1600 ALSTON AVE. – YARD OF THE MONTH (MAY 2015)

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.

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.