“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
— John Muir, naturalist (1838-1914)
Tucked on a small quiet street not far from downtown Downers Grove, Ron and Vicki Nowicki’s home, “Circle Gardenfarm,” is like no other in nearby suburbia. It is an oasis, a sanctuary from the chatter of world news and consumerism and a model for showing others how to embrace nature in all aspects of their lives.
“Earth Day came and went, and the 20th anniversary [of Earth Day] came and went. People were momentarily enthralled, but Vicki and Ron took it to heart,” says longtime friend Carol Doty of Downers Grove. Today, 32 years after the first Earth Day, the couple holds fast to their ideas of nurturing nature and the human spirit. “They are people with ecological convictions,” Doty says.
Their passive-solar house sits nestled among apple serviceberries, hazelnut, American plum, white ash, Corneliancherry dogwood, spruce and a carpet of wildflowers. You won’t find a blade of lawn anywhere on the property. Nor will you find the front door out front — it’s around the back.
A stroll through the side yard, past fragrant sweetshrub, redbud, witch hazel, wild ginger and bloodroot, and under a leafy arbor, is like Alice going through the looking glass. The summer garden is a tapestry of blue, chartreuse, burgundy, silver, white, yellow and purple, and, like a Monet painting, the scene changes with the light.
An abundance of herbs, vegetables, fruits and flowers greet visitors as they step onto a circular patio of crushed rock and brick that serves as a compass, an 800-pound stone slab arrow pointing northward.
The circle is a metaphor for everything that the Nowickis hold dear. Its shape represents the circle of the seasons, of birth, death and renewal, an unbroken, spiritual connection between man and nature. It is a symbol that appears repeatedly in their residential landscape designs for their firm, The Land Office (www.holdtonature.com).
Robert and Janice Bastian used The Land Office to design and install gardens at two of their Downers Grove houses. “The landscape at our first house was flat and ordinary, and we wanted something different,” Janice Bastian says.
That was 12 years ago, and Ron Nowicki did something radical: He removed all the lawn, turned it upside-down, and added soil to create a slight berm that changed the level land into something interesting.
Nowicki, referred to as the “rip and flip it” man by Christy Webber of Christy Webber Landscapes in Chicago, planted trees, shrubs, perennials and ground covers for what would become a wildlife-friendly landscape that didn’t rely on power equipment or chemicals to maintain.
Extreme makeovers
“Most landscape architects are technicians, not ecologists. It’s like doctors. Many are ready to heal you, but it’s not preventive or holistic,” Nowicki says.
A special play area created for the Bastians’ young children became the hit of the neighborhood because of the “up-downs,” recycled tree stumps of varying heights they could skip over, and a bridge and woodchip paths. Ron Nowicki intended it as an outdoor classroom where children could explore and experience nature.
“We are very interested in the environment. I don’t think I could be content with just an ordinary yard now,” Robert Bastian says. The Land Office has developed the Bastians’ current home landscape into wonderful woodland.
Mary and David Wessel’s garden in Chicago’s Edison Park also had an extreme makeover. The lawn is gone and perennials fill circular beds. Mulched paths, a low birdbath and a dozen large boulders accent the space.
“I like the natural look. I have more butterflies and little bitty birds. I knew that the plants would attract them, but I didn’t believe it ’til it happened,” Mary says.
“We’re consuming the planet, paving it over and letting soil wash downstream. It all comes down to one simple thing — the land ethic. It’s a matter of cooperating with rather than dominating nature,” Ron Nowicki says.
After graduating in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Ron Nowicki began designing an energy-efficient house that relied more on a central fireplace than fossil fuel for winter heat.
He chose a site within walking distance of the business district so as not to rely constantly on a car. And he began designing a naturalistic landscape that did not require chemicals or petroleum-hungry, exhaust-belching lawn mowers.
Creating a productive landscape
“The objective was to demonstrate energy and resource conservation,” says Ron, who grew up in La Grange (Vicki grew up in Evanston). “The architecture and the land were designed symbiotically. I wanted to increase and enhance the potential of the landscape by making it productive.”
The result is an organic and biologically diverse landscape that produces a seemingly endless supply of produce that the couple uses throughout the year. Vicki holds a master’s degree in environmental education and museum studies from Aurora University in Aurora.
When she is not designing or installing perennial gardens for their clients, she keeps track of seed starting — she’s grown more than 300 varieties of flowers, herbs and vegetables — transplanting, harvesting and rotating crops at home.
Wood-chip paths wind their way between their heirloom tomatoes, `Cinderella’ pumpkins, Swiss chard, blue Tuscan kale, eggplant, rutabagas, leeks, agastache, salvia, African blue basil and countless other plants.
A screech owl, a pair of foxes, hummingbirds, butterflies and songbirds are frequent visitors to their 1/3-acre lot. As a cloud of dragonflies rises gracefully from the soil on a summer morning, patrolling for mosquitoes, Vicki takes notice. “They are so beautiful — blue, green and shimmering — it’s a powerful, divine experience.”
Nothing from the garden ever makes it to a garbage can because there’s no such thing as throwing something away. In an age when many people neglect recycling, Ron Nowicki feels an obligation to enlighten anyone who will listen. “When you throw something out, it goes to a landfill,” he says. The couple is careful to purchase things that can be recycled or reused. Even garden refuse from client projects comes back to their compost pile.
Hundreds of plants, all grown from seed in the couple’s greenhouse, are donated to Interfaith House, a shelter on Chicago’s West Side that provides short-term housing for injured or ill homeless people.
“As part of their therapy, they care for a vegetable garden and actually do the harvesting,” says Vicki, the co-founder of the Greater DuPage chapter of Wild Ones, a non-profit organization dedicated to natural landscaping and related education. The produce is used to prepare their meals.
And when they’re not designing and installing gardens in Chicago and the suburbs, the Nowickis use their own garden for tours and classes. “We’re helping people connect with the natural world one family at a time,” Ron says.
Where to buy seeds
Here are some of Vicki Nowicki’s favorite seed sources:
– Burpee Seed Co., 300 Park Ave., Warminster, PA 18974; www.burpee.com; 800-333-5808
– Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 955 Benton Ave., Winslow, ME 04901; 207-861-3901
– Shepherd’s Garden Seeds (part of White Flower Farm), c/o White Flower Farm, P.O. Box 50, Litchfield, CT 06759-0050; www.shepherdseeds.com; 800-503-9624
– The Cook’s Garden, P.O. Box 535, Londonderry, VT 05148; www.cooksgarden.com, 800-457-9703
– Pinetree Garden Seeds, P.O. Box 300, New Gloucester, ME 04260; www.superseeds.com; 207-926-3400
– Seeds of Change, 1 Sunset Way, Henderson, NV 89014; www.seedsofchange.com; 888-762-7333
– Seed Savers Exchange, 3076 N. Winn Rd., Decorah, IA 52101; www.seedsavers.org; 563-382-5990
— Nina Koziol
To learn more
Ron and Vicki Nowicki recommend the following books for those who would like to learn more about becoming a good steward of the Earth.
– “This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader” by Joan Dye Gussow (Chelsea Green, 273 pages, $22.95)
– “Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect” by David W. Orr (Island Press, 224 pages, $18.95)
– “The Contrary Farmer: An Invitation to Gardening” by Gene Logsdon (Chelsea Green, 192 pages, $16.95)
– “The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture” by Wendell Berry (Sierra Club, 234 pages, $12.95)
– “Gardening for the Future of the Earth” by Howard Yana Shapiro and John Harrison (Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishers, 240 pages, $19.95)
— Nina Koziol
