|
FrontRangeLiving.com -> Garden -> Laurie Jekel's Garden
 MIXING
OLD WORLD ELEGANCE WITH AMERICAN INGENUITY--LAURIE JEKEL'S PRIVATE GARDEN
By Colleen Smith
As a girl, Laurie Jekel learned Old World gardening in Greeley, at the elbow
of her grandmother, a German immigrant who pounded railroad nails into the soil
for a slow and steady release of iron.
As an adult, Jekel took to gardening as a profession. In business for 25
years, she owns The Last Detail, Denver-based landscape design firm.
She admits with a laugh that she dreaded going to her grandma’s as a child.
"That was hard work for a kid!"
Today, however, Jekel’s business has grown dynamically. Leaning on and learning from European sensibilities, she infuses her
designs with starry-eyed American ingenuity and her own stripe of originality,
opting for less than obvious choices at every step of design.
 This year, Jekel upped the old world ante of her backyard when she had a
summerhouse built. The cozy structure near the alley appears a miniature version
of her stucco home. Outside the quaint summerhouse, Jekel’s potting bench
rests on pea gravel. As is popular in Europe, Jekel planted an assortment of
herbs, vegetables and cheery nasturtiums in the gravel.
As charming as it is practical, Jekel’s garden demonstrates that the useful
and the beautiful can be hybrid.
"In the back, I wanted a separate place where nobody could see in,"
said Jekel, "my own secret garden."
Her secret to her secret garden lies in her soil--her specialty compost of
sterilized cow manure mixed with wood chips and fortified with granular iron.
Grandma evidently had it right because Jekel’s garden has to be one of the
healthiest on
the Front Range. Her thick turf, thriving trees and mounds of
impressively sized perennials look like they’d soak up gallons of water. To
the contrary, Jekel barely irrigates.
"I like to conserve water," she said. "I think my average
three month bills is about $30 in summer. I use more water to wash my
clothes--they get so dirty."
To boot, Jekel’s lawn and flowerbeds appear all but weedless.
 And then there are her containers. Until last year, Jekel also owned The
Potted Garden, a quaint shop on Old South Gaylord that specialized in container
gardens. From her inventory, she gleaned stately stone and resin pots of all
sizes and shapes. Unlike ceramic or terra cotta pots, notorious for cracking
from temperature fluctuations, her containers last. And last.
"I’ve used them for 17 years," Jekel said, "and they’ve
never cracked. Not even with trees in them. Not outside over winter.
Never."
Jekel also uses assorted romantic iron jardinières--both freestanding and
wall mounted. She fills her ubiquitous containers with atypical assortments of
plants--and lots of them. Forget about petunias and geraniums.
"I can’t stand doing the norm," Jekel said. "Ever. I rarely
use geraniums. I just don’t like them--not when there are so many other
interesting plants to use. I try to do stuff most people wouldn’t think of
doing"
 Going against the garden grain, in her outdoor containers, Jekel uses lots of
indoor houseplants. Cyclamen, for example, makes cameo appearances.
She’s fond of ferns; and the variegated and versatile Pteris is one
of Jekel’s darlings.
"Pteris fern is God’s gift to us," she said. "It can
take hot southern exposure or shade, and it will live without water for a week.
Last year, I had them until snow in November; and they made it through the snow.
It’s the miracle plant."
She also likes maidenhair fern: "They’re my favorite; they’re so
hardy."
Jekel puts perennials to work in containers, as well. She pots up Rudbekia
(brown-eye Susans), pincushions,(Scabiosa) a petite Gaura (whirling butterflies) and other plants reliable for long term blooming.
She employs hostas in pots, too, using their dramatic foliage to anchor an
arrangement. She grows bougainvillea as an annual and applauds its vibrant
color, visible from blocks away.
Even her annuals are extraordinary. Jekel grows a short version of cleome in
pots to add verticality. She’s keen on a pair of new salvias: Blue Angels and
Black and Blue. She grows 'Gardenmeister', a fuschia that will take full sun or
full shade.
"I use a lot of sweet potato vine," she said. "I use all three
colors: the lime, the dark purple and the tricolor, which is gorgeous."
"You can put anything in pots," Jekel said. "Sometimes it won’t
work, but usually it does. I just try it."
 Jekel’s containers engage the senses--flaunting not only eye appeal, but
also adding scent, and sometimes salad fixings. She grows citrus trees in
containers; and tiny green oranges have followed the fragrant blossoms. Potted
roses add a spicy sweet scent. And Jekel always grows jasmine for the glorious
perfume.
She fills in containers with lettuces, arugula and celery, which add vertical
interest. For practicality as much as composition, she adds herbs
like--yes--parsley, tri-color sage, rosemary and thyme.
"If you live in a small place, you want to fill in with things you can
use," she said. "If you live in an apartment and want herbs, but
flowers, too, combine them. They look cute together."
 Well, some look cute. Others arrangements appear as elegant and sophisticated
as bouquets rendered in fine art paintings.
"I like unusual plants," said Jekel, understating her approach.
Yet she likes more pedestrian plants in surprising applications or
assortments, too. She got her growers to combine hot pink and safety orange
impatiens, for example, a mix they adopted and named 'Voodoo.' A second mix she
requested amalgamates: soft pink, and coral impatiens--a tropical blend the
grower named 'Tutti Fruity.' To offset the hot colors, Jekel favors cool blue
green and lime leaves, milky white blossoms and variegated foliage.
 "They all look great at night," she says.
She opts for unusual trees, too. Her backyard, though not large, includes a
dozen trees: a tricolor beech, Chanticleer pears, ginnala and Japanese split
leaf maples, a spring snow crab, Japanese blue cedar, a pair of
larches--deciduous evergreens--and a star magnolia that, enviably, blooms a
couple time a year--both in early Spring and in July.
Jekel puts trees in pots, too. Her Vanderwolf pines thrive in large
containers, adding architectural interest and privacy to her patio. For clients,
Jekel plants other trees in pots, as well. Weeping pussy willow trees, for
example, and hibiscus trees and grafted hydrangea trees.
"I love weird trees in containers," she said.
Moreover, Jekel has good luck over wintering them. She simply pulls the pots
inside or covers them with evergreen boughs and burlap.
 They’ll make it, as long as there’s enough soil around them,"
Jekel said.
Around Jekel's garden is a sense of quiet grace. But for birdsong, her
backyard haven is hushed--quiet enough to hear the hum of honeybees busying
themselves with pollen collecting. Wind chimes give form to the breezes. Amid
the abundant containers, lots of comfortable seating--including a wicker settee,
butterfly chairs and chaise lounge chairs with cushions the color of margaritas
and fruit striped pillows--invites visitors to slow down, relax.
Relaxed is a word that characterizes Jekel’s approach to horticulture.
"I don’t really read about plants," she said. "I don’t
know how it comes to me. I swear it comes in my dreams."
And she, in turn, interprets her dreams well beyond her own garden gate,
creating for clients bountiful potagers, outrageously beautiful borders and pots
that deliver a lot of band for the buck.
With a shrug, Jekel said, barely able to contain herself, "It’s just
really fun."
|
