Mrs. Kooistra’s garden

When we bought our house in Jeffersonville, we were lucky to have purchased the former home of a skilled gardener. Mrs. Kooistra managed to achieve the Holy Grail of gardeners — a succession of bloom throughout the season. Even though, as she aged, she was unable to give her garden the attention it may have been accustomed to, every spring her skills are evident still as, like a complex dance, trees and shrubs bloom one after the other.

The first to bloom in Mrs. Kooistra’s garden is an old, hollow magnolia. Left unpruned and shaded for years by a blue spruce seedling allowed to grow too close, the magnolia had grown rangy and was lying on the porch roof, looking for the sun. With the removal of the spruce and some major pruning, the magnolia is now regaining a more graceful shape with wonderful, fragrant blooms. Meanwhile, not far away, a flowering quince lends excitement with bright, pink/red blooms.

The lilacs are the next to flower. Mrs. Kooistra had four lilacs surviving when we bought the house, each slightly different. An older gardening friend told me that many years ago, magazines used to offer lilac collections at a reasonable price. I wonder if that’s where they came from.

Before the lilacs fade away, a bridal veil spirea weaves its white sprays of flowers up and through the lilac branches, making a great combo (I wish I’d thought of it!). As they finish, attention is drawn to the driveway where a lower-growing white spirea flourishes next to a tall, pink, lightly scented beautybush. As these two finish, an old-fashioned mock orange along the driveway scents the air with white flowers while your eye is also drawn to the other side of the house where a pink spirea begins to bloom.

As spring turns into summer, the show continues in Mrs. Kooistra’s garden with roses along the other side of the driveway, most of which were removed because they had become a mass of brambles and weeds. I’m sorry now that we took them out before we understood the place they held in the succession of bloom, but the rhododendrons and azaleas we replaced them with will hopefully put on a good show in time, although in a different season.

Along with spring and summer flowering shrubs, Mrs. Kooistra had a variety of perennials around the yard to compliment the shrubs, such as columbine, hosta, iris and phlox. There were probably many more that did not survive the ravages of time and weeds. It is her shrubs, though, that still give her garden structure, interest and grace. I didn’t know her, but I’ve certainly learned from her.