Friend of Gardening--Deby Dickey Brightens Her Corner of the World

By Gwen Podeschi, Christian County Master Gardener

What do twenty-seven pots, two hundred pounds of potting soil and ninety-two plants add up to? For Deby Dickey, it adds up to a "flower tree" that serves as a beacon to passers-by on West Main Cross. "I found a picture of a 'flower tree' in Country Living magazine and took it to my dad and said, 'I bet you can't make this.' He made two," Deby says. Since its installation in front of her house, people have stopped and offered to buy the flower tree and at least one person has taken measurements and drawings to attempt to recreate the flower tree at his home.

Deby's dad, Willis Tester, operated a welding shop and truck test lane in Nokomis, but his creative juices were really put to good use in the gift for Deby. Using only the picture in the magazine, Willis built the tree for his daughter and then another, smaller tree on a stand, that holds fifteen pots, for a dear friend. Deby acquired the second tree when the friend passed away. She finds impatiens to be the most adaptable inhabitant of the flower tree, but has also used petunias. This year finds the tree sprouting a combination of red and white impatiens.

Her yard used to boast a lovely crop of autumn joy sedum at the base of an old maple, but she lost most of it when the tree was removed after ice storm damage. The tough perennial is making a slow comeback, though, and it is another reminder of the farm in Nokomis where she grew up. "The sedum grew around my dad's house and I just love it because it's so reliable. When I moved in from the farm and didn't have a field any more, I just started gardening where I could." A medical transcriptionist by profession, Deby says gardening provides a calming effect in her life. She laughs and says, "When I was on the farm I remember not always enjoying being asked to weed the yard or pick the green beans, but that all changed over the twenty-four years I've lived here." Her husband Bill assists with the mowing and the weeding and the result is a bright spot on a busy corner of one of Taylorville's loveliest streets.

An interesting challenge to any devoted gardener was presented to West Second Street resident Carol Endsley when she and LaVerne bought the old CIPS garage facility five years ago. The old brick building started life as the trolley repair shed near the railroad depot. The couple looked at the building with different eyes and saw a home within its walls. It was surrounded by a gravel yard and tall chain link fence, but Carol has labored to put a new face on that.

"One of the first things I did was bring in the 'garden bed' from our country home, and set it up here. We hauled in black dirt and I put tulips in it. Our neighbor, Butch Johnson, watched a lady almost get rear-ended one day when she stopped on the street just to look at the tulips." Since that time, drivers-by are treated to a host of annuals in the bed and perennials along the fence. Abundant spring rains have rejuvenated the climbing rose at her back gate. "I even have another rose to plant on the other side of the gate. I planted one last year, but it's not a climber, so I have a 'Blaze' rose now." It will go in later this year.

Carol is persistent in tackling the long, narrow strip along her home and yard. Her home faces north and its deep shade is perfect for hosta, bleeding heart, and columbine, accented with a few geraniums for color and the occasional whimsical container planting. New sidewalk just east of the building goes along a border for sun-lovers. "I wanted a few more flowers and shrubs," she says, "and my irises and lilies needed a little room to expand." She is up to the challenge of hauling in soil to replace the old gravel fill that was removed, but she realized right away that the soil was not as organic as it needed to be. "Gary Letterly told me to add a ton of sand and I put in two or three bales of peat moss. Plus I add as much organic matter as I can put my hands on."

Carol comes by her love of gardening and flair for it quite naturally. Her mother's sister had the Vandalia Greenhouse for years and many of the plants at Carol's country home were from her grandma's home. Many of them didn't make it with her to Second Street, but she did get a start of the family hosta from her mother. Mildred Schmid will be ninety-five on the twenty-sixth, but Carol says, "She still plays in flowers." At her home in Shobonier, Mildred still grows strawberries, putting up about fifty quarts a year, and quilts with friends. Carol recalls her mother telling her about childhood trips to gather forest harvests with her father. "Grandpa would take my mom and sister out with him and point out all the wildflowers."

Family memories come built in with Bev Graham's home along West Main Cross. "Mom and Dad [Helen and Roy McGowan] moved here when I was five years old." Her mother was a native of Dyersburg, Tennessee, and she brought peonies from her home there to the 1910 house. Bev recalls flowers growing all along the sidewalk to the back door. Roses, phlox and bachelor buttons grew in abundance when she and her friend Fran (DeClerck) McKinnon tooled along the sidewalk aboard Bev's tricycle. "Mom always planted double petunias in the window boxes out front," she says. "I started adding impatiens along with the petunias and then, a few years ago, my friend Kenny Smith from Decatur told me to try the vinca." Her first attempts were slow to take off until she took Kenny's advice on watering. "He came over and saw the nozzle on my hose and ripped it off. 'Bev, these flowers need water right down at the roots.' He flooded the boxes and told me to do that once a week. So I listened and it worked." Indeed, it does. Her vinca are nearly two feet tall, a bold statement marching along the front portico.

Equally bold are the red and pink geraniums marching up and down all three stairways up to her doors. "Those are very old. I use the same geraniums every year. I might lose one now and then, but I keep them in the basement. Kenny comes down in the fall and we move the picnic tables and benches downstairs and pack them with the geraniums. He yells at me because I don't really cut them back much, but they do OK." She uses grow lights on the plants and cuts way back on watering and the recipe is a success for this enthusiastic Taylorville citizen.

Most of the spireas, spruce, and rhododendrons have been put in under her direction over the last twenty-two years. When old shrubs had to be pulled, Curt Meyers of Stonington put a chain around them and pulled. Some stubborn stumps remain among the landscape rock, but the overall effect couldn't be improved. Accenting the bungalow-type home, these plantings provide a pleasing background for the bold annuals. Around the back of the home, Bev tackles small areas, one at a time. The flowers of her childhood have been replaced with some mums from her niece Brenan Dennison's wedding last fall. "Brenan went to Arthur and brought back tons of mums for her wedding. They were gorgeous. There six or eight big mums on the altar of the church and outside on stands. Afterward, I brought some here and put them in."

The common thread running through visits with these women is their love of flowers and a willingness to share that experience with friends, neighbors, and passers-by. Many residents of our city share that characteristic and it is a pleasure and privilege to espy these little glimpses into gardening havens throughout town. If the flowers growing around you make you feel a little happier, be sure to tell the gardeners who are responsible for making Taylorville a great place to live. It will make their day!

Captions: 1) Bev (McGowan) Graham, right, pilots her tricycle along her mom's flower bed, with Fran (DeClerck) McKinnon along for the ride.

2) Deby Dickey's "flower tree" brightens up her home on West Main Cross.

3) Geraniums march up and down the steps of Bev Graham's home.

4) Plantings along Carol Endsley's home soften the front of the building that once housed Taylorville's trolleys.

Christian County Master Gardener, Gwen Podeschi, conducts interivews with local residents who have a special talent, project, or landscape feature of interest. These interviews are then written up and published locally.