Creating a Green Theater

'A garden just sort of happens when you get out there and start digging'

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By Liz Jaros
Home Book Magazine Contributor

When Melinda Lehman was growing up, her mother used to keep pruning shears and a garden shovel in the trunk of the family car, just in case. “She would do things like pull over and clip cattails from a ditch,” Lehman says, “Or take cuttings from an untended forsythia.”

On these occasions, Lehman and her brother would slink down in the back seat, hoping to go unrecognized if someone they knew should drive past.

It wasn’t until Lehman approached 30, when she and husband Jim Cybul were living in the city and surrounded mostly by concrete, that she finally began to appreciate, and ultimately acquire, her mother’s madness.

“I was tired of car fumes and sirens,” she says.

Feeling a strong and sudden tug from the earth, “I told Jim I needed to move…I had to get my hands in some soil and start growing things.”

And in 1993, after an English-detailed raised ranch on Lionel Road in Riverside charmed Lehman and Cybul with its turreted façade, arched entryways and woodsy surroundings, that’s exactly what she did.

Skeleton Crew
“I started that fall with an axe,” recalls Lehman.

At the time, the couple’s 55-by-125 foot lot was overgrown and unruly, featuring a lot of dead wood and weeds. With a copy of Margaret Hansel’s “English Cottage Gardening for American Gardeners” tucked under her arm like a bible, Lehman set out to capture the character of their new house in the surrounding grounds.

Because a traditional garden is free-flowing, but “backed with good bones,” according to Lehman, she and Cybul gave careful consideration to the positioning of trees and shrubs during their first few years of planting.

Boxwood, yew and arborvitae would provide structure and year-round greenery, while lilac, weigela and blue spirea would act as colorful anchors. And their property’s existing trees were welcomed into the landscape wherever possible.

“We generally don’t like to remove large trees,” says Lehman. “They’re so important to the environment and to the look of Riverside.”

So in the back, where three massive pine trees and four Norway Maples created planting challenges with excessive shade and gnarly roots, Lehman and Cybul have learned to adapt.

“We’ve found that super hardy and more native American plants like hosta, ginger, columbine, wood poppy and coneflower do best under them,” Lehman says.

And each tree has an area under it that remains unplanted, to give the roots some breathing space.

When necessity required a tree’s removal from their property—like a pine that was located three feet from their foundation and a maple that was infested with ants—Lehman and Cybul have reforested with healthier specimens in better locations for long-term growth.

“We planted two oaks in the front 10 years ago,” Lehman says. “We love watching them mature and can’t wait until they arch over the street like the old elms used to.”

A Budding Obsession
Lehman says she passes many gray winter hours flipping through garden catalogs (because they’re a great source of both inspiration and information), watching garden shows and reading garden books. And though she wishes she had England’s Zone 6 rainy climate to work with, she’s gotten a pretty good handle on U.S.A.’s Zone 5 over the years.

Defining their curvy beds with rocks and bricks (Lehman says each one has been moved at least three times) and careful to leave a little grass for their most precious possessions (Dinsdale, a 12-year-old Belgian sheepdog and Zoot, a 2-year-old border collie mix), Lehman says she and Cybul have aimed for a sense of mystery and discovery throughout the yard.

And while they’ve made some attempts to plan on paper, she prefers a pastel color palette to create a soothing, natural flow between beds, and avoiding what she calls “overly hybrid, modern looking, bright, giant flowers.”

Lehman sticks mainly to cottage classics like hardy geranium, delphinium, foxglove, primrose, lady’s mantle, hollyhock and iris. American selections like daylily, salvia, alliums and coreopsis are also invited into a mix that she says, “intertwines, overflows and flops every which way.”

And of course, she’s planted English roses wherever conditions would allow.

“We have a New Dawn in the front that we call ‘The Monster,’” she says. “It will climb 12 to 18 feet a year and become a thorny octopus by November.”

In late winter or early spring, she and Cybul will have to tame it with a saw.

Setting the stage
Because they believe the plants are the thing (and also because they’re running a little short on space), Lehman says they don’t have a whole lot of ornamentation in the yard. But meaningful possessions—like the stone birdbath Cybul gave her for a wedding present, a lion’s head fountain and a pair of antique chimney pots—are welcome enhancements to the scenery.

Little white Christmas lights, lanterns and candles are employed to cast soft shadows on the grounds at night, when Lehman and Cybul like to relax on the patio with a good meal. And with exception of the neighborhood cats (who wreak garden havoc in a myriad of ways) and the local skunks (who tangle with the dogs), critters of all kinds are welcome players in their green theater.

Friendly Finds
“We’ve never had much of a budget for hardscaping,” says Lehman, who sometimes lives on macaroni and cheese for weeks to offset a garden-related splurge. So most of their rocks and edging materials have been scavenged. Sometimes even with permission.

The exchange between gardeners is an important one, Lehman and Cybul believe. Since winning the Chicago Tribune’s Glorious Garden Award (for both best-mid-sized and best overall garden) a few years ago, the couple’s yard has garnered a lot of attention. But according to Lehman, “There’s always more to learn.”

“Many of our friends on the street also have impressive gardens. We often trade plants and tips and tours with them,” she says. “A garden is a work in progress. No matter how much you know.”