Garden Fusion

After a severe hailstorm in 2008, Jackie Roehl and Mike Brandt's modest plans to replace the siding on their suburban Cape Cod were quickly upgraded to a major renovation of the entire property.

"Replacing the siding turned into, 'Gee, we've always wanted a front porch.This would be the time to do it,' which turned into, 'You know, we really need a bigger kitchen' and 'Well, we might as well do a mud room, too' and 'Oh, boy, wouldn't it be nice to have a bigger closet upstairs?'" Brandt says. "After we had done all that, the yard was pretty well destroyed in the remodeling, so we decided at first maybe we'd just clean it up a little. But then we said, 'Nah, let's go for something more fun.'"

The St. Louis Park couple brainstormed with Molly Moriarty of Heart and Soil Design.

"We told her we wanted something nice, but she wouldn't let us get away with that," Brandt says. "She asked us what our vision was, but we really didn't have one."

"I wanted them to start with their dream,"Moriarty says. "I asked them to think about, 'What inspires you? What would you love to have if you could have it?' Because I could create 'nice' from whatever their dream was."

Digging deeper - so to speak - got Roehl thinking about what was important to her, and it was more than pretty flowers.

"Ever since we signed up for a Community Supported Agriculture program, I've been trying to cook with organic produce, plus I grew up on a farm and had previously had little farm implements around the yard," Roehl says.

"She told me, 'I would love to have a farm,' "Moriarty says. The vision, then, became "Farm in the City."

But the couple each wanted different things on their "farm." "I thought, 'Why not plant something you can eat and benefit from, rather than just planting all ornamentals?'" Roehl says. "I wanted something atypical, dramatic, unique," Brandt says.

GARDEN FUSION

“Mike wanted something that looked good, and I wanted it to be practical,” Roehl says.“So that’s why Mike’s garden is in front and mine is in back.”

It was Moriarty’s job to bring the two spaces — and the two gardeners — together.

“She’s farm-like and traditional. He’s natives and contemporary. She wanted fruits and vegetables — an orchard. He’s organized, and prairie, and he loves birds. So he’s trying to draw animals in and she’s trying to keep them out. Hers is contained; his is open with bees and butterflies and baby bunnies.”

HIS FRONTYARD GARDEN

The traditional Minnesota front yard is gone.

“We wanted clean lines among the wild prairie,” says Moriarty, who welded some of the steel on site. “I didn’t want it to look just thrown in there; it’s a more structured andorganized look.”

The bees, butterflies and birds are drawn to the yard now, thanks to plantings like purple and yellow coneflowers, astilbe, black-eyed Susans, New England Aster and ligularia, which has a burgundybronzed leaf that repeats the burgundy theme.

The front yard is a great place for Brandt, a criminal defense attorney, to relax now.

“It’s fun to sit on the porch on summer evenings and read,” Brandt says.

He gets interrupted, though.

“People will stop and comment on the landscaping and how unique it is,” Brandt says.

The critters that are drawn to the yard also disturb the peace.

“Last year, Molly planted over 700 bulbs — daffodils, tulips — and the rabbits decimated them.They ate at least 200,” Brandt says. “We soon discovered the rabbits were also running rampant in the back garden, where the edibles were.

"So we rabbit-proofed with chicken wire, two feet over the fence line and also buried four inches under the ground so they couldn't burrow," Brandt says."We also learned that they can go over the fence line in the winter, because of the snow. They caused damage to the bushes. This year, I've sprayed putrefied eggs all over the flowering plants in the front, and that's kept them away. So we've pretty much solved the rabbit problem, but now it's the squirrels. And we've had an infestation of chipmunks. I was going to drown them, but I just couldn't do it, so I trap them instead and, on my way to work, I'll drop them off. One went to the Brookdale courthouse (a nature area behind it), another went downtown, and the other was dropped off near Ridgedale. It's part of my Chipmunk Relocation Program."

HER BACKYARD GARDEN

The back yard now has a new deck, a new patio - and an old clothesline.

"I like to hang the laundry out," Roehl says.

"I love the idea of this ecological way to do laundry," Moriarty says, "but I had suggested a more invisible system of lines you could pull out of the garage, because she had these big, old-fashioned metal laundry Ts."

"Molly said we could take the poles down and all the grass out, but I said, 'Nope, we're keeping the grass in this area, because I want to keep the clothesline here,' " Roehl says.

"They were bright silver, but I made them look more retro by painting them a bronze color," Moriarty says. "Now they go with the landscape."

"When the project was almost finished, I had some laundry hanging on the line," Roehl says. "Molly saw it and said, 'Oh, that's cute. It completes the farm look.' "

It's more than a look, though.

"They can pick the raspberries from their garden and plop them in their cereal in the morning,"Moriarty says. "There's a raspberry patch with three varieties, a blueberry patch, three apple trees - two Honeycrisp, one Fireside - and a Nankeen cherry border."

Once again, though, it's an orderly garden.

"We installed four 5-foot by 5-foot steel boxes with drip irrigation and soil with nutrients added," Moriarty says. "Jackie planted in a French style of planting, layered and with everything billowing over; you jam everything in. It's an incredible garden. It already looks full and finished, with tomato plants four feet high."

"Having them up in the air helps with the varmints a little bit," Roehl says.

What helps Roehl is working in her farm garden.

“Weeding is therapeutic for me,” says Roehl, a high-school English teacher. “I even hand weed the grass for about three hours every five days.”

It’s easier to weed since the renovations.

“It’s a clay-based soil with rock underneath, with compaction damage from construction,” Moriarty says.“We had to till some parts with a skid loader.We rejuvenated the soil so now it’s like butter.They can use their hands to plant things.”

It’s also an eco-friendly garden that works with Mother Nature.

“She has one rain barrel that we worked into the aesthetic, and she uses it to water her garden,” Moriarty says. “We also designed the garden so the raspberry patch at the lowest part of the yard catches water so it doesn’t drain away.”

A COMPACT FARM

Although the couple's home and yard underwent a major renovation, it was also a micro-renovation.

"We only added about 300 square feet," says Roehl, although they now have five bedrooms instead of three, a kitchen and mudroom addition.

"We have a five-bedroom house now, but it's the smallest five-bedroom house you'll ever find, because four of the bedrooms are 10x12," Roehl says.

The extra space was mostly added to the kitchen, where the couple, their kids and their friends hang out to talk and cook with all that homegrown produce.

"The house was part of the St. Louis Park Home Remodeling Tour; 495 people went through it that day, and the comments we were getting were, 'This is such a nice remodel - it doesn't look as super-sized as the homes most people are doing. Everything is still in proportion for a small lot,' " Roehl says. "People thought that was neat, that's there's a way to make your house bigger without turning it into a McMansion."

Molly Guthrey is a Pioneer Press reporter and a frequent contributor to Spaces.