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Poolside garden creates backyard paradise
By Kathy Van Mullekom
247-4781 |
When Jim and Dee Meadows returned from their 20th wedding anniversary to Hawaii several years ago, they brought back the beginnings of a perfect poolside garden.
Six bare stalks from plumeria plants boarded the plane with them. Today, cold hardy bananas, windmill and sago palms, hibiscus and elephant ears join the late summer-blooming plumerias in a tropical resort-style back yard that surrounds their 20-by-40-foot in-ground pool.
"Plumerias are pretty easy," says Jim of the plants that produce flowers for Hawaiian leis. "They are easy to propagate. Stick the stems with rooting compound on them in soil, and they take off. During winter, I keep them in the garage where they go dormant and water them three to four times."
"They flower every summer and have the most beautiful smell," adds Dee.
Even though the couple lives in a York County neighborhood where azaleas, hollies and camellias are the norm, Jim and Dee prefer anything that makes them think of sun, sand and swimsuits.
"Dee and I hate cold weather and long for warm tropical climates and have been big Jimmy Buffett fans for the way he sings about living a tropical-based lifestyle," says Jim. "I've always been into plants, so I was naturally attracted to tropical plants, especially after getting our pool."
Developing a garden around the pool is a gradual and time-consuming process. Jim isn't in a hurry because he wants to see how things fare before he puts everything in motion.
"Every year I add a few things," says Jim. "One of these years I'll put in a tiki bar."
For now, Jim is content to expand his gardens, especially the banana plants that make you think you're somewhere else.
"Nothing says 'You're not in Virginia anymore' like several large banana groves," he says. "Even though the stalks will freeze if you don't dig them up in the fall, the corms in the ground will sprout several new stalks in spring and grow like weeds – 10 to 12 feet tall in a couple months."
"And, each year the grove will expand with more trees. I also like red and dwarf varieties of banana, but they are not cold hardy and must be brought in before the first freeze."
When it comes to palms, Jim has learned to expect the unexpected. Last winter, he worried five sago palms were gone because they lost all their fern-like foliage. He wraps them with burlap and Christmas lights to provide a little extra heat when it's really, really cold but even then it's a guessing game as to what will appear when warm weather returns. He likes how they surprised him this spring.
"Every one sprouted new growth as soon as it got warm, and they look great again," he says.
Windmill palms, he finds, are extra cold hardy, keeping their foliage intact without added protection.
Now that he's got what it takes to grow bananas and palms to his heart's content, he's working on adding color throughout the garden. Hibiscus of all kinds — the trumpet-flowering kind and the ones that produce dinner plate-size flowers — are among his mainstays for summer-long color.
"It's hard to beat hibiscus flowers for a tropical environment, although I'm trying with new angel trumpet plants I bought this spring," he says.
Dee spends a lot of time in their back yard but she quickly admits Jim is the gardener in the family. A kindergarten teacher with summers off, she prefers floating in the pool while Jim weeds, mulches, waters and coaxes plants to meet his expectations.
"We entertain a lot throughout the summer. That's the best part," she says.
Jim agrees, saying the pool and its plant companions are the backdrop for many weekly and special occasions: Friday happy hours, wedding and graduation parties and neighborhood cookouts.
"He works hard to keep it looking nice and we get to enjoy the results," says Dee, smiling at her suntanned husband.
Jim smiles back, knowing he can nap in the hammock he got for Father's Day or jump in the pool to cool off, something he does more now that the garden is off to a good start.
"It's hard to beat the ambience of a pool surrounded by tropical plants for drinking a cup of coffee and reading the Sunday paper, or the tropical view in the setting sunlight during Happy Hour by the pool," he says.
"As my buddy, Joe, commented when visiting recently: 'I feel like I'm in Key West!'
"Bingo. Objective met."
By Kathy Van Mullekom" target="_blank" href="https://www.dailypress.com/hrnews-kathy-van-mullekom-20130507-staff.html#nt=author-bio">
By Kathy Van Mullekom">
Kathy Van Mullekom has gardened all her life. Her fondest childhood memories are sitting under a grape arbor, helping her grandmother shell butterbeans or shooing the chickens out of her grandmother's tomato patch. Those memories linger lovingly, encouraging Kathy to pursue several decades of gardening, hopefully passing on a love of gardening to her four now-grown children. Today, Kathy gardens about an acre in York County, Va., where most of her plants are meant to attract bees, butterflies and birds. She often picks plants for their multi-season interest, providing spring and summer flowers, color fall foliage and winter-time berries. Kathy is a York County master gardener and has taken landscape design and other plant-related classes at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va. Her gardening philosophy: There is no right or wrong way to garden. Garden to enjoy it, creating a place of beauty and relaxation in your little corner of the world. Visit hrdiggin.com. Get an RSS feed of the Diggin' In column by Kathy Van Mullekom.What is this?
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