Written by: Nina Kieffer/Photos by: Ross Van Pelt
After the long gray cold spell, we focus gladly on the colors of spring. First, the crocuses push their green leaves up through last year’s mulch. Then, a blush of fuchsia spreads through the trees as the redbuds open. Dogwood petals splash the landscape with bright, hopeful dabs of white and pink. Like a painting in progress, every day brings more hues, more blossoms, more leaves, until suddenly, an explosion of new life surrounds us—and it’s as if winter never happened.
Dale Eads’ garden is by his own account a spring garden. It’s at its loveliest April through May. Over time, Dale has put into the earth over a hundred each of dogwoods, redbuds and rhododendrons, over 50 magnolias and over 500 azaleas. He has populated the grounds with 20,000 crocus and daffodil bulbs.
As the season gets underway, he plants large swaths of tulips as if they are annuals. Exuberant pinks, purples, reds, yellows, whites and greens drench the surrounding landscape in a spectrum of color.
In an English water garden
The park-like yard is a four-acre plot atop a hill. It encompasses deep woodlands, a fern-covered hillside, a hosta-filled ravine and a large expanse of lawn. Walking paths and stairs circumnavigate the yard. The grounds are a combination of formal and informal styles, designed entirely by Dale.
There are hardscape features galore: dry stack walls, limestone mosaics mortared with moss, wood and stone steps, brick-paved patios, a stone wishing well.
What Dale calls the “crown jewel” of his garden—an iron gazebo supported by near-life-sized caryatids—rests above a stone fountain and pond.
Two obelisks mark the entry to the English water garden.
Patience, faith, reward
Lest you think this faerie land came in on a truck to be installed by hired hands, Dale will tell you differently—when he bought the property in 1993, he fully anticipated that it would be his lifetime labor of love. What inspired him to buy the property was not the house itself, but the regal 70-year-old magnolia tree growing next to it. However, the ramshackle “country Victorian” built in 1876 was the first order of business. Although he was itching to get out in the yard, (a naturalized, wooded setting), he spent the first few years updating the house.
As the owner of Eads Fence Company, Dale frequently runs into opportunities to rescue plants, and building materials. The gazebo is surrounded by 20-year-old boxwood hedges slated for oblivion at a construction site. Once transplanted, they instantly gave the gazebo a mature, established look.
A collection of limestone slabs was being unearthed across the street from a job site Dale was fencing in Sparta, Kentucky. The stones (some weighing several tons) were his for the taking, as long as he could cart them away. He rented special equipment and hauled them to his place.
Access to earth moving equipment and the know-how to run it came in handy when he cleaned up the ravine, filling two dumpsters with trash and even an old car! In the process, he discovered the obelisks used in the English water garden buried in the yard.
Most everything in the yard has a story connected to it, and a history to augment the colorful commentary that Dale shares with visitors who come for the numerous garden tours.
He is gratified by the appreciation folks have for the results of his passion and hard work. He’s a Cincinnati Horticultural Society award winner, and in 2007, hosted the society’s awards banquet in his garden.
Method to the madness
When Dale acquires something for the yard, whether a boulder, a statue or a tree, he doesn’t rush to judgment on its location. He’ll put it where he thinks it might work best, without installing or planting it.
He’ll contemplate its position, its relationship to the existing garden elements. If he’s not satisfied, after a few days he’ll move it to another spot. The gazebo was moved all over the yard before its final placement was settled on.
Dale is a never-say-never kind of guy. He is a plant collector who loves the challenge of growing difficult species, like Franklin trees and mountain laurel.
About one-third of the species in his garden are considered high maintenance, requiring persistence and patience. The results of his diligence are spectacular, and sure to become more so over the years.
And, in case you were wondering—yes, he does talk to his plants!
Resources: woodennickelantiques.net; cincinnatizoo.org; grannysgardenschool.com; plantplaces.com