Steven and Mary Weber didn’t know they had green thumbs until they moved to Garden Boulevard.
Maybe driving by the street sign every day had a psychological effect. Maybe their gingerbread-style brick cottage cried out for an enchanted forest.
Whatever the reason, the Webers have spent the past 13 years planting rose bushes, ivy, ornamental apple trees, hostas, perennial flowers and brilliantly colored impatiens.
Steven also has displayed many of his handmade wooden bird houses and squirrel feeders.
“It’s less housework I’ve got to do,” he joked last week. “No, really, I enjoy it.”
The Weber yard is one of six Belleville properties open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday for Gardens in Bloom, a self-guided tour sponsored by St. Clair County Extension and Education Foundation. Admission is $8 in advance or $10 that day (maps come with tickets).
University of Illinois Extension master gardeners also will hold a plant sale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Union United Methodist Church.
A committee of master gardeners selected properties for this year’s tour. All are residential.
“They’re all in a close geographical area, and we’ve learned that that’s what people prefer,” said Janet Burnett, county director of Madison-St. Clair Extension Unit. “Some are in walking distance of each other.”
Growing hobby
Steven Weber is a retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant who works as a military archivist. Mary is a legal assistant. They have two grown sons.
The Webers moved to Belleville from Georgia in 1995 because they wanted to be closer to family in Galena but also near an Air Force base.
Mary fell in love with the Edison Place neighborhood, which includes Garden Boulevard.
“All the houses are different or unique,” she said. “They’re not all the same like you have in some subdivisions.”
The Webers didn’t start from scratch on landscaping. Their property came with towering oak and elm trees, boxwood shrubs, yew, spirea and azalea bushes, a barberry bush and a non-bearing cherry tree.
Steven was a woodworking enthusiast, but he warmed up to the role of gardener-in-chief.
“He loves to play in the dirt,” Mary said. “He does most of the planting and transplanting. He just comes to me for guidance. He’ll say, ‘What do you think about putting this here?’ or ‘What do you think about putting it there?’”
One of the couple’s first projects was converting a child’s playground into a raised landscaping bed in the back yard. They planted hostas, coral bells, hellebore, sedum, phloxes and mums.
Steven mounted squirrel feeders on the oak tree and centered the bed with a red and black “chew, chew” that’s shaped like a steam locomotive. A large glass “engine” holds ears of corn.
“The neighbors like to harass me because I bring all the squirrels in the summer,” Steven said. “They’re always finding corn cobs in their yards.”
Creative gardening
The Webers increased backyard privacy by installing a wooden fence on one side, but they broke up the monotony with black, metal-grid inserts that serve as trellises for climbing ivy.
Steven hung some of his decorative bird houses on the fence. One is sided with twigs and pebbles. Another is patterned off a stop light with red, yellow and green circles.
The fence is connected to a small arbor over a walkway with round, concrete stepping stones. Eventually, the wooden slats will be covered with clematis vines.
“You have to wait a few years for (ivy on the fence) to grow, but I think it’s worth it,” Mary said. “It’s better than a solid wall.”
More originality can be seen in Steven’s vertical planters along the screened-in patio. He drilled staggered holes in plastic plumbing pipes, painted the pipes brown, installed them upright like fence posts and planted impatiens.
“They look really nice when they’re full,” said Steven, who used the same pipe to make flower boxes for his narrow windowsills.
Mary also has added creative touches to the yard. She turned a cup and saucer into a flower pot and a small potato sack into a hanging planter. She lined a green wagon with gift bags full of impatiens.
Other Weber “yard art” includes a concrete fountain with a boy and girl under an umbrella; a bird “mansion” with several entrances; an old-fashioned street light and four French solar lanterns; a green wrought-iron table and chairs with a matching birdbath; a butterfly box, rain gauge and Dragonfly thermometer; and several ceramic statues and metal sculptures.
Last, but not least, is Steven’s red, white and blue Chicago Cubs flag, which hangs next to the back door. It’s probably about as popular in the neighborhood as his squirrels.
Tickets for Gardens in Bloom are available through May 31 at Sandy’s Back Porch, Eckert’s Country Store and Garden Center, Effinger’s Garden Center and Hometown Ace Hardware in Belleville, University of Illinois Extension offices in Belleville and Edwardsville and Full Circle Services and Supplies in O’Fallon; and on May 31 only at Union United Methodist Church.
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