Preservation Society's

Garden Tour, 1-5 p.m.

Sat., Sun., June 28-29

Tickets: $7, Antique Mall

UC garden tour will feature wooded sanctuary

By CYNTHIA AUKERMAN

News-Gazette reporter

Don and Carolyn Warren live on five wooded acres just outside Union City, Ohio, but the heavy shade doesn't keep Carolyn from creating beautiful gardens. An instructive example of woodland gardening, the Warren place will be featured on the June 28-29 Preservation Society garden tour.

The six major flower beds have evolved over time. Carolyn would look out a door or window and think a garden in this or that spot would look nice.

"They're nothing formal or fancy," Carolyn says. "They have mostly greens of different shapes and shades."

The beds are filled with whimsical items the Warrens have collected over the years. They like to use items from nature, such as big hunks of rotted wood. But they also like to use man-made items, such as toys their grandchildren outgrew.

Some of the decorative items are made by Don, who says, "I like cement stuff. I'm not a plant person."

In the beginning, Don wasn't very interested in the gardening business. But over the years he has developed an eye for good additions to the beds. He also provides much of the muscle for the gardening effort, including hauling six truck loads of mulch this spring.

An interesting feature drains rainwater from the roof, sends it through an underground tube to run into an otherwise dry creek bed. Once the creek bed was built Don naturally had to build a bridge to span it.

The Warrens built their house in 1974, taking out only a few trees. Over the years, the weather and aging has taken 70 other trees, but the plot is still heavily wooded. The trees include ash, black walnut, maple, buckeye, several kinds of oak and a hickory nut tree, among other unknowns.

Don says, "We get about a billion acorns here."

Carolyn began her gardening years ago trying to establish a vegetable garden in the sunniest area. There wasn't enough sun, so she gave up on the vegetables, which now are confined to three pots.

But that first garden has become a "whatever" perennial garden, also called "Let It Be." What's there, stays there.

Another garden is called "Serenity Acres" after her grandfather, who was a big gardener. Along with plants, the garden is home to his sprinkling can, his fence and his rake. Last year a magazine came to Carolyn in her grandfather's name, even though he died in 1999, so of course Carolyn had to order a fern from that magazine.

Even in a heavily-wooded area, a observant gardener can find enough sunlight to do almost anything. Off the deck at the back of the house, the birds have planted sunflowers, which they share with the squirrels that climb the stalks. The birds found just the right spot where the sun-loving flowers would thrive.

Wanting to try roses, Carolyn picked a likely spot and checked the sunlight at different times during the day. she planted "knock out" roses that are thriving. They're supposed to be easy, and Carolyn says, so far, they are.

Of their five acres, the Warrens mow five and leave the rest to the critters. They see the occasional deer and possum, but they have plenty of skunks, raccoons, squirrels, and bunnies.

And the birds sing all day long, a chorus so strong it almost seems like a recording of Mother Nature herself.