When Joan and Gary Gand moved to Riverwoods, they were faced with 2 acres of clay soil, dense shade, overgrown evergreens, sparse lawn, a straggly patch of herbs and hungry marauding deer.
That was 18 years ago and the couple slowly transformed the garden into a colorful composition filled with unusual trees and shrubs, including a chartreuse-leafed black locust, sorbaria (false spirea), variegated aralia , `Forest Pansy’ redbud, bottlebrush buckeye, `Royal Frost’ birch and white fir. Daylilies, tree peonies, hydrangeas, ferns, hostas, lady’s mantle, sedges, astilbes and dozens of annuals are just some of the players they’ve added. Their efforts paid off, garnering the Best Large Garden award in the Chicago Tribune’s Glorious Gardens Contest 2004.
“Some gardens are like classical music, and some are wild like rock ‘n’ roll,” says Joan Gand, who, with her husband, owns Gand Music & Sound in Northfield. “A prairie garden would be folk music. Ours is a jazz garden because it’s improvised and changes all the time.” Music is also a part of their life at home. Joan plays jazz and blues on the piano and Gary plays the blues on guitar.
The couple’s home, built in 1953, is a Modernist ranch house. “It’s a dark charcoal gray and blends into the woods,” says Joan. “It’s very severe, Modern with glass and cedar. We needed to soften it but a cottage garden was too old-fashioned.”
“We take a lot of cues from our period furniture [Midcentury Modern],” Gary says. “Colors became brighter in the ’50s, more spicy and dramatic, like chartreuse against yellow, really punchy. We like to do the same thing in the garden.”
The couple opted for a sophisticated shade garden but being novices, the initial planting was trial and error. Mostly error, Joan says with a chuckle. “We started planting astilbe at the edge of the woods and lawn. We thought you could just plant them and they’d grow. We didn’t know anything about soil, conditions, what plants needed. We learned by failing.”
That was the beginning of the experimental stage, she says. Overgrown shrubs and some diseased trees were removed. Friends and family were queried about plants. And books were consulted. Garden walks and vacations planned around seeing gardens also influenced the couple’s plant selection and placement.
“We went to Winterthur gardens in Delaware and were bowled over by the sight of their shade garden in spring,” Joan says. In England, they toured Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent, the Great Dixter garden at the family home of garden writer Christopher Lloyd in East Sussex and a restored Gertrude Jekyll garden.
The Gands’ front garden now is a layered woodland with informal paths meandering around a tricolor beech, pagoda dogwood, pulmonaria, weeping larch, redbud and variegated sambucus. Two Chinese scholar stone sculptures commemorate the spot where a rotted oak tree was removed.
Gary became seriously hooked on gardening a few years after Joan when he read a newspaper article. “It said you could increase your lifespan several years [by gardening] and that appealed to me,” he said. “Working in the garden is very relaxing. Your mind can wander to other things.”
The judges were wowed by the garden’s sophisticated plant selection and the soft muted colors. “A lot of thought went into this garden,” said contest judge Kris Jarantoski, executive vice president of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. “The colors blend between the patio, other hardscape and the plants.”
The couple discovered deer-resistant plants after many disappointments. Gary didn’t want to banish the deer from the garden so they decided to enclose an area around the patio where they could protect some of their favorite plants, such as balloon flowers, clematis and turtlehead. Columbine and moss roses reseed freely each spring around the bluestone and brick patio. Along the deck, where deer frequently investigate offerings, the couple planted cimicifuga, thalictrum, ornamental grasses, tree peonies, Agastache `Blue Fortune’ and perennial geraniums, which tolerate some browsing by deer. Golden feverfew, golden hops vine, several varieties of thyme and a drift of lady’s mantle light up the border.
“It shows you can plant a great garden even with deer around,” contest judge Bryce Bandstra, the Chicago Park District’s general foreman of conservatories, said.
An otherwise unsightly drainage swale in the back of the property was transformed into a streambed. “We brought in rocks and a bridge and they’re pretty in winter,” Joan says. Cross the bridge and you’re on the path to a treehouse for adults. “It’s like a gazebo in a garden, but it’s up in a tree,” she says.
One of their favorite spots is the English-style border viewed from their patio. “The idea of walking along a garden rather than through it is very English,” Gary says. “There’s [typically] lawn, a brick path and a border. You have the ability to study the plants. Music is the same. It goes in a straight line from the beginning to the end of the composition.” And, in the Gand’s garden, the melody is positively toe-tapping.
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The maestros speak
The Gands share these tips for composing a well-designed garden.
– Keep practicing. Gardens or beds may not turn out the way you planned, but chalk it up to learning. Keep your perspective when things go wrong.
– Add a chorus. “We had a lot of plants ankle- to waist-high and tall trees but nothing human size. There was no sense of scale, so we’re concentrating on adding that middle layer,” Gary Gand says.
– Use a few accent beats. Seek out unusual foliage. “Chartreuse foliage lights up the shade garden from the ground up with golden feverfew, carex and hostas to the stately tree, Robinia pseudoacacia,” Joan Gand says.
– Favorite players. Joan’s favorite hostas include `Sum and Substance,’ `Guacamole’ and `Fire and Ice.’ “It irks me that garden magazines lately have said don’t put all your hostas in one place. But they overlap and create a tapestry of foliage. You have to ask if the advice applies to you,” she says.
– Be playful. In a large tree, the couple created a treehouse for adults, an airborne gazebo, just for themselves.
– Create your own symphony. “Gardening is a lot like music,” Gary Gand says. “You can learn popular songs and recite them or you can write your own music. Even if it’s terrible, it’s still good.”
— Nina Koziol
