June 21 column: Gardener Carol Bryan

Here is a link to today’s column in The Spokesman-Review:Cultivating community Cultivating community. Throughout the summer months, I enjoy profiling local gardeners and the beautiful gardens they’ve created.

You can read my column at the above link or below:

Column:

by Susan Mulvihill

The front-yard garden of Carol Bryan stands out on her block in Peaceful Valley. Even though it’s on a small lot, it is overflowing with colorful plants.

“My passion is flowers and native plants,” the Master Gardener and retired teacher explained. “I like anything that grows without a lot of water. I’ve been given so many plants from neighbors’ and friends’ gardens.”

The result is a delightful tapestry of beautiful flowers. Lupine, lady’s mantle, lilies, hydrangea, viburnum, serviceberry, irises, poppies and alliums all brighten the garden.

“My yard is like a kaleidoscope of rotating colors,” she said. “It’s kind of an adventure because I walk around and say, ‘oh, I didn’t know that was planted here.’”

Her goal is to have something blooming from April to October.

Carol Bryan’s sharing nature

“I do flowers for my church. I also take them to places like City Gate, the Women’s Hearth and the Women’s & Children’s Free Restaurant.”

She related how people are moved to tears when she brings flowers there.

“They reverently ask, ‘Are those real?’” she shared. “Then they talk about how they learned to garden from their grandmother and so on. Connecting with them is so meaningful.”

Building community

Bryan also feels a strong sense of community in her neighborhood.

A few years ago, she contacted the property owners up and down her block. Her goal was to get permission to plant flowers and edible plants in the parking strips along the street. She worked with many of them to add both beauty and utility to their surroundings.

Overwhelming support that grew and grew

“My biggest support comes from my neighbors,” she said. “We weeded around the neighborhood. We also dug a trench around each bed for drainage purposes, and then worked on improving the soil.”

To accomplish this, they placed cardboard on top of the grass and mounded manure and weeds. Then they added wood chips and watered everything in. They soon were growing ornamental grasses, poppies, irises, black-eyed Susans, rhubarb and squash.

Carol Bryan is thrilled with what happened after that.

“One neighbor saw me working in my yard, so she started doing her yard,” she said. “It kind of spread that way; we all enjoy sharing plants with each other.”

Raspberries are found in nearly every yard on the block. It’s all as a result of Bryan’s desire to share this productive, tasty plant.

“I’m planting raspberries throughout the neighborhood as a way to connect with my neighbors,” she explained.

Building the soil

If there’s one thing Bryan has learned from her gardening activities, it is to put effort into building up the soil.

“You have to nourish it every year,” she advised. “I try and make a cycle of it by putting nutrients back in, through the addition of compost and manure every year.”

When gardening, she employs permaculture techniques. As she explained, this involves minimal reliance on chemicals and letting plants grow where they do best.

But Bryan takes it a step further:

“It involves trying to permanently improve your soil, your neighborhood, your connections. And also improving the culture around you — not just the soil culture.”

She grows much more than flowers. Bryan cultivates vegetables such as lettuce, peas, cabbage, cucumbers, beets, turnips, garlic, peppers and squash. There are also plenty of herbs on hand — sage, cilantro, parsley and dill — for culinary uses.

She is tickled by the reactions of neighbors and passersby when they see her vibrant, colorful garden.

“One day, I was working out in the yard when a gal came along,” Bryan related. “She said, ‘when I walk through your yard, I feel just like a butterfly.’”

Susan Mulvihill is co-author, with Pat Munts, of “Northwest Gardener’s Handbook.” Contact her at inthegarden@live.com or find her online at susansinthegarden.blogspot.com.