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Beautiful Gardens contest winner Jim Smith discovered a dirty secret about his garden - the soil contained high levels of arsenic. The fix? A whole new garden.

A deadly garden

Baking the bounty in an Edina garden

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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

Photo gallery: Backyard bounty in Edina.

The final season

By KIM PALMER, Star Tribune

Last update: November 10, 2009

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."

Back-yard bounty

Mark Campbell

A passionate, learn-as-you-go gardener reaps the fruits of many years of labor in his Edina yard.

Beautiful Garden contest winners

Buerkleys' garden

Thanks to all of you who nominated gardens for this year's Beautiful Gardens contest. Here are our winners for 2009.

More Beautiful Gardens: 2006-2007 winners

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