A Garden Galore

You could call Arlie and Nancy Tempel urban pioneers.

Although they live in Ferguson, just 12 miles from downtown in one of the oldest St. Louis areas, the land they chose to settle on 34 years ago was a forested wilderness. The couple cleared many of the trees from the swale-crossed ground, designed a contemporary, cedar-sided home, and did most of the work on their window-lined residence themselves.

Little by little, they imprinted their identity on the wooded hillside that fell away from their house, and then climbed partway up the next hill. A lush shade garden began to take shape where a debris-choked ravine and a euonymus-covered hillside had once dominated. Then, 20 years ago, they topped off the spectacular landscape that now covers two-thirds of an acre.

“An elderly neighbor was out chopping weeds. She just couldn’t keep up with them,” Arlie recalls. “I was working in the garden and she said, ‘I sure wish you had this.’ Two weeks later her son showed up and we made a deal. I added a 100-by-100-foot sun garden at the top of the hillside, and agreed to cut her grass and give her produce from the vegetable garden I was going to plant there.”

While many homeowners might view a backyard that drops sharply into a ravine and then vaults up another hill as a difficult landscape, Arlie, who is semi-retired from a career in space planning and commercial interior design, saw things differently. Together with Nancy, using the natural contours of the land, he has created a breathtaking garden of wooded pathways and glowing green hosta and ferns that cascades down through dappled shadows, then bursts into brilliant color as it rises into the sunshine.

The Tempels’ initial attempts at gardening were not without difficulties. “I started grass 10 different times and it washed town the terrace,” he says with a laugh. Admitting defeat, he decided to shore up the slope near the house and create a series of gradual steps and descending flowerbeds. For assistance, Arlie turned to the couple’s three (now adult) daughters, who helped their dad drag railroad ties into position at the back of the house.

“I tried perennials by the deck but most didn’t do well because there was so much shade,” he recounts.

Daylilies, however, did do well. “Then, I discovered the same people who had daylilies also had hosta. I started off with three or four plants; then it was 50; now it’s 700,” he says.

And that’s not just an estimate. “I log every one in. I know where I bought it and how much I paid for it. The shocking thing, when you total it, is how much you’ve spent. There goes the kids’ inheritance,” Arlie jokes, noting, “more money is spent on hosta (nationally) than any other plant.”

When it comes to daylilies, the Tempels estimate their collection numbers over 300 varieties, most of which are displayed in the sun garden at the top of the hill, which is a world of its own. Filled with natural wood arbors, pergolas and trellises, all of which Arlie built, the area also includes a water-lily-accented water garden, flashing with goldfish as bright as the red and orange daylilies that surround it. In addition to the daylilies and other perennials, the Tempels grow a wide selection of vegetables and raspberries.

And little goes to waste in the garden. Dead tree trunks and limbs are sawed into sections and sunk vertically into the ground to line pathways. Arlie also uses ends of clay tile pipes set vertically for edging.

While the Tempels may have cleared their land like the homesteaders of yore, their urban spread would not be possible without Arlie’s new tractor and cart, which allow him to haul mulch, plants and the mountains of leaves that accumulate each fall, up and down the hills.
 
Then, there is Arlie’s weathered-wood shed, tucked away in the sun garden and complete with telephone lines, running water and electricity. Equipped with every modern gardening aid neatly stored and catalogued, it also includes Arlie’s father’s spade, worn to half its blade length through constant use and sharpening. “Some people refer to the shed as the ‘recycling center,’ ” Arlie says, laughing.

While Nancy sees her role in the garden as “the cleaner upper,” Arlie goes to work in the garden every day. “I really enjoy being outside,” he says. His favorite time of year in the garden? “Today!” he  says emphatically.