Discovering The Mature Lifestyle
Make the Great Outdoors great again Column inside
The Great Outdoors
July 20 & 21, 2017
July 2017
New Hope gardener finds tending to blossoms, plants therapeutic BY SUE WEBBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER For 40 years, Dyanne Sather has nurtured a yard full of blossoms, plants and shrubs in New Hope. “As soon as the snow is gone, I’m out here,” Sather said. “It’s my therapy.” Husband Arne agrees: “It’s her life,” he said. “The only thing she has more of than plants is books and magazines about plants.” The Sathers’ corner lot is ringed with hedges that set off gardens all the way around the yard. “We have a wild garden on the corner that isn’t under control yet,” Dyanne said. A small garden in the middle of the front yard features a statute of a lamb, reminiscent of the lambs Dyanne remembers from her days growing up on a farm in North Dakota. The gracefully curving front steps are lined with plants and flowers. Sather grows mostly perennials, but also has annuals in pots, hanging baskets and in borders around the yard. Tall lilies and daylilies are among Sather’s favorite flower varieties. But, she said, “I really like the spring bulbs, too. They’re the first to come up. I love hostas. Each season is different.” Old-fashioned coral bells bloom all summer. Bleeding hearts, foxglove, peonies and woodland poppies are visible, plus irises in a variety of shades. “Everything bloomed
early this year,” Sather said. “The daylilies bloomed in June. There’s something new opening every day.”
bringing rocks home to augment Dyanne’s gardens. He also spends time working at a daughter’s home in Minnetonka. Dyanne is a member of the New Hope Back Acres Garden Club, as well as the Hennepin County Horticulture Society. She has a plant sale each spring, and sponsors a plant exchange in the fall. In 2012, Dyanne won New Hope’s RAVE! Award, one of several awards the city presents each year for outstanding Dyanne Sather has maintained a yard full of blossoms, residential yards and gardens. Her gardens were plants and shrubs in New featured on Cable ChanHope for 40 years. (Photo by nel 12 last year. Sue Webber) As she tours visitors Many varieties and siz- through her garden, Dyes of hostas grow along anne is knowledgeable the side of the house, in- about the names and cluding a blue and yellow origins of each species. plant, one that’s all blue, “I’m kind of self-educatand a plethora of green ed,” said Sather, a retired plants. nurse. “I don’t put anyShe points out the digi- thing bad in the garden. I talis (foxglove). “The bees don’t use insecticides.” love it,” she said. She subscribes to three There’s even a patch British gardening magaof mint, featuring both zines, preferring them pineapple and chocolate to American gardening varieties. magazines filled with adGrowing up on the vertisements. farm in North Dakota, “I’d rather pay twice as Dyanne said, her mom al- much and get more inforways had gardens, though mation,” Sather said. they were predominately Some years, she starts vegetables. But she re- plants indoors during the members petunias and winter. But once spring some other flowers grow- comes, she spends five to ing there, too. six hours a day gardenArne, who retired 15 ing. Even when it rains, years ago from his career she sits outside under as a senior tax consultant the front overhang of the for what is now Xcel En- house to work on potting ergy, grew up on a farm plants. in Donnelly, Minnesota, “Houses with not even that now is rented. He a bush look naked,” she still returns there month- said. “They have no perly to work, sometimes sonality.”
Two summers ago, the Sathers enjoyed a 10-day cruise sponsored by Garden World magazine that took them from South Hampton in England north to a private garden on the first day, then on to Ireland and the Outer Hebrides and Shetland Islands. They saw Shetland ponies and 5,000-year old ruins before heading east down the southern coast
of England. “We saw a lot of beautiful gardens and learned about some wonderful history,” Dyanne said. The couple, who have three daughters and seven grandchildren, try to get to England every year to visit daughter Kathryn in Altrincham, and to Seattle several times a year to visit daughter Krista. Daughter Kari lives in Minnetonka.
During the winter, both Sathers sing in the choir at their church. Dyanne also knits, reads, sews and goes to Bible study classes. She is a willing mentor/ consultant to other gardeners, and has conducted tours of her yard for garden clubs and church groups. “I keep giving plants away and encouraging everyone,” Sather said.
The front entry to the Sather home in New Hope is decorated with plants. (Photo by Sue Webber)
Many varieties and sizes of hostas grow along the side of the house. (Photos by Sue Webber)
Iris in a wide variety of shades are in bloom all over the Sather gardens.
Mixed Nuts have fished together 34 years BY SUE WEBBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER If it’s fishing season, the Mixed Nuts are out and about in Eden Prairie. For the last 34 years, a group of 64 men ranging in ages 33 to 88 has gathered twice a year for fishing trips. “We just got back from Canada,” said Terry Eggan. “Thirty guys spent five days on three houseboats fishing.” Eggan’s dad, the late Willard Eggan, is credited with starting the group. Willard, a home builder and active member of the Eden Prairie Lions, died in 2014 at the age of 93. “He started Mixed Nuts with four friends, and then asked me if I wanted to go,” said Terry Eggan, who is the founder and president of the Eden Prairie Area Let’s Go Fishing Chapter that provides free fishing and boat excursions for seniors, youth and veterans. Now the Mixed Nuts group has expanded to include members’ offspring and grandchildren. In the spring, the group goes to Ontario to fishing for walleyes. In the fall, they’ve been known to stay in cabins and fish on Leech Lake.
Curt Connaughty Curt Connaughty, a Korean War veteran, former president of the Eden Prairie Lions, and retired teacher and principal, has been a member of the Mixed Nuts group for a dozen years. “It’s a great group,” he said. “We’re from all different backgrounds, but we all get along really well. We rent houseboats, and we’re together for four days.” He credits Terry Eggan with doing “such a wonderful job of organizing the group,” along with Lyle Hookom. The men shop for food the night before their trip and, Connaughty said, “We eat well. Three people are responsible for every meal. They do the setup,
The Mixed Nuts, a group of fishermen from Eden Prairie, spends five days on houseboats in Canada each summer. (Submitted photo) cooking and are responsible for cleanup. They follow a rigid menu.” Connaughty said he first was exposed to fishing as an elementary school student, when he fished with his grandfather. “I grew up in St. Charles, Minnesota, and we went to Whitewater Creek at Whitewater State Park,” he said. “There were a lot of good trout there.” Now, he fishes six times a year at a variety of places: Lake Minnetonka, on the St. Croix River, on the Mississippi River near the Whitman Dam north of Winona, and at Blackduck Lake in Beltrami County. Connaughty began teaching in Eden
Prairie in 1955. He started the district’s football program in 1957 and the track program in 1958, and later became a principal. Though he’s been formally retired since 1986, he said, “I’m still doing things for the school. I run the clock for football and I start track meets around the metro area.” He’s also found time within the last 18 months to write a book, published in April, titled “The Right Place at the Right Time.” It’s a collection of reminiscences about his childhood, up through his years in education. He anticipates a book-signing event coming up this summer at a to be announced location.
His wife, Mary, taught second grade in Eden Prairie Schools and later started her own Eden Prairie Nursery for preschoolers. A past president of the Eden Prairie Rotary, Connaughty is still active with that group. He’s an active golfer, and he and his wife are avid travelers. The couple, 62-year residents of Eden Prairie, have five children, all graduates of Eden Prairie High School, plus 10 grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and another great-grandchild due in August. Some of the grandkids have taken to fishing, Connaughty said. MIXED NUTS - TO NEXT PAGE