Before planting a picket-fence garden, there is a decision you must make: Which side of the fence do you garden on?
If you plant street side you generously garden for the neighborhood. On the other hand, if you plant house side, some would say you plant for yourself.
“What’s the point of having a beautiful garden if only I can enjoy it?” asks Cathy Icaza of Santa Ana, Calif. “I probably get two lookie-loo cars a day.”
Which makes one wonder how the work gets done.
“People stop, point, and if I’m working in the garden, never hesitate to get out of their cars and ask questions.”
For picket-fence gardeners, it seems, chitchat is part of the fun. Suzy Marks of Lemon Heights, Calif., says, “Most gardeners concentrate on their back yards, but when you have a picket-fence garden, people hear about it.”
People drive by her garden in droves.
Picket-fence gardening is fun and friendly but requires an intense effort on the part of the gardener. It’s a task that Icaza and Marks take to heart. Both keep their soil in pristine condition to support their abundance of plants. Icaza, a self-taught green thumb, gardens 180 linear feet of picket fence that wraps around her corner lot.
Marks, a longtime disciple of Jan Smithen’s teaching at the Los Angeles Arboretum, initially removed the clay a foot deep in front of her fence and replaced it with rich planter mix and compost. Each time Marks adds a new plant, she amends the area again. Both gardeners put in one to two hours a day three times a week.
Icaza’s picket-fence garden is a mix of roses, perennials and annuals. Her favorites are Love in a Mist, annual scabiosa, and Shirley poppy.
Marks goes for a more manicured look. The bones of her picket-fence garden are Sexy Rexy and Show Biz roses, reblooming iris Victoria Falls and two large unnamed rudbeckias.
