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A deadly garden
Baking the bounty in an Edina garden
Artful landscape in Prior Lake
Wild kingdom in New Brighton
St. Paul: A city garden that's many small gardens
Edina yard: A work in progress
Rural masterpiece
Putting down roots
The final season
Most homeowners wouldn't have mixed feelings about having a health hazard removed from their property. But most homeowners don't have a garden like Jim Smith's.
His bloom-filled back yard is "a slice of paradise," said his friend Terry Engfer, who nominated it for the Star Tribune's Beautiful Gardens contest. But beneath the beauty lurks a toxic threat: arsenic, the residue from a long-closed pesticide plant.
Smith didn't know the soil was contaminated when he bought his south Minneapolis home in 2004. The plant site was several blocks away and had been cleaned and capped years earlier. Concern about possible contamination in nearby yards was just emerging, and few had actually been tested.
Smith was a first-time home buyer. He had no experience with gardening but he knew he wanted to start. The deep back yard and its potential were what sealed the deal for him, he recalled. "The Realtor and I were upstairs, and I looked out the window. It was March, and there was nothing going on -- snow on the ground -- but that was the moment when I said, 'This is the place.'"
There was a garden in the back yard, but it wasn't the garden of his dreams. It included some blooming plants, but it was angular and mostly functional: square vegetable plots with a straight sidewalk running down the middle, and a retaining wall. "I had a vision of a more whimsical, flowing, softer look," Smith said. So, with the help of friends, he dug up the yard, removed the concrete, then hired a landscaper to install a curving brick walkway and design a garden plan.
To fill his garden, Smith took a thrifty approach. He kept and relocated some of the previous owner's plants, including boxwood, peonies and wisteria. Then he hosted a party. "I provided the food, and I said, 'Bring one or two perennials.' That's how I started."
Read more...
Beautiful garden winner
Back-yard bounty
A passionate, learn-as-you-go gardener reaps the fruits of many years of labor in his Edina yard.
Beautiful Garden contest winners
Thanks to all of you who nominated gardens for this year's Beautiful Gardens contest. Here are our winners for 2009.
More from this series:
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April 2009: Garden gallery
A passion for sculpture -- and an aversion to mowing -- inspired an ambitious landscape in Prior Lake that its keepers eagerly share with others. -
Gorgeous gardens
See highlights from all six winners of last year's Beautiful Gardens contest. -
March 2009: Where the wild things are
Animals flourish among the flowers and foliage in a suburban landscape that’s part garden, part wildlife sanctuary. -
Feb. 2009: St. Paul city garden is front and center
A learn-as-you-go gardener transformed a small city lot into an imaginative, innovative garden. -
Jan. 2009: Park place in Edina
A do-it-yourself Edina gardener transformed an overgrown yard into a parklike setting with a string of intimate, inventive gardens. -
Dec. 2008: Marian Fischer is a garden category unto herself
To Marian, the land near Waseca is her canvas, and flowers and foliage are her medium. Husband Larry is co-groundskeeper and crewman. -
MARIAN FISCHER'S GARDEN TIPS
• Choose trees carefully: "Don't experiment," she said. "You can have fun with perennials and shrubs. But it takes 20 years to know if it's the right tree." -
Rural masterpiece
Our second “Beautiful Garden” contest winner creates beauty by the acre in Waseca. -
Photo gallery:
Three acres of artistry
A Waseca couple has turned a barren field into a masterful series of gardens. -
Nov. 2008: Apple Valley garden has its roots in WWII labor camp
The fragrant phlox spilling down the slope of Lucy Pacieznik's back yard in Apple Valley have their roots in a forced labor camp in Germany, where her Ukrainian mother first held her as a newborn in 1943. -
Putting down roots
Though she grew up in tropical Brazil, Beatiful Garden Contest winner Lucy Pacieznik has adapted wonderfully to our harsh climate, creating a lush, hardy garden that completely fills her Apple Valley yard.
Columbus Day was just a little too early to see all that white stuff. My roses agreed.
See thousands of photos from other StarTribune.com readers and share your own photos and video today.
More Beautiful Gardens: 2006-2007 winners
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East meets Northeast
An accidental gardener turned his modest Minneapolis yard into an Asian-inspired garden with sculpted topiary trees. - Family affair
A country garden binds four generations of a family closer together - and to the earth. -
Enchanting exuberance
A St. Paul gardener carves an English-inspired garden out of her hilly back yard. -
Nature's playroom
How to create a looky, family-friendly garden