Couple display the art of gardening

The first time around, Tom and Anna Erbes created a typical front-yard garden in their typical south Minneapolis yard: sod. Raised beds of railroad ties. And foundation plantings of yews, arborvitaes. That was in the early 1980s, when everything from furniture to women's jackets to garden beds was big and boxy.

As the decades passed, the Erbeses noticed two things: The railroad ties were starting to rot and their typical yard no longer appealed to them.

"We said, 'Wow. There are a lot more unusual plants than what we have out there, things that would make me smile,'" said Anna.

So a few years ago, they decided to take a "second stab" at the garden. They rented a Bobcat (with a hired driver) to take out the ties. But they didn't stop there. Tom grabbed his chain saw and started in on the trees.

"By the time we were done, we'd removed almost everything," said Anna.

Most of the trees, shrubs and perennials were gone. They'd even ripped out most of the grass and dug down about a foot, removing the existing soil. But it wasn't until their yard caused a neighborhood sensation that they realized what they'd done.

"When the neighbors came home that night, they said, 'What's your plan?,'" said Anna. "We looked at each other and said, 'Plan? What plan?'"

Both Tom and Anna are artists. Tom, a special effects technician, also works in wood, metal, plastic and bronze. Anna, an elementary school principal, does multimedia sculpture. But they knew there would never be a pen-and-ink plan for their yard.

"Neither one of us can draw," said Anna with a laugh.

"We can visualize," added Tom. "And we design the same way. It's kind of organic. We go out in a space and start laying hoses or using spray paint to see how it looks. "

But this time around, their gardening wasn't going to be all about looks. They made sure it had a better-than-solid foundation.

"We brought in so much beautiful black dirt," Anna said. "We started truly from the ground up."

Then, they got out the hoses and started in on the raised beds. Anna wanted to plant in raised beds so she could "super amend" the soil. But it was also an aesthetic decision. "Raised beds add dimension," she said, "that makes it so much more interesting than just [planting] flat."

They considered using different kinds of materials to form the beds -- interlocking bricks, stone slabs, wood. But they landed on fieldstones, which they ordered by the truckload. Anna carefully stacked the stones to make mortarless walls for the beds.

And the planting began.

Engulfed in green

Though it has its share of flowers -- stalwarts such as liatris, daisies and coneflowers -- the real stars of the garden are the shrubs. Anna used evergreens -- dwarf blue globe spruce, juniper, weeping spruce, weeping hemlock -- to form the backdrop and added showier shrubs -- silver weeping willows, lilacs and dogwoods -- as accents.

Anna, who does most of the planting, is quick to admit she's no expert. "I may not know what you're supposed to do. I can tell you what I do, but I don't know the official names," she said.

But it's clear that she has a way with plants. She prunes all the shrubs, amends the soil with compost when she plants, and pots up her own colorful combinations of annuals to make the garden pop. And the garden she and Tom rebuilt from scratch is an unqualified success. It's been awarded two Metro Blooms awards and it's become a favorite stop for friends and strangers alike.

"I do more garden tours than the arboretum," said Anna with a laugh. "People come by all the time and say, 'This is our destination for our evening walks.'"

Like many gardeners, Tom and Anna claim to be "done," at least with the front yard. They plan to leave the lush, shaded side yard mostly as it is, filled with spiderwort, Japanese painted ferns and the ostrich ferns that "came with the house." But there's another garden do-over waiting for them out back.

This spring, they plan to start on the back yard, surrounding the new garage/studio combo they built with a New Orleans-style courtyard garden, complete with a wall of shrubs, a wading pool, maybe even a grotto.

The Erbeses don't mind asking for a little help with the multilevel back yard, in part because they've already proven their mettle.

"We've done it all," said Tom.

"And we're still married," added Anna.