Backyard Oases - Outposts of Peace: Michael Valliant

Backyard Oases: Outposts of Peace

by Michael Valliant

We spend more time at home than anywhere else. For a lot of us, that became even more true with the COVID-19 quarantine. It is in the best interest for our souls, our happiness and our well-being that we find joy in being at home, whether that is an apartment or townhouse, a rancher, a farm, an estate or anywhere in between. A trend I can fully get behind is seeing people creating outdoor spaces that serve as sanctuaries, oases, outposts of peace. For some, that might be a garden. For others, it might mean a swimming pool or a pond. And, for others still, it could be a firepit, a sitting area or an art/ writing studio.

One of Tracy Kollinger’s earliest memories is her father feeding her peas from their garden when she

One of the most captivating and aromatic features we've ever created, this delightful walkway ~ dubbed Lilac Allée ~ features classic blooms inspired by the client’s childhood garden memories. ~ Jan Kirsh 137

was three or four years old. They were the sweetest peas she’s had to this day.

“He’s had a garden every year since then, and he’ll be 80 this July,” she said. “The garden fever hit me in my late 20s. This was long before the internet, and I wasn’t much of a reader, so I jumped in with two feet and didn’t do a lot of research. Trial and error taught me that gardens are a lot like life: sometimes things work out, and sometimes they don’t.”

Currently, Tracy has six raised vegetable beds, an herb garden, some fruits and a sanctuary of flowers scattered throughout her backyard. Every year, she tries to grow something new ~ this year, it is garlic and tomatillos.

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“My garden spaces bring me great joy and peace, necessary elements for life these days,” she said. “As a nurse in the middle of a pandemic, things can get a little stressful. When I come home in the evening and I am in the garden with the dogs, the rest of the world quiets. I am one with myself, and these are some of the times when I feel closest to God. It is a time of extreme solitude that makes coming home from the hospital a little easier. I don’t care what’s going on ~ when I am in my garden, I feel nothing but peace and tranquility.”

Creating spaces that bring us peace and tranquility.

Jan Kirsh has designed and created outdoor spaces for more than

‘The Secret Garden Path’ captures the essence of one of our favorite waterfront gardens, tucked away in Oxford. This lawn path that leads to a 'secret garden. Butterfly bush adds a shot of purple in mid-summer when the hydrangeas are in bloom. 140

Backyard Oases we never got to see the garden truly develop.’ It has given folks a chance 30 years. She is trained in land- to slow down and really appreciate scape design, ceramics, sculpture, their environment. It gave people a design and photography. She lives handle on how important it is to be and works in concert with nature outdoors.” and helps her clients to establish Creating a backyard space is outdoor living spaces that provide personal. It could be something as a respite from the sometimes-hec- simple as a well-sited bench or a tic pace of life. low-key water feature that provides

“It’s been a steady occupation the sound of moving water. Kirsh for decades, but during the pan- finds that garden spaces speak to demic, it is amazing how many many people. And there are some people have gotten to know their things you want to think about in gardens really well,” Kirsh said. “I creating a space. have had delightful conversations “I find that it is wonderful to with people who have said, ‘Oh, have a quiet garden space ~ it is Jan, I get it now. We were so busy comforting to be able to see it from when here on weekends only that at least one of the views from the

house, so that even in the winter, you can enjoy it,” she said. “If it makes you feel good and it calms you down, your mind will go there.”

Kirsh noted that sound, scent and movement are all important ~ with clients telling her that sitting in their gardens, the scent of hardy gardenias carries them away, a retreat in itself, or the way native grasses blow in the wind illustrates how connected we are to nature.

Think about your destination in the yard in terms of where the sun sets so you create a beautiful space in the evening with backlighted plantings. Provide a focal point when designing your garden retreat. This could be a specimen tree, a piece of sculpture, a “sitting space” in the distance or simply the soothing colors of perennials or flowering shrubs.

In thinking about garden sanctuary spaces, a particular project comes to mind.

“I designed a memory garden for a woman who lost a daughter. It’s in a little village. There is a very informal, natural stone pathway that makes a loose figure eight, and it gives her a chance to take a sort of meditative walk,” Kirsh said. “The garden has the child’s favorite colors repeated in multiple plants, and I designed a pebble mosaic with the same colors to be a focal point. There is a partial area where

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you can feel enclosed and private, but being in a small neighborhood, it gives neighbors a chance to catch glimpses of this beautiful space.”

That is the most sacred of spaces, a true sanctuary.

I’ve been thinking a lot about these outdoor spaces ~ creating places where we want to spend time, to disconnect from the hectic demands of the world and find some peace, a place to be creative, to be inspired.

Personally, I hit a backyard home run four years ago when we moved into our house. Our yard has a back deck, a fire pit with benches and a hammock chair hanging from a tree, and a few boxed gardens just in front of an art-studio shed with electricity, which I turned into a writing shed

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(and which COVID helped turn into a center for Zoom Bible studies and book studies). Last year, while cleaning up the yard for spring, we discovered a pond that had been covered over, which we reclaimed and revitalized. It’s a simple house with what, for me, is a magnificent fenced backyard, full of these outposts, that our dog Harper patrols for squirrels and rabbits.

I smile and am grateful for every moment I get writing and reading in the shed. And, this time of year, for looking out the shed door and seeing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash slowly making their way into the world.

When it comes to the joy of backyard gardening, I think Tracy Kollinger says it best:

“There’s something gratifying about admiring each day’s growth and picking vegetables for dinner. It gives the perfect opportunity to sit and reflect and ‘just be’ without the stressors of this world. Gardening is truly my sacred space. Whether it’s watching a hummingbird drink from the flowers that were planted for its purpose, or watching the bees pollinate the vegetables, it makes me realize how we’re all truly in this together. And how we need each other to survive.”

Michael Valliant is the Assistant Michael Valliant is the Assistant for Adult Education and Newcomers Ministry at Christ Church Easton. He has worked for non-profi t organizations throughout Talbot County, including the Oxford Community Center, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and Academy Art Museum.