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Never Seen Daylight |
Writer: Kelly Moore, a freelance writer based in Des Moines, IowaIntended Use: TBD Printable version of BREAKING THE RULES.doc
Adhering to the conventions of color harmony isn’t a rule followed by master gardener Shereen Kos and her husband, Stephen. In fact, finding taboo hue combinations is the main objective of each spring’s shopping trip for annuals. Before the excursion is complete, the couple will bring home more than 500 bright beauties from nurseries in the area. Shereen estimates that nearly two-thirds of their backyard garden is made up of brilliantly colored annuals, and every available space on the one-third-acre lot is packed with flowers so vivid that at times they appear dyed. Mixing these blooms in eccentric patterns and mishmash color combinations is Shereen’s forte. “I once read in a stuffy gardening catalogue that red and orange should never be paired,” Shereen says. “I’ve been combining them ever since, and it’s one of my favorite duos.” Shereen wasn’t always a color renegade. Harkening back to a time when her goal was matching blooms to outdoor furniture cushions, she just laughs. While she still appreciates uniformity, the focus now is on symmetry and pattern, rather than a single, overdone color. The native Iowa couple built their split-foyer, cedar-sided home in 1978 and were disheartened to find that sand and clay would be the only home their flowers would ever know. But after years of trial-and-error planting and the decomposition of plants and mulch, the Kos’ beds are now filled with rich, jet-black top soil that accommodates most any perennial or annual suited to Zone 5. Over nearly thirty years, the Kos’ have worked in tandem (Shereen on flowers, Stephen on design and construction) to transform their backyard from a barren, sandy lot to a backyard resort, complete with four individual seating areas, a tailor-made water feature, handcrafted arbor and kidney-shaped swimming pool. Each of these elements, which border an impeccably manicured lawn of bluegrass, could serve as focal points on their own, yet they don’t compete. Visitors don’t stay still for long, as their senses beg for further exploration. The smell of fresh mulch, the gurgle and bubble of the water feature, the feel of changing textures underfoot and the multihued composition of the beds and containers, draw visitors into the yard. “There’s nothing better than walking someone through your garden and hearing them ask, ‘What’s this?’ ‘What’s that?” Shereen says. From the lower level of their two-tiered deck, a grass path leads to an arbor-gateway patio. The patio is home to a bench built by Shereen’s dad of barnwood from the family farm. The curving path is bordered on one side by lush beds of thick ground cover comprised of three varieties of sedum and periwinkle vines; a strip of hot pink and red dianthus edged with terra cotta half-moon pavers borders the opposite side. Stepping off the patio from behind the arbor, a ginger-colored mulch path passes a spectacular climbing black-eyed susan on its way to the sparkling blue water of the pool. The pool’s kidney shape is repeated in a row of bordering petunias in new combinations each year. “I use every color I can find,” Shereen says. “Nothing is off-limits.” And no flower evades Shereen and Stephen. Last season, the pair road-tripped the entire state looking for an illusive orange coneflower. After visiting ten different nurseries, they finally found a flat of the rare and newly introduced flower tucked behind the owner’s garage. She was charging six dollars per plant. ‘It was quite the find,” Stephen reminisces. The key to achieving spectacular color, Shereen says, is liberally estimating the number of plants needed. “There’s always room to plant more flowers,” she advises. “But running out of a color and trying to duplicate it at a different nursery can be a nightmare.” Shereen gets creative with extras in her container gardens, which enliven deck and patio areas throughout the yard. Peak color comes around the fourth of July in the Kos garden, as the perennial bed anchoring the garden is in full bloom. Asiatic and daylilies, heliopsis, gaillardia, zinnias, cosmos, coneflowers, cleome, delphiniums and foxglove burst high above a floor of bright orange nasturtium, multi-colored dahlias, dainty flax and overflowing impatiens. A Becky shasta daisy, with its strong stems and larger blooms, is the newest addition to this bed. The pigments of each flower in the perennial bed appear to change with the position of the sun, as the orange, red and yellow flowers pop by day and the yellow and white blooms glow by dusk. Leading from the perennial bed back up to the house, another curvilinear border lines beds of lush periwinkle and sedum ground cover. The ground cover encircles a dwarf Korean lilac tree, which the couple purchased for their anniversary. A dedicated deadheader, Shereen often finds flashes of inspiration deep within her beds as she hunts down spent blooms. “Nature is a great guide,” she says. “Flowers that pop up next to one another unexpectedly give me the best ideas for container gardening.” Shereen’s favorite spontaneous blooms are her columbines, which spring up in peculiar places, including the crack of a lava rock, throughout the garden. Sitting on the deck, with the sounds of the nearby waterfall pond, which was designed and built by Stephen, the gardeners brainstorm next season’s garden even before this year’s has fully bloomed. Stephen talks, Shereen writes, and they come up with a plan. Next year, they decide, they’ll challenge themselves with a different color experiment. Recalling that initial matchy-matchy garden of the past, Shereen wonders if maybe she was onto something. “Rather than rely on color combos for whimsy, I’m hoping to experiment next season with wide washes of a single color set on a backdrop of varying greens.” ###
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