By Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – The front yard of Phil and Judie Greenawalt is a lush paradise filled with almost 2,000 plant species. During the Master Gardener’s 2014 Garden Tour from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 14, the couple will open their garden to the public, as will five other gardeners.
On a recent Friday afternoon the two walked through the paths that create pea-gravel arteries throughout their garden. Phil rattled off the names of plants as he went; each plant also has a name plate at its base, where it is identified as though it were in a botanical garden.
This rose bush certainly puts the authenticity into the term “heirloom rose.” The Greenawalts got it from a friend who said it was from the 19th century./Karen Parr-Moody
It is the first time the Greenawalts are participating in the tour, and their garden is one where tourists will certainly learn about plant variety.
The couple met 21 years ago while living in California, where Phil grew prize-winning roses. He brought Judie bouquets of those roses to her office also make bouquets of wildflowers for her when they went hiking.
“You should have seen the wildflower bouquets he picked!” Judie enthused.
“Isn’t that romantic?” he said with a grin. “Awww.”
After the Greenawalts married and bought their Clarksville house in 2003, the planting began in earnest.
“She said she wanted a jungle in her front yard,” Phil says, but Judie quickly corrects him.
“I said thickets,” she says. “Like my yard in Montana.”
Judie told Phil that she wanted their front yard to look like a “thicket,” hence the lush density of trees and plants./Karen Parr-Moody
The description of thicket – “a group of bushes or small trees that grow close together,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary – is accurate. The yard – which boasts a blend of full-sun, dappled sun and shade – is filled with unusual specimens that Phil and Judie actively seek out. Both master gardeners, they get plants from an array of nurseries, including Nashville Natives and GrowWild, both in Fairview, Tenn., Chamblee’s Rose Nursery in Tyler, Texas, and Sunset View Gardens, a nursery near Fort Campbell operated by the Amish.
Also, through their affiliation with the master gardener program, they buy plants at Don Shadow’s farm in southern Tennessee, where Judie says she has put on a “crying face” to get Shadow to part with plants he is reluctant to sell.
It would take a notebook to detail all of the Greennawalts’ plants. But the mix includes the following: Northwind switch grass, a 19th-century rose, mophead poppies, Major Wheeler honeysuckle, night-blooming jasmine, Kousa dogwood, Blue Atlas cedar, St. John’s wort, native foxglove, golden oakleaf hydrangea, ruby slipper hydrangea, red dogwood and many varieties of spiraea and bee balm.
“I could go on and on,” Phil said as he walked through the garden.
The Greenawalts grow a variety of roses in their garden, from hybrid tea versions to one rose bush that dates to the 1800s./Karen Parr-Moody
The couple has been working hundreds of hours in their garden, readying for the upcoming Master Gardener’s 2014 Garden Tour. And even though they seem a tiny bit nervous, it is obvious they are ready.
Tickets to the tour are $10 each to view all six gardens. Tickets may be purchased at the following: Mary’s Gardens, 2809 Trough Springs Road; Simply Brigitte, 1501 Madison St.; Clarksville Quick Printing, 425 Franklin Street; and the Montgomery County Extension office, 1030 Cumberland Heights Road.
Tickets may also be purchased at any garden on the tour date. The garden addresses include the following: 540 Martin Road (this is the Greenawalts’ garden); 625 Flower Drive; 353 Excell Road; 3763 Old Clarksville Pike; 1034 South Ridge Trail; and 2031 Seven Mile Ferry Road.
For more information call 931.648.5725.
Phil Greenawalt recently added a water feature to the garden./Karen Parr-Moody
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.