Second Nature
Pines, ponds, and Paul Bunyan-sized boulders bring the North Woods home
By Michelle Baltus
Photo by John Abernathy
“I always liked going up north but I never wanted to maintain two households,” Anson says. “Also, we have conflicting work schedules, so traveling together on the weekends doesn’t work for us. Now, we have a place we can go when we’re both home and relax out on the deck or by the water.”
Convenience is a main reason lake-retreat landscapes are increasingly popular within city limits. Picturesque scenery is another. “People are drawn to rocks and water,” says Farmington-based landscape designer Mark Danelski, who has been building residential ponds and waterfalls for more than 20 years. “If we can incorporate those elements into our own backyards, it beats spending three hours in the car.”
Prior Lake homeowner Debbie Fisher had a tranquil entryway in mind when she created her rambling front-yard waterscape. What began as a project to replace a wood retaining wall with large-scale boulders progressed into a full-scale transformation of her lawn. Before she broke ground, Fisher attended the annual Parade of Ponds, a self-guided tour of Twin Cities’ water gardens. She was drawn to Danelski’s company, The Pond Masters, because his landscapes seemed both authentic and artistic.
“I wanted to keep [my garden] native to this area and not ship in rock from, say, Montana,” she says. “Mark gave me the North Woods look I was after. He was an artist as much as a landscaper.”
Photo by John Abernathy
“Mark made everything look natural, as if the rocks just fell where they are,” Fisher says. “He also gave me rocks with lots of character and veining. There is even a green rock he set straight up in the middle of the stream.”
“Mother Nature doesn’t build retaining walls,” Danelski says. “Rocks fall, roll down, or get caught, and that’s where they stay.”
Whether created by chance or by choice, outcroppings produce interesting spaces for native plant life to grow. Shade-thirsty ground cover and indigenous shrubs, including ferns, hosta, ornamental strawberries, blueberries, and sweet woodruff, evoke woods, says horticulturist and landscape designer Kent Olson, owner of Countryview Nursery in Dayton.
Olson also recommends a variety of pine trees for his clients who, like Anson, associate the North Woods with evergreens. Anson used standard “Black Hills” spruce along her property line to foster that effect and to provide privacy from the road. Dwarf varieties of white and scotch pines can add character and texture to smaller garden spaces, Olson says. He planted a stunted scotch pine on one edge of Anson’s pond to create a “scraggy North Shore look.”
Fisher also likes miniature bonsai trees because they keep sightlines open to the stream and provide her garden with beautiful structure throughout the seasons. A low-lying spruce, weeping white pine, and several arctic blue willows make their home here. Both Fisher and Anson favor cheery, user-friendly perennials like daisies, lilies, and astilbe to soften the landscape. Alpine plants, ornamental grasses, and flowering vines are woven into the spaces in between. Fisher even hauls dead branches from the woods to break up the terrain and mimic driftwood afloat in her stream. “Nothing is symmetrical, just like in nature,” she says.
The beauty of the North Woods is best reflected in a water feature, however. Garden ponds offer sanctuary for humans, plants, and animals alike—as they naturally would. “I just feel better around water,” Anson says. “I like the sound of it. It feels refreshing.”
The Florida native originally wanted to install a swimming pool in the back of her huge corner lot but was dismayed by the cost and concrete aesthetic. When Anson learned, via the Parade of Ponds event, that she could install a fully landscaped water garden appropriate for swimming, she jumped in with both feet.
Like Fisher, Anson had heard from pond owners who wished they had built bigger in the first place. “I didn’t want to make that mistake,” she says. A stone patio and path, cedar reflection bridge, and sand beach also complement the serene landscape.
The hidden beauty of a water feature is its earth-friendly design. Garden ponds are balanced eco-systems in which aquatic plants help filter the water, fish fertilize the plants, and gravel provides a home for helpful bacteria. Natural products, not chemicals, keep the water crystal clear. Anson would not call the pond low maintenance, but it does require less work than maintaining a pool, she says.
Marginal and aquatic plants, including irises, sweet flag, and arrowhead, also create an authentic wetlands look in and around the pond. Anson’s garden boasts a towering stand of cattails and lush pockets of water hyacinth, lobelia, and water lilies.
Olson believes a renewed interest in family and home has helped cause the torrential growth of water gardening in recent years. “A lot of the people who have done ponds have done them in lieu of going up north,” he says. “They’re reconnecting at home and focusing on family time and quality of life.”
A large pond, or lawn, isn’t a prerequisite for a harmonious retreat, however. Landscape and plant materials, permanent garden structures, and furniture can be effectively used in any size space. A fire pit—just right for roasting marshmallows—is one easy way to vacation from the everyday.
“In the end, it’s just about being out in nature,” Fisher says. “Anything but walls and computers.” Or time spent on the interstate.
Michelle Baltus is a St. Paul freelance writer.
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