Backyard Havens

Minnesota’s growing season may not be long, but that hardly limits a hardy gardener.

Ted Bair and Harvey Filister 
One of the most industrious is Ted Bair, whose backyard near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis was overgrown with lilacs, honeysuckles, and hostas when he and his partner, Harvey Filister, came upon it 16 years ago. The redesigned landscape, full of intimate “garden spots,” as Bair calls them, is now the perfect complement to their 1925 French Gothic Tudor, which was designed by Jacob J. Liebenberg, the same architect responsible for the Suburban World, Uptown, and Varsity theaters.

Although the backyard evolves each year, its water features—a pair of ponds and a pair of streams—are set. “When I was digging out the hole for the last pond, people thought I was totally nuts,” Bair says. “It looked like I was putting in a swimming pool, which I essentially was.” Much of the excavated dirt went to good use elevating parts of the landscape. The arbor seating area, for instance, now sits on a knoll near the spring.

Gardeners' Favorite: Tonkadale Greenhouses The large selection of "fairy garden" miniature plants and accessories is a sight to see, but it's the exceptional inventory of annuals and perennials (including beautiful combination hanging baskets) that has made Tonkadale a local mecca for 60 years. Earlier this year, the family-owned business was named one of the 100 most revolutionary garden centers in the United States by Today's Garden Center magazine. 3739 Tonkawood Rd., Minnetonka, 952-938-6480

Pathways made of Chilton stone (quarried in Chilton, Wis.) connect the arbor space to the rest of the backyard. “All along you have garden spots, or places to pause, so you’re not necessarily spending a lot of time in any one area,” Bair says, noting that the design does not include a large garden “room.” “It’s really all about little vignettes where you can sit and take things in and then move on. They pull you through, and your curiosity makes you want to keep going.”

Ted Bair's Choices Groundcovers: Ajuga, in the following varieties: Chocolate chip, Black scallop, Bronze beauty, Catlin's giant Hostas: Montana Aureomarginata, June, Gold Standard, Abiqua drinking gourd, Liberty

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Bair rarely finds time to sit; for him, planning and planting are his raison d’être. Last year he enlarged the upper pond and added “floating rocks” to traverse it, and he’s pondering what to do next. Although his travels inevitably include visits to exquisite gardens in other big cities, “my garden is the one place I’d rather be than anywhere else in the world,” he says. “I love it on a rainy day and I love it in all the seasons. Oftentimes I walk through the garden, even in the middle of the winter, to study the structure of the trees. It’s a constant for me.”

Gardeners' Favorite: Leitner's Locals have made this family-owned garden center near the corner of Randolph and Lexington a perennial hot spot. Popular plants include 100 varieties of herbs and dozens of heirloom vegetables. Staff gardeners customize window boxes and other container plantings at what's affectionately called the Potter's Bench. 945 Randolph Ave., St. Paul, 651-291-2655

Debra and Aaron Lerner
Debra and Aaron Lerner rarely visit restaurants on spring and summer nights. “It’s hard to go out to eat when you have a place like this to enjoy,” Debra says of their backyard in Golden Valley’s Tyrol Hills neighborhood. Yet this paradise was once nothing more than “a wilderness type of garden with some sod and a Jacuzzi,” Debra says. That changed when the couple lost a good part of their yard to a master suite addition. They decided to tame what remained of the overgrown landscape.

With help from Capstone Landscaping and Bachman’s, the Lerners terraced the sloped yard with limestone and added foundation plantings of yews and spruces. “We created a line of vision all the way up the hill,” Debra says. Aaron designed waterfalls that cascade into a 4-foot-deep koi pond. Debra worked closely with Tangletown Gardens to add layers of foliage. “I’m a big fan of yellows, chartreuse, blues, and deep greens, as well as grasses and any kind of fir—anything with a rough texture,” Debra says. “I wanted the garden to have continuous interest with different colors and textures, rather than points when it’s blooming versus when it’s not.”

Gardeners' Favorite: Funkie Gardens The name references the rarely used generic name for hostas, Funkia, and it jokingly suggests that customers not take Diane and Baard Webster's garden business too seriously. Fun display gardens fill the four acres around the couple's 1859 Italianate home. That, plus a fascinating variety of plants for sale (including more than 250 varieties of hostas), is enough to motivate Twin Cities gardeners to make the drive. 618 Pearl St., Prescott, Wis., 715-262-5593

The result is a sanctuary the couple enjoy even when they’re hard at work tending plants. “It’s where we wake up with coffee and have wine at night,” Debra says. “It’s not uncommon for nine o’clock to come around and we haven’t even had dinner yet. We lose track of time back here.”

Gardeners' Favorite: Tangletown Gardens The 1939 Pure Oil station setting provides plenty of charm, but it's the plants grown at Tangletown Gardens' own farm west of Minneapolis that are the big draw, plus the outdoor accessories from local artisans and stylish architectural elements. Full design services, topical seminars, and an annual garden tour (on July 25 this year) have generated many of the best landscape ideas in town. 5353 Nicollet Ave. S., Mpls., 612-822-4769