Aug 04, 2008 - 05:19:12 CDT
Unless you flip through Ed and Alice Kaseman’s three-ring binder documenting the evolution of their Bismarck backyard over the past two years, you couldn’t credit all that could be accomplished in two short seasons. And all by the homeowners themselves.But there it is, photocopied images of a bare and blank expanse of yard labeled 2006, followed by others showing the landscape taking shape: The pond goes in first, with its stream bed and fountain, then the gravel and slate stepping stones and paths, the wooden bridge, the shrubs and then the flowers, glorious masses of hydrangeas and lilies, daylilies and delphiniums, barberries and hostas.
And roses. Alice Kaseman loves roses. She grows them, even paints them on glass as a hobby. They are by far her favorite artistic subject.
In this yard, at least 30 varieties have bloomed riotously this year. June is really their season, she said. One plant alone had 300 to 400 flowers, Ed Kaseman estimated.
She credits Marcy Pfliiger of Classic Yard in Mandan with invaluable help in selecting and designing the plantings, and her husband for doing all the hard work.
The roses, hardy, tough Canadian-bred Mordens and other varieties which shrug off the cold, get a coat of bark mulch in the winter and are fed like kings: Like plant kings, anyway. Ed Kaseman feeds the roses and other plants with applications of commercial fertilizer, horse manure, bone meal, blood meal, alfalfa pellets and Epsom salts, he said.
The couple, natives of the Wishek-Linton area, have lived in their Bismarck house along East Boulevard Avenue for 34 years, Alice Kaseman said. The backyard beauty project was inspired by a talk with a pond representative they met on a plane from Minneapolis, he said. What started with a pond has become a small Eden.
The decorative elements are kept to a tasteful minimum, but the standout focal accent is a miniature stone church, a feeder for squirrels and birds that he built from scrap lumber and cut-down wooden shakes, with sides of granite gravel over mason cement, creating a charming stone facade. Birds pick at the sunflowers seeds in it and the squirrels love it, too, Ed Kasemen said.
A few seeds serendipitously escaped to emerge just "downstream" from the feeder as enormous sunflower plants, happily elbowing a space for themselves amid the couple’s tomato plants.
The west half of the yard is still what they consider "unfinished," though it’s filled with their vegetable garden — borage planted to boost the tomatoes, bright zinnias and dahlias, blood-dark lilies with stiff fleshy petals, dill, and elephantine leaves of squash plants, one extending an exploratory arm into the grass.
Alice Kaseman, a retired nurse from Medcenter One, and her husband, a retired electrical contractor, are both whippet-lean and handy: The cylindrical composter was made by him out of spare parts, the church feeder from scraps, the 10 tons of rock into the hardscape were hauled from back home; the horse manure that feeds the plants was donated by a friend of a friend.
Despite all his hauling, Ed Kaseman has no physical complaints from all that work. No, after reflecting on the past, he had a backache once in high school, that’s it. With mulching, weeding is no more work that mowing used to be, he said.
Deadheading the flowers is actually the biggest job, Alice Kaseman said.
From a vine-covered enclosure, the couple can sit sheltered from the strong afternoon sun and overlook the landscape. Furnished with a table and chairs, it’s a place to eat and spend evenings soothed by the nearby burble of the stream pouring itself into the pond.
The lily pads with their impossible magenta flowers offer similar protective shade so the dozen fish can shelter themselves from the afternoon sun.
The couple’s two granddaughters, 4 and 9 years old, are pictured in the three-ring binder, too, sweet blondes, watering-can helpers, wearing pink dresses with bright flowers tucked behind their ears, laughing together on the wooden bridge, idyllic images of childhood.
The girls love to come to North Dakota and love to go fish shopping when they visit, Alice Kaseman said. They’ve contributed a number of fish to the pond, and even imported a tiny toad to take its place among the robins, rabbits, squirrels, hummingbirds, bumblebees and miniscule snails that have been lured to the oasis.
(Reach reporter Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@bismarcktribune.com.)
Barb wrote on Aug 4, 2008 10:06 AM:
Ackerman wrote on Aug 4, 2008 9:24 AM:
You've captured the beauty of Alice & Ed's garden in your wonderful description of all the interesting, complex parts of the garden. We have seen and admired it just like you have been able to.
Thank you for your gift of writing.
Ackerman "
si wrote on Aug 4, 2008 9:15 AM:
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