After the first filming in our summer garden series, I’m all the more convinced that my friend and Tagawa cohort Becky was actually Alice in Wonderland in a previous life. She even looks like Alice!
After teaching middle school history for thirty years, Becky knew more about the War of 1812 than garden plants when she started at Tagawa Gardens. Now, she shares her teaching flair as Tagawa’s Community Programs Specialist, facilitating hands-on learning programs for school groups, home educators, special needs groups, and other community organizations.
Becky brings so much artistry and spontaneity into kids’ programs at the garden center, but until I stepped into her backyard garden, I had no idea the wonderland that awaited me.
A Garden Carnival
Over the past five years, Becky and her husband, Mike, have transformed their thousand-foot backyard into a whimsical zen garden. With loads of personality built into garden beds, walkways, hang-out spots, a river feature, and chicken coop, the garden is downright fun.
Becky’s garden spans her entire backyard. It’s a collection of several small island gardens that Mike built with old railroad ties and boards of any size. Becky routinely brings home plants to try from Tagawa, tucking them here or there as the mood strikes. Becky credits the evolution of her garden to a lot of reading, a little luck, and endless experimentation. Her approach is to put it in the ground and see it if works.
Along with plants of all kinds, Becky’s garden has lots (and lots!) of collectibles that look like things you’d find abandoned in your great grandparents’ barn: an old ladder, various lanterns that haven’t seen a flame in decades, and a wooden chair that’s now home to a vining clematis. We visited Becky’s garden in early June, before most flowers are blooming in Colorado’s high plains, but the entire space is filled with year-round personality.
The Music Rolls On
Many of Becky’s island gardens have a theme inspired by her favorite Rock ‘n Roll icons. An arrangement of upcycled bathroom fixtures is referred to as the “Elton John” garden. It’s the kind of quirky humor that Becky and Mike love coming home to at the end of the day.
Each fixture in the Elton John garden now serves as a type of a raised bed. Alyssum fills up the sink and decorates the commode. Becky has high hopes for a potato harvest from the clawfoot bathtub, what I think of as her “spud-tub.”
Humor, Hens, & Happy Hour
Backyard chickens are becoming more common these days, but have you seen a coop that doubles as a pint-sized bar, complete with wine glasses and tiny bar stools? There’s a drink menu that displays what’s on tap during “Clucktail” hour, and of course, all drinks are “made from scratch.”
Tiny Touches Make a Big Difference
A visit to Becky’s garden is not to be rushed. She’s blended a slightly-organized jumble of plants with sweet, silly things that have caught her eye. There’s a bird’s nest that fell from a tree, now home to bright bits of glass. With pansies and violas finishing the design, it all just works.
As much as the garden sings with energy, Becky says the garden is her zen place, her retreat, her “sanctum sanctorum.” It’s a place she loves to stroll with her morning coffee, to walk barefoot along the garden paths, and to listen to the little river running over the rocks.
Becky says with a smile that her garden has a “well-worn aesthetic,” inspired in part by her time at Tagawa. She says being surrounded by beautiful plants and generous co-workers who are happy to share their knowledge has helped her appreciate both the science of gardening and the joy of making a garden say what you want it to say.
This year, Becky and Mike intend to plant a little orchard in the dog run. Imagining a full pantry of canned fruit and a fresh green chili pie someday, Becky says of her garden, “It’s always building on itself. It’s never done, and it’s never the same.”
