Tim Appling and Philip Combs purchased their Fairmount foursquare style house at 1600 Alston Ave. in 2006. The house has an inviting front yard and a generous screened-in wraparound porch. A bright yellow door and mailbox punctuates the soft gray color of the house, while witty and irreverent accents like metal deer trophy heads decorate the porch. A three-foot high metal fence surrounds the garden space, adding privacy and structure with a graceful metal arch entry to welcome visitors.

When Tim and Philip moved into the house, the yard was partially landscaped, primarily with grass, and a privet shrubbery that remains. All of the redesign and labor to convert the lawn to flower beds is theirs, complete with a stone walkway.

1600 Alston Ave.

The couple’s garden shows how gardeners may vary scale, color and texture in planting, while achieving year-round beauty. Interposed in the garden are several small trees and shrubs, including a Snowball bush (Viburnum Macrocephalum) and a Lavender Twist Weeping Redbud tree, both currently in bloom. The couple has used annuals in pockets among their palette of returning perennials: this year they are incorporating Gerbera daisy in fuchsia, purple petunias, and red geraniums for vibrancy. These vivid colors punctuate a backdrop of mainly greys and greens, including Lamb’s Ear, Northern Sea Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium), English Ivy, Pittosporum and Artemisia. They have a Clematis Socialis Kral, a flowering vine now on the endangered list, as well as Black-eyed Susan, and a Possum haw (Ilex Decidua), to go along with their pet possum. Among their favorite annuals is a hardy phlox that endures and returns each year.

In the fall, Tim and Philip are retiring to Ecuador where they are building a new house. Tim wrote the Yard of the Month column for several years. Our thanks and a $35 gift certificate from C. C.’s Touch of Nature go to Tim and Phillip, the winners of our May Yard of the Month.

Yard of the Month selection committee: Steve Cocanower, Susan Harper and Bonnie Blackwell.