I had an eccentric neighbor across the street from me. He was a UFO enthusiast. He also had a gorgeous garden. I wanted a garden like his. I went to a nursery and ran into him there. I had already begun digging out a garden at my rental and was there ready to buy some plants. When my neighbor saw what I was buying, he said, ‘no no no’ and had me buy dahlias, purple and white petunias, and red salvia (an annual sage with lovely red color).”
For Ellen, that summer and that neighbor were pivotal and taught her so much. “A woman walked by me one day while I was working in my garden and she stopped and said to me, ‘I walk home from work and I walk out of my way just to see your garden. Your garden makes my day. It’s just so beautiful.’”
“That was a ‘light bulb’ moment,” says Ellen. “I realized that I could make people’s lives a little bit happier through my gardens. The pots outside Blue Moon [Boutique in Brandon] are there to do the same thing. I want to spread a little happiness through the magical beauty of flowers.”
THE BEAUTIFUL GARDEN Ellen Walter created at her former residence on Arnold District Road in Brandon. Photo by Lyn Desmarais
Today, her daughter Allie continues planting and caring for the flower pots outside Blue Moon. “I’m the fourth generation of gardeners in my family,” says Ellen. “I’m not sure I’m the best though. I believe that my grandmother had, and Allie has, a better eye than I do for color and texture. My grandmother, although very poor, had a gorgeous garden in Waterbury center. She had red geraniums, white petunias, and purple iris. Every flower she grew was gorgeous and healthy. The Worcester Mountain range and her wonderful old farmhouse were the backdrop for her gardens. I remember the smell of Maypo (maple flavored oatmeal cereal), the radio commercials, and the creaking floor. My grandmother’s house even had a charming old cemetery next door which I loved and loitered in. My mother was also an amazing gardener. She was an artist. She put the most unlikely combinations together and they just worked. Even in her 80s she had a balcony with ferns and grasses and nasturtiums! They sprawled everywhere and blew in the breeze.”
Ellen transferred colleges after two years and came home to UVM.
“I love Vermont,” she says. “I love to travel and I love an adventure, but my heart’s here. I don’t mind moving house but I do miss my gardens. She has built at least 8 gardens in Vermont. Her mantra is to leave all properties better for her having been there. Ellen designs, measures, digs, amends the soils, and plants everything.
After college, Ellen worked at Rocky Dale Garden in Bristol for 7 years. It was an exciting place to work and a great time to be gardening, she says. Bill Pollard and Holly Weir bought that property and transformed it. Bill and Holly bought and sold unusual perennials and adapted cutting-edge garden designs. At that time, the late 1980s, Rocky Dale was promoting Allan Bloom gardens. Allan Bloom was born in England in 1906. The Guardian (UK newspaper) eulogized Allan thus: “Allan left school at 15 a headstrong and impetuous youth with a love of digging holes and a passion for plants inherited from his father, an innovative market gardener… By the age of 24 he started his own nursery, … Bloom Nurseries.… It became one of the largest nurseries of its kind in England… He was always at the center of horticultural innovation.” Allan created over 170 new varieties of perennial plants. He also started the island garden craze, which was to create a small garden in the middle of a field or space. His gardens were kidney or oval shaped and full of textures: grasses and foliage plants in addition to flowers. Bill and Holly met him in England and visited his gardens.
Allan Bloom wanted to make beautiful gardens smaller and more affordable. Ellen takes his ideas one step further:
Container Gardens
Many of us look forward to the gardens outside Blue Moon every year. Ellen’s containers are miniature island garden beds. She says, “My go-to plants start with creeping Jenny, Lysimachia, with its chartreuse color and soft leaves. It’s like a little waterfall. Then I put in tufts of grass to blow in the wind. Petunias are my pop of color. I love the yellow and apricot ones. I add sweet alyssum, lobularia maritima, because it can handle the intense sidewalk heat, and if I can get it, lavender pinnata.”
Ellen’s Tips
“Water is absolutely critical to container plant gardens. The soil in the pots can get extremely hot. I feed them ¼ teaspoon of blossom booster for every 2 gallons of water once the plants begin to bloom. I believe in less fertilizer but more frequent. I water the pot until it runs out the bottom. I have 6 pots of different sizes and I pick what plants look healthiest and what will handle the heat and sun. Once I get a combination I love, I keep with that grouping. I purposefully don’t want each to match the other but instead to look like a bouquet of flowers.”
