I just visited Sue Leahy’s house in Brentwood, MO and immediately knew I was at the right place when I noticed that there was no front lawn.
She has quite a variety of plants in the front that just gets mid-day sun, but the plants are thriving. She uses a combination of Black Gold compost and shredded hardwood mulch to feed the plants and keep down the weeds.
As you go around the back, you notice all of her accreditations – she said she still had a couple more to put up.
In the back she has a couple of rain gardens, a beautiful pond and stream setup and even five turtles that need to be rounded up before the lawn is mowed.
One tip she mentioned was that she got a local grant to put in the rain gardens – check with your local Sewer District and send them a proposal if you have an area that gets a lot of runoff.
I also noticed that her Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, seems to be quite happy in the pond. I’m going to put a plant in my pond this year as an experiment. She mentioned that she thought the larvae might drop off into the water which would be a problem. I’ll probably collect the larvae and move them to a different location.
I admired her professional labels and she mentioned that her husband Andy had access to a professional laser engraving machine. I guess I’ll have to stick with my label maker.
Andy, with the help of a friend, has moved as much rock and stone as one of the Egyptian pyramids – just a slight exaggeration.
Thanks to Sue and her husband for such a lovely morning visiting her fantastic gardens.
Butterfly Gardening 