Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
THE GARDENS at 6390 N. County H in Mercer are a study in controlled beauty, featuring a flawless vegetable garden and a manicured collection of flowers and complementary signage. Doreen and Norman McKindles shared their lakeside land as part of Saturday's Woods and Blooms Garden Club in Mercer. Surveying blossoms are, from left, Erin Bailey of Wausau, Wis., and garden club historian Ginny Kemplin.
By P.J. GLISSON
Mercer - When most people think of gardens, they envision flowers and vegetables, but five properties in a Saturday garden show in Mercer illustrated just how many other elements can be incorporated to create an artistic effect.
The Woods and Blooms Garden Club sponsored the self-guided event, complete with maps, in part to share the beauty of each site and in part to raise funds for the club's causes.
The property of Carol and Darrell Swearingen on Swearingen Road is a shining example of how found art can make a strategic statement among flowers, trees and open spaces.
Carol said the massive display, which includes numerous vignettes in thoughtful array along a fieldstone path, is the joint result of labor by herself and her husband.
It also hasn't happened overnight. "We've been here 30 years," she said, adding that many items came from second-hand sales.
Carol added, however, that collecting found art is more challenging in modern times due to greater competition.
Fortunately, the Swearingens also sometimes benefit from salvaged items, such as old street signs that now make for a clever fence display, and old school bleachers from which Darrell fashioned wind chimes that add to the sensory ambiance of the peaceful yard.
According to Carol, her husband just began woodworking in recent years, after retiring, but he already has developed the skill to fashion 30-foot totem poles, and he currently is creating a wooden train with movable parts.
Beyond that, he also built a gazebo that his wife uses as her personal getaway.
"This is my "I want' guy," she half-kidded while introducing him. "If I want something, I go to him and say 'I want this.'"
The property also features a church steeple, a garden table and chairs, a fire pit, multiple bird houses, and fences lined with colored glass bottles.
Carol said maintaining and protecting all of the baubles can be challenge. In relation to thunderstorms, she noted, "My gazing balls used to get broken, so I started to collect bowling balls."
Learning by doing
On N. County H, the property of Doreen and Norman McKindles welcomes visitors via a lovely, wooded driveway that leads to the lakeside site.
Doreen said the serene setting there is the result of a division of labor. "The vegetable garden is him, and I do the flowers," she said.
She claimed that she has learned mainly by trial and error, along with the help of outside advice.
"I always only did flower boxes," she said, adding of her sprawling plot of beautiful blossoms, "This is a garden that just sort of happened."
It resulted, she said, from regular plantings from friends and family.
As a gradual gardener, Doreen said she doesn't know all of the types of flowers on her property, but notes that garden-feeding products have helped her, along with additional products to ward off hungry deer.
Meanwhile, her husband claimed with equal modesty, "I'm the helper." He said that a small tractor helps him to maintain the yard, which includes his meticulous, fenced-in vegetable garden.
Ginny Kemplin, historian of the garden club, was on site at the McKindles' property, enjoying its effect with Erin Bailey of Wausau, Wis., who also has a house in Mercer.
Meanwhile, on Hwy. J, the property of Ellen and Elliot Kerwin had just been sold, but the new owners allowed the site to remain within the garden show.
That land features a lovely arbor wall of flowers, perpendicular to the house. It includes huge hanging baskets, wandering vines, and pleasing shocks of color.
Behind the wall are a few additional gardens within the yard, which proved to be a favorite place for frolicking baby bunnies.
Also on the tour was the wooded property of Julie and Rick Klug on W. County FF. It has a lakeside path, a memorial garden, a rock garden, and benches and other woodwork that the Klugs have created themselves. Flowers and native growth complete the picture.
Leann and Jeffery Malison's lakeside plot on W. Charlotte's Way completed the tour. It features a teepee-like structure, along with big boulders, a vegetable garden and a variety of annuals, perennials and herbs.
