There is no doubt that Shirley Battin is a woman who enjoys getting her hands dirty. After retiring from 30 years of teaching art to junior high students where she worked with paints, chalks and charcoal, Battin has started a second career as a gardener, giving her a chance to really get in “touch” with nature and all the mulch and soil such a job demands.
“When I was still teaching, I used gardening as a stress reliever,” she says. “I could go into the garden and just get my hands dirty and it was good therapy for me.”
Now Battin does more than just work in the colorful garden of her West Dundee home, which is filled with perennials, hastas and wildflowers. As owner of the Briar Rose Garden Service established this spring, she now travels in a small pickup truck to other people’s yards to plant, prune, mulch, water, weed and fertilize, among other tasks. It’s a hobby that has turned into a part-time career, she says.
“I was planning for my retirement and trying to figure out what to do to keep myself occupied,” says Battin. “I’ve always loved gardening. I get a lot of satisfaction from it.”
Battin is an environmentalist who is a member of several organizations that rescue wildflowers from land developments; she is also the founder of the Dundee Backyard Garden Club. As an artist, she is a great admirer of impressionist painters, particularly Vincent Van Gogh and Georgia O’Keefe. “My dream is to some day see Monet’s garden in France,” she says.
For now, she’ll concentrate on beautifying flower gardens here, where she occasionally designs entire landscapes, charging anywhere from $50 to $125. For maintenance work, such as watering, weeding and edging, she works at a rate of $15 per hour.
“I think there’s a big need for the maintenance part,” she says. “It takes a lot of discipline. I’d also like to help beginners establish a new garden.”
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Briar Rose Garden Service, 315 S. Second St., West Dundee. Hours are by appointment. Call 708-426-6602.
