The joys of a cottage garden

A little slice of gardening heaven exists near Devil's Millhopper Geological State Park — where birds, bees, butterflies, and even the occasional rabbit are welcome.
Behind the suburban house Linda Crawford and her husband, Mike Stoufer, built in 2000 is the quintessential nature's garden. Here the creatures Linda protects by her earth-friendly practices keep the cottage-style garden virtually free of mosquitoes, despite a natural bog and garden pond.

"Sometimes I do see rabbits munching away," says Linda, whose overall garden on their 1/4-acre lot includes two kitchen gardens planted with vegetables and herbs. "But with so much material, they don't do that much damage to the overall landscape."

When she does find a plant that animals like, such as fennel, Linda says she plants it on the ridge between her vegetable garden and the native area.

"I say, 'These are yours, and this is mine.' And it works."

Nine years ago, Linda says she and Mike had an entirely different idea in mind for the garden. "We didn't sod the backyard because we planned to keep the back easement area natural and then add gardens in the area between the easement and the house."

Inspired by a visit to Jekyll Island Club Hotel in Georgia, the couple planned to install an English-style garden with formal boxwood hedges. "But most of our early attempts in the backyard failed because we had muck clay that would cause the roots of almost anything to rot," she adds.

Then in early 2004, additions to the house created a U-shaped rear façade with a brick patio. The couple hired Liz Carlton to design a wall fountain to empty into a small pond along with a raised planting bed.

At the same time, they had the contractor excavate the troublesome clay from the backyard. Fill dirt was brought in to replace the clay.

Linda and Mike dealt with water runoff by having the contractor install guttering and downspouts on the new addition and attach drain lines from the downspouts to the drainage easement. (To deal with potential water shortages, two of the downspouts now empty into 60-gallon rain barrels, one antique and one more utilitarian.)

This start at gardening ended with Hurricane Francis that September.

"A huge tree from a neighbor's yard crashed down into our backyard, landing on our patio," Linda says. "The new addition was completely unscathed, but our garden was leveled. We also had 16 inches of rain so we learned a lot about how water flows through our drainage easement."

After the storm, Linda and Mike made a third attempt at starting a garden. This time, inspired by a book, "Pleasures of the Cottage Garden," by Rand B. Lee, their children gave them the previous Christmas, the couple decided to take a different direction — significantly expanding the size of the garden with raised beds.

They were particularly drawn to the variety of cottage gardens, which often included separate spaces within the garden as well as architectural elements, Linda says.

"In the book there was a photo of an old door off of a patio. Mike and I decided to seek out such a door to incorporate into our addition. We found a 1920s-era, Mission-style door at an architectural restoration store in Deland. It became the door to my garden shed."

As the garden evolved, Jon George of Cottage Gardens designed and installed the cottage-style garden paths that make the area easily accessible to visitors.

The charm and beauty of the garden today belie the work that went into the raised beds, which gives the garden its structure.

"Mike and I would go to Ocala to Southeastern Stone for 500 pounds of ledge rock per trip," Linda explains. "Because there is no mortar and the rocks are stacked, we would pick our rocks for relative uniformity. We handpicked, hauled and placed about 1.5 tons of rock. "

This raised upper area of the garden became the two beds of the year-round kitchen garden as well as the angel garden, where Linda's Sheltie, Chanel, is buried. The kitchen garden is a particular passion.

"When I was a child growing up in Missouri, I visited my aunt and uncle on their farm every summer," Linda says. "My aunt had a big vegetable garden, and I helped her. I just loved it. I've been interested in gardening ever since."

Now with her own compact vegetable and herb gardens, two plots that measure approximately 6 feet by 12 feet each, Linda says she finds it amazing how little space is needed for a productive garden.

Part of the secret to that productivity is the mild North Central Florida climate. A number of the herbs, as well as shallots, are perennials. And Linda grows two full gardens, some from small plants she often finds at the Alachua County Farmers' Market and some from seeds.

The spring garden, which she puts in after March 15, includes a variety of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, sage, dill and tarragon, bordered by marigolds which give off a fragrance that wards off pests. In the fall, she says she typically plants Swiss chard, spinach, snow peas, lettuce and broccoli, bordered by pansies.

Vegetables and herbs are just one part of the nature garden. The real source of birds and butterflies are natural areas the couple has nurtured.

"Much of the time we have flowing water in the easement, which attracts many varieties of birds," Linda says. "We also planted native plants in the bog garden including cardinal flower, swamp hibiscus, rose-mallow hibiscus, golden canna, pickerel-rush, lizard's tail, swamp dogwood, blue flag iris, Savannah iris, Louisiana iris, spider lily, crinum lily and muck sunflowers."

On the higher ridge of the easement, Linda says she and Mike planted coral honeysuckle, purple passion vine and American beauty-berry as food sources for birds and butterflies.

"Other butterfly [attracting] plants on the better drained ridge include pentas, milkweed, black-eyed susan, blanket flower and fennel," she explains. On the north side of the house, "we have a privacy hedge of Simpson's Stoppers that offers birds enticing red berries that look like cranberries."

And on the west side of the house, bottlebrush trees, which shade the rooms, are winter haunts of orioles and hummingbirds and mockingbirds in warmer months.

As the garden became a wildlife sanctuary, the organic aspect evolved, Linda says. "I felt it was an obligation to cut down on chemicals because of the amount of wildlife living here."

Linda says vigilance is necessary when gardening without chemicals. When at home, she spends seven days a week, three hours a day working in the garden.

"When I weed and water, I constantly look for signs of infestation. The key is to stay on top and stop anything before it gets out of hand. (See Nurturing a Nature Garden).

The work is well worth the effort for what Linda describes as "my hobby, my love." Her daughter, who lives in New York state, was married in the garden in late May. And the garden is a daily refuge and escape for Linda, who writes real estate textbooks from her home office.

"When I have a deadline, I find if I work in the garden in the morning, I'll have more output. I find my mind is fresh and clear. I'm at peace with myself, and my writing is better ."