• • • t
Active Livi ng
Flowers are the
LISA BRODY
Special to the Jewish News
F
tr
•
6/23
2000
A4
or some people, paradise isn't
a place you have to search
the world for; it is a place
you can create, right in your
own back yard.
Those people are gardeners.
Their paradise is warm, black top
soil, blooming flowers of different col-
ors, shapes and heights, perhaps some
vegetables to savor, bright sunshine, an
occasional rain shower, and the shade of
a leafy tree.
How each gardener interprets par-
adise is what makes for unique, personal
gardens. "Beauty and flowers .do enrich
one's life," says gardener Lou Golden of
Bloomfield Hills. Lou bought his condo-
minium in Hidden Woods 15 years ago
because there was a huge rock garden at
the side of the condo unit, and "I
thought this gives me something to do."
Golden is a semi-retired steel broker.
"I'decided to pull the ground cover
and plant flowers, both annuals and
perennials, because I like ongoing color
from early spring to late fall. Of course,
it took a while to figure out what
works!"
Today, Golden jokes that he stills
grows rocks, but in addition, he begins
the spring with crocuses and hyacinths
peeking out from the snow, and moves
on to rare irises, both big and little. He
enjoys Siberian, Japanese and German
irises, stargazer lilies, as well as beautiful
day lilies he discovered at a farm in
Metamora.
Golden also has
Jeanette Olson
planted lots of wild-
works in her
flowers. "I don't
Monet garden.
always know their
names, but they're pretty, so I trans-
planted them here from land I own in
Davisburg. I don't want anything too
formal, more of a natural look, that
adds color and attracts unusual birds.
We have lots of hummingbirds."
Golden early in life discovered gar-
dening after getting a job pulling
weeds. "When I was a young fellow, I
got a job at Ford Farms. Henry Ford
used to grow soybeans to try to make
dashboards for his automobiles. Now
we eat them."
Later, he had acreage in his home-
town of Ypsilanti, which he jokingly
refers to as the "garden spot of the