Every garden has its origin, usually starting with an inherited space, plants or seeds, the memory of a garden, in memory of a gardener, at the urging of a friend, even a catalogue. The garden of Linda Wenner can claim the most unusual of beginnings; it started because of an abundance of manure. And the abundance of manure was the result of horses. And so perhaps we should say that the garden started with the horses, the reason Linda and Deb Hubbell came to Hampton in the first place, which is, in itself, an unusual story.

A State Animal Control Officer, Linda found herself with two old horses, unlikely candidates for adoption, who needed a home. An advertisement for “the house the women built” here in Hampton sounded, at the very least, like a “good fit”. Upon close inspection, however, the house required extensive renovations, projects they’d tackled with their own home in Willimantic and were less than enthusiastic to repeat. On the return route through Hampton, they noticed a “For Sale” sign and followed the arrow to Parsonage Road, where they observed that the acreage provided plenty of space for a paddock and where there was a barn, which was refurbished even before they furnished their house!

And the house? It felt like home right away. Later, Linda and Deb would realize that they’d visited the place during the area’s Open Studios when they purchased photographs from the photographer who lived there, and recognized the scene captured from the window. The purchase of the property in several ways seemed serendipitous.

A few years ago, Linda started composting the horse manure. Rob Miller who initially was using the horse manure for Full Moon Farm, taught Linda the way to correctly compost it. Thus the first step toward the pollinator garden was the compost. Where to put it to use? The septic system was in the front yard, consequently a scruffy, dusty area of uneven growth, and so she considered spreading some of the compost there, starting with one section of the space. She purchased a tractor with a bucket, and Rob shared tips on spreading the compost. He still tills the garden. “Without Rob’s help,” Linda says, “I might not have made it to the finish line.”

What to cultivate? Linda and Deb kept bees, but honey bees are vulnerable insects, and it proved very difficult, and disheartening, to lose them. They wanted to continue to provide for honey bees and other pollinators though, so with the help of catalogues, Linda developed a plan. She checked an Audubon list of pollinators against what was already in her yard , winterberry, spice bush, sand cherry, and hazelnut, and added a service berry and a pussy willow.

Selections of flowers to cultivate were the result of an advertisement for John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, which offered
seeds for beneficial insects, bumblebees, hummingbirds, butterflies, song birds, habitat gardens and many mini-meadows. Linda ordered them all. Prepared the space, planted the seeds, mulched the seedlings with hay, and the result is a lawn transformed into a wildflower meadow, a pollinating paradise.

In harmonious contrast, the home of Linda and Deb is nestled in more formal plantings. Hydrangeas — so magnificent this year with their enormous cream, pink, purple, and blue blossoms — are bountiful, cushioning the foundation and forming hedges with lustrous hollies and skirts of various hostas. A welcome flag greets visitors at the entrance to the door, a paved walkway softened with cascading grasses and Siberian iris and foliar staples like euonymus, with its evergreen variegations, and the glossy foliage of pachysandra, the purple leaves of a Japanese maple serving as a canopy. All the elements contribute to the welcoming atmosphere – comfort in the generous path and the plantings where the artistry of a trained eye is evidenced in the mixed plantings which consider color and texture with the inclusion of groundcovers, flowers, deciduous and coniferous varieties of shrubs and trees. Assorted rhododendrons and azaleas for spring, summer clumps of echinecea, rudbeckia, daisies, lilies and bee balm are visible beyond a gate which leads to the back yard — the barn, the paddock, and a pool. A path to the back door is sheltered with a fragrant lilac and a sweet gum, a native rarity in New England prized for its singular fiery foliage, and the perimeters of the yard are delineated with an assortment of conifers.

The route to the swimming pool, and the solid fence surrounding it, is lined with seasonal plants, azaleas, beach roses, a pillar of Canadian birch, particularly exceptional in winter with is exfoliating bark revealing strips of cream, fawn, rust, and the fringed umbrella of a dark green Japanese maple. The unanticipated surprise, however, is the greenery within the pool. Where we expect to see only tables, chairs and chaises, here we also have a variety of trees and shrubs, a willow with leaves variegated cream and green, a Japanese maple, a couple of purple leaved cherries, a red shrub dogwood with ruby branches and ivory striped foliage, a hydrangea vine, smothering itself in white lace-cap blossoms in early summer, and a zelkhova providing ample shape. The whole feels cool yet tropical, and invites relaxation.

It’s the pollinator garden, however, that attracts the most attention. All sorts of wildflowers grow in this area which is one hundred feet long and seventy-five feet across. Sunflowers, in sunny hues of yellow and gold, and sunset hues of orange, maroon and rust, and hollyhocks with colorful saucers climbing tall stalks, and the fleshy branches of pokeberry dripping racemes of purple-black berries tower over smaller plants – bushels of gold and orange coreopsis, spurts of black-eyed Susans and coneflowers, all threaded with multi-colored zinnias. Cosmos sweeps throughout this meadow in myriad shades of lavender and mauve, dark gold and bright orange, pale pink and white, and love-lies bleeding dangles its pendant wine-colored blossoms everywhere in the garden, speckled with umbels of white bone-set and starry sprays of azure chicory, and carpeted with the autumn color of marigolds, all intertwined with tendrils of purple crown vetch and pink four-o’clocks. It’s a spectacular space, visually lovely, an impressionistic blend of vibrant color, and more importantly, the promise of attracting beneficial insects, bumblebees, humming birds, butterflies and song birds has been kept.

This year, along with the self-sown wildflowers, new seeds were sewn, and the garden was extended, much to the appreciation of especially the birds. Linda erected a blue bird house and within two days, it was inhabited. A Master Naturalist certified through the Connecticut Audubon Society, Linda identifies the birds weaving in and out of our view at the window — Carolina wrens, cardinals — she says there are six or seven pairs of them — hummingbirds, gross beaks, gold finches and woodpeckers, to name a few. Far too many species to count. A bird buddy on the bird feeder sends photographs to her cell phone when she’s not home to see them herself.

Last September, the Gazette published the National Wildlife Federation’s announcement that Linda had successfully created a Certified Wildlife Habitat through its Garden for Wildlife movement. A Certified Wildlife Habitat is defined as a space which provides sources of food, water, shelter and places to raise young and is maintained in a sustainable way to incorporate native plants and conserve water without any reliance on pesticides. The foundation’s Garden for Wildlife movement started in 1973; it is the oldest and largest habitat program, recognizing over 289,000 Certified Wildlife Habitat gardens in the United States and encompassing more than four million acres supporting local wildlife.

Thanks to Linda, Hampton can be proud to be a part of it.

Dayna McDermott