A giving garden

Last update: November 25, 2008 - 11:06 AM

Cheryl Hibbard doesn't have a cottage garden or an English garden. What she has is a giving garden.

"I just wanted enough flowers so I could make bouquets to give away and still have a great-looking garden."

And that she has. The bountiful gardens that surround her Mound home bloom from early spring (crocuses, tulips and daffodils) to late fall (statice, sedum and chrysanthemums).

Oddly enough, Hibbard, now a master gardener, never intended to become a gardener at all.

"My mother was a gardener and I always laughed at her," said Hibbard. "I didn't want anything to do with it." But when Hibbard bought her first house, her mother gave her enough cuttings to get her garden started. Now Hibbard is doing the same thing for her nieces and nephews.

"I had two vanfuls of plants leave my yard this summer," she said. "This garden is for me -- and for cutting and giving away."

CONNIE NELSON

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