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Good Earth
A Midwest native returns from NYC in search of greenery and a cottage garden
When Jacqueline Fortier and her husband Jack moved to this modest St. Paul neighborhood in 2002, it took imagination to envision a garden here. “It was a garbage yard,” she says.
Fortunately, as an interior designer and principal of her eponymous St. Paul firm, Fortier has imagination to spare. And neither she nor Jack is afraid of hard work. “We filled two dumpsters with trash,” she says. “We found a lot of bottles, silverware, an old ceramic cup, old keys, and coins.”
At the same time, Fortier honed her plan for the garden, employing both the knowledge of local horticulture she gained working for a Minneapolis landscaper and her interior design background and experience. Having spent several years designing homes in the Hamptons, she drew much of her inspiration from that area. “It’s so charming and so natural, and the gardens in the Hamptons were so in tune with the houses,” she says. For her St. Paul yard, she created a design that echoed the charming formality, but on a more human scale.
Elbow Grease
Unlike many of the landscapes that inspired her, however, Fortier’s backyard was entirely DIY. First came the demo: She and Jack tore down a chain-link fence topped with layers of chicken wire, razed and mulched two unhealthy pines, and removed massively overgrown bushes that squirrels were using to access the attic.
She spent 20 to 40 hours each week in the garden, mulching, planting, weeding, and everything in between. During one particularly memorable Labor Day weekend, the couple spent three 15-hour days digging out the yard and laying brick for a patio.
After two years, their hard work paid off. The family now enjoys dining al fresco on the patio. And Fortier relishes the small-scale outdoor sanctuary reminiscent of the formal European and New England cottage gardens she loves.
Garden Rooms
Fortier approached her landscape design the same way she approaches a home. “You have furniture and accessories [in a home], “ she says. “In a garden, the trees and bushes are your furniture. Your perennials and annuals are your accessories.” Likewise, a landscape needs an anchor, a clear path, and a focal point. “It’s like creating rooms,” says the interior designer.
Of course, her gardener side acknowledges the one crucial difference: A garden isn’t stagnant. “You have to make adjustments, you have to work with nature,” she says.
Her garden includes a cheery entry, with purple catnip at one gate, a bench tucked beneath two bright blooming John Davis rosebushes, and a circular bed in the center bursting with fragrant herbs. Splashes of color from purple catnip blossoms and vivid orange coleus plants brighten beds divided by swathes of green grass, creating natural walkways through a garden that radiates English country charm with a Minnesota twist.
Learning Lab
The yard has become an outdoor classroom as well—Fortier’s two children trail after her as she works in the garden, learning plant names and inhaling the heady scent of roses. An avid cook, she loves sharing her knowledge of herbs with the kids, sending them out for a handful of oregano or snips of chives for a recipe, watching them learn, taste, and play in “Mommy’s garden.”
For a Midwestern girl who’s lived in New York and LA, carving out a bit of green space for herself was quite a relief. “When I was in the city, I didn’t have earth to put my feet on—you literally can’t go barefoot in New York City. Coming from North Dakota, I was used to being with nature,” she says. “Now I just relish being able to stand here with dirt on my hands and bare feet in the earth, sharing this bit of nature with my kids.”
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6 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
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