Georgia Magazine - May 2010 - (Page 34)

A tale of two gardens Two best friends love to garden large and small BY STEPHANIE GREEN J ane Waldrop and Mary Alice Woodrum are best friends and avid gardeners. Jane is a fast-walking, fast-talking horticulturist with a penchant for order. Mary Alice is an artist with a giving laugh and an easiness that beckons you to relax. “She’s everything I’m not, and I’m everything she’s not,” Mary Alice says of her friend. The same is true of their gardens. Mary Alice Woodrum, far left, creates garden art in her large outdoor space (as seen above), while Jane Waldrop, left, gardens in a small space with big results. Jane’s tale Nestled on four-tenths of an acre in Martinez, outside Augusta, Jane has a compact walk-through garden she likes to call “eclectic.” Jane’s garden begins in her front yard where everything blooms in white. Color erupts in the backyard, but she has a very shady area along the side of her house where grass won’t grow. In its place, Jane has carefully placed two areas of moss. She meticulously laid a circular brick border that holds the moss she’s collected from across the Central Savannah River Area. Bryum, Leucobryum and Hypnum are three mosses she has grown successfully. In the main part of Jane’s garden, the brick border continues in a curvy path she created for planting flowers. When flowers are not in bloom, she has strategically planted evergreens, such as boxwoods, clumping bamboo and little gem magnolias, for interest and texture. Jane’s is a teaching garden as much as it is one for personal enjoyment. “I bring my clients here to help them see some of the things that can grow in this area,” she says. Like daylilies—her favorite plant. “They are so colorful and just unique unto themselves,” she says. “I never get bored with that flower. It’s easy, and I like easy. You have to have a black thumb not to be able to grow them.” Mary Alice’s tale—and how they differ Just across the river in North Augusta, S.C., Mary Alice lives on 5 sweeping acres where she gardens and creates. While Jane takes great delight in daylilies, Mary Alice admires the trees on her landscape. “I love the saddlewood tree as well as the long-needle pine and native sourwood,” Mary Alice explains. “The sourwoods have the most brilliant fall colors ranging from yellow to orange, and I just love their blooms with long, droopy fingers,” she says. Another one of Mary Alice’s favorites—and a recurring theme throughout her garden—are bottles. GEORGIA MAGAZINE Left: Mary Alice’s signature bottle tree was created with bottles from special occasions. Above: Jane’s bottle tree is in cobalt blue—a complementary color used throughout her garden. 34 www.georgiamagazine.org http://www.georgiamagazine.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - May 2010

Georgia Magazine - May 2010
Table of Contents
Viewpoint
Mailbox
Picture This?
Georgia News
Calendar
Currents
Special Energy Report
A Glass Act
Go Green from Top to Bottom
Around Georgia
My Georgia
Georgia Gardens
Georgia Cooks
Recipes from Mom
Georgia Cooks Contest
Cookbook of the Month
Snapshot

Georgia Magazine - May 2010