A Family Tradition

It’s certainly not an understatement to say that gardening runs in the family for two of Ault Park’s Adopt-a-Plot gardeners, Mike and Mary Koester. Mary’s father was known for his peonies and Mike’s father was a vegetable gardener. The homes they shared during their 50 plus years of marriage were always adorned with lush gardens. Mike would prep and edge and handle much of the heavy lifting and Mary tended to the design and ongoing care of the plants. The same still holds true in their high-rise condo where the exposed balcony is bursting with flowers: growing in massive planters designed and built by Mike and planted each season by Mary.

The Koesters recently adopted a well-appointed plot and immediately set out to add a bit of order to the space. “As it turns out, I’m a quick study of garden design and agreed with Mary that the over abundance of plants had to be reined in a bit. It was looking more like chaos than a well-tended garden,” Mike shares. The garden, which was managed by one gardener for many years, had recently passed through several hands, with each gardener taking a year to get to know the plot before making changes. After several years of delayed action, the plot was getting a bit overrun with plants.

“Where ten toad lilies is perfect for a garden of this size, 20 was a bit much. We wanted to add some plants of our own choosing, so the first task was removing redundant plants,” Mary explains. Fortunately, their daughter Jennifer, who gardens at Ault, also tends gardens in a nearby park so all the plants were re-housed: nothing went to waste.

Mike, whose style leans more towards order and tidiness, immediately set out to remove English Ivy that was encroaching in the garden and surrounding shrubs, trimming the unruly Taxus and removing last year’s spent foliage and fall leaves as soon as the weather turned warm. With some open spaces created, they began adding a few plants of their own choosing. “The garden has a great selection of plants, many we know, some that are new to us, but now that we’ve cleaned it out a bit we are able to add new varieties, extending the garden’s plant inventory and adding our own touch,” Mary says.

Ault Park is more that a place for the Koesters to garden, it’s also become a staple in their new walking regimen. “We come to Ault to walk when our work and volunteer activities permit,” Mary shares. “Now, if I don’t see the park for a day or two I start to wonder what has changed in our garden and throughout the park.” The regular trips to the park is making even more of a gardener out of Mike. “I like to see things edged and trimmed and forgotten spaces planted,” he admits. To that aim, they recently added plants to a small space at the Adopt-a-Plot entrance: a patch of mulch now has some flowering perennials and annuals. And, where Taxus have become decimated by the deer, Mike is trimming them back (with the park’s permission) and cutting down spent grasses.

“Gardening in Ault is as enjoyable as promised when we adopted the garden,” Mike shares. “We are also enjoying meeting other park volunteers and the regular visitors.  We’re getting to know the park and what happens in its day-to-day. It has an interesting life and it’s fun to be a part of it,” Mary says.