Private sanctuaries go public for the Colleyville Garden Club fundraiser

Special to the Star-Telegram

People were always stopping to look at the flowers along Mid-Cities Boulevard, a block west of Precinct Line Road. Sometimes they’d get out of their car to look. Sometimes they’d poke around hoping to find the owners to ask if they could check out the rest of the yard. It happened so often that Michael Makens, who runs a business from his home, finally had to put up a "Private Drive" sign at the foot of his entranceway.

But this weekend, Michael and Kik Makens’ yard will be open to the public for exploring.

It’s one of four residential gardens that will be on display for Promenade, the Colleyville Garden Club’s annual garden-tour fundraising event. The garden club uses the income for public-property beautification projects, as you would expect, but also for special projects such as gardening-therapy workshops for seniors in assisted living and Victory Garden boxes, which are sent to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan to distribute to the local people as a goodwill gesture. Victory Garden boxes include items like spades, shovels, vegetable seeds and flower seeds, and this year the club sent 350 boxes to Kabul.

"People know about our tour, and a lot of people look forward to it. We have members stationed throughout the gardens who can answer general gardening questions. The homeowners are usually there to answer questions about the specific gardens," says Carol Wollin, club president. "Afterward, the nurseries are just crowded with people coming in asking for specific plants that they saw."

The garden:

301 Covington Way, Colleyville

The green thumbs: Karyn and Bruce Marshall, with the frequent assistance of sons Spencer and Alex

Grow and tell: The Marshalls have been gardening for 30 years, but two years ago, Karyn decided to switch to 100 percent organic gardening and took a series of classes. The result of the change in methods: The garden is lusher than ever.

Gone are chemical fertilizers and herbicides. In their place are organic products such as John’s Recipe and a microbial growth-encouraging compost tea, which Karyn purchases from a woman who makes it locally. It has to be a "living" tea to work, Karyn Marshall explains.

She uses companion plants that attract bugs away from more delicate plants as a way to deal with pests (which is why you’ll find a tomato plant among the roses).

Their yard is also now a certified wildlife habitat.

"In an organic environment, you create through the nutrients you put in your soil a very comfortable environment for your plants to grow. I get more butterflies now. I get hummingbirds galore. The amount of wildlife I have in my garden has increased significantly," Karyn Marshall says.

Words to grow on: "When you use chemicals, you’re creating an environment that you have to be on top of all the time."

Bloomin’ bonus: Colleyville Garden Club members will be manning education exhibits on tree-planting and composting at the Marshall’s house.

The garden:

308 Timberline Drive South, Colleyville

The green thumbs: Linda Larkin and Ken Owens

Grow and tell: The couple live on a large lot that used to be a pasture, which they’ve converted into multiple garden zones with a gazebo, a pergola, several decks and lots of seating areas.

"Our garden is kind of a working garden," Larkin says. "We’ve got 10 grandchildren, so it has to be very kid-friendly." With grandchildren in mind, there’s an area of the yard left open for throwing around a ball or playing croquet.

Larkin is an avid vegetable grower, and during the summer almost all of their vegetables are homegrown. This year she put in brussels sprouts, kale, several kinds of lettuce, spinach, cilantro, parsley, peppers, squash and tomatoes.

But beauty is the real payoff for Larkin, and she’s rapturous about roses. Linda got interested in Earth Kind roses about five years ago but since then has branched out to others. "The Earth Kind roses, other than the Knock Out roses, to me aren’t that pretty. If you’re going to put in that much work, you want it to look nice."

Linda says the garden "kind of spills all over itself."

Words to grow on: "Living in Texas is definitely different from living in Pennsylvania. You have to use a lot of mulch down here; you’ve got to be waterwise down here. And I don’t mean 2 inches of mulch, I mean 6 inches."

Bloomin’ bonus: The garden club is holding a plant sale at the Larkin/Owens yard, with the kinds of plants, perennials in particular, that you won’t usually find at big-box garden stores.

The garden:

8713 Cardinal Lane, North Richland Hills

The green thumbs: Michael and Kik Makens

Grow and tell: Although he grew up in Texas, Michael Makens developed an interest in native-plant gardening while going to school in Australia, hence the name of his landscape company: Walkabout Landscape.

He believes that the hard structure of the garden comes first, then the living elements. His large yard includes gravel walks, a dry-stack stone wall, stone seats, a windmill, a meditation pavilion, a stone bridge, an outdoor kitchen and a two-level outdoor room. A large rubber duck strikes a humorous note in a stream.

The vegetation includes lots of grasses. There are showy plants as well, such as antique and David Austin roses and California poppies.

Michael likes to use pecan shells as mulch. Another trick is annuals that will reseed themselves.

Wife Kik moved to America from Thailand five years ago, and her influence is seen in the herb garden, where she coaxes lemongrass, Thai basil, Thai chiles and other herbs to life. Kik gives Thai cooking classes in the outdoor kitchen using her homegrown herbs and vegetables.

Words to grow on: "Design, absolutely, is always first and foremost. I was telling the master gardeners a few weeks ago, 'Don’t talk to me about plants; talk to me about design.’ "

The garden:

2802 Summertree Lane, Colleyville

The green thumbs: Sheila and Jim Birth (with lots of help from Michael Makens)

Grow and tell: The Births are not expert gardeners, they will be the first to tell you. But they enjoy the outdoors and wanted a beautiful, low-maintenance yard in which to entertain or just escape from the world.

Five years ago they hired Walkabout Landscape to transform their yard from a traditional suburban grass-and-begonias yard into a low-maintenance "sanctuary." "As time progressed, they kept wanting to do more," Makens says. "We ended up tearing up all the typical foundational plantings, which is more like English-cottage, with a big emphasis on stonework. There are big stone columns with a wrought-iron entry."

While the front yard was full sun, the back yard "was part-shade to full-shade, with an existing canopy of trees." It now also includes a gravel path, a pergola, a dry creek bed, a fire pit and lots of shade-loving plants, both in the ground and hanging from baskets.

What it doesn’t contain is grass for Jim or Sheila to mow.

Words to grow on: Michael Makens says he designed the Births’ yard with the philosophy: "If you have to sit out here and baby it, forget it."

Bloomin’ bonus: The garden club will be selling raffle tickets at the Births’ house.