Creating a timeless garden: a Ridgeland couple uses heirloom plants and traditional details to create a garden that looks like it's been around for generations.

The gardens surrounding the home of Buddy and Carolyn McIntyre present a delightful tapestry to the eye, seamlessly woven from both brand-new plantings and heirloom bulbs and cuttings from their mothers' and grandmothers' gardens. The couple felt they had outgrown their mature, shady yard in northeast Jackson, so when they purchased this plot of land in nearby Ridgeland, they set out to create something entirely different.

"I wanted a Louisiana-style house," says Carolyn, "so I found a Louisiana native to design it. Al Jones, from Baton Rouge, planned the house to bring the outside in." The house, built just over six years ago, offers huge windows, roomy porches and patios, and a formal garden Carolyn can enjoy from her spacious kitchen window. And when it came to the garden design, another Louisiana native, Overton Moore of Jackson, worked with the McIntyres to create a series of gardens filled with flowers, shrubs, herbs, arbors, fountains, and sculptures--gardens that belie their youthful six years.

Starting from scratch on 10 acres of pastureland proved an arduous task. "It was a field," laughs Carolyn, "nothing but pure sun." Trees, like October glory maple, added near the street are maturing into a tranquil buffer between the expansive front lawn and the increasingly busy traffic on the once-quiet country road. Crape and wax myrtles shade the smaller gardens near the house, as do the banana plants. But the largest shade-provider in the McIntyre's front yard is a massive red oak tree, thought to be more than 150 years old.

"We had someone from Mississippi State University come and look at the tree," Carolyn says. "I was concerned about damage from lightning and wanted to put lightning rods in the tree, but the cost was prohibitive." She laughs. "I guess it's lasted this long without my help, so it will probably be okay."

The east side of the house is where Carolyn chose to put her formal garden. Spruce pines grow along the driveway, and the parking area is enclosed with indica azaleas, planted in shades, including "George L. Taber" (lavender), "Pride of Mobile" (light to deep pink), "Southern Charm" (pinkish), "Formosa" (dark fuchsia), "Red Formosa" (red), and "Mrs. G.G. Gerbing" (white). Entering through the picket fence, this haven delights the eye with its bursts of color and texture. Brick pathways lead into a center circle that features a wellhead from Buddy's grandmother's garden. Carolyn plants purple rain pansies around the wellhead in the winter months and begonias in the spring. Yellow flag irises peek out from behind a teak bench under the dining room window, like children peeking from behind their mother's skirts. Carolyn also uses "Victoria Blue" salvia, pink pentas, repeater daylilies, lamb's ear, garden phlox, and Swedish ivy in the summer months. For the fail, she chooses snapdragons, pansies, and "Country Girl" chrysanthemums. In the corners of the formal garden, cherubic lead statues, also third-generation, stand guard over the spray of color.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the formal garden lines its south end. A gravel pathway leads to an enormous arbor, thickly covered with "New Dawn" roses, their pale pink blooms nestled in the deep green of the leaves. The gravel pathway is lined with hybrid tea roses, "Biloxi Blue" verbena, pink verbena, and "Tapien" verbena, a creeping groundcover sturdy enough to withstand foot traffic.

The north side of the formal garden is a tribute to Carolyn's mother. In "Elizabeth's Garden," Carolyn has created a perennial wonderland with selections from her mother's garden, including irises, daylilies, daisies, a vitex tree with lilac-like blossoms, and "General Sikorski" clematis, which blooms a deep periwinkle blue.

Because Carolyn wanted a courtyard, Moore designed an area with brick wails and fences reminiscent of old Louisiana. Boxwoods, camellias, and Natchez crape myrtles border the courtyard, which spans the rear of the house. In the center, a fountain spills into a small pool, furnishing a home for the water lilies and goldfish. While the goldfish take care of themselves, the McIntyres keep a cautious eye out for the hungry raccoons that sneak over tall wooden gates to feast on the unsuspecting fish. The deep-green gates, covered in a dense hedge of "Cecile Brunner" sweetheart roses, give the courtyard its authentic Louisiana feel. An evergreen wisteria hugs the brick wall, blooming reddish purple in late summer. In one corner of the courtyard, under a Japanese maple, stands a statue of the angel Gabriel blowing his two trumpets.

"It came from my husband's mother's garden," Carolyn says with a smile. "Both of our mothers and grandmothers were gardeners. It's all they talked about when they got together with their friends."

Carolyn has a thriving herb garden tucked along the wall between the formal garden and the courtyard. Bay, rosemary, oregano, thyme, and basil grow happily in their sunny spot. Beyond the back wall of the courtyard, in the back of the property, Carolyn and Buddy grow vegetables.

Though the McIntyres had help in creating their gardens, the maintenance is their labor of love.

"My husband does most of the yard-cutting, and we finally got someone to come in a half-day every week to do the trimming," Carolyn says, glancing around at the myriad of shrubs in every corner of her garden. "There's a lot of trimming."

Carolyn plants the flowers and handles weed control. "I use a lot of Roundup." When she discovered lace bugs on some of her azaleas, sire began using a fertilizer with a systemic insecticide. "I apply it several times," sire notes, "and I spray the hybrid tea roses every ten days." She uses Osmocote slow-release plant food several times a season, and in the spring and fall, she refreshes the pine straw mulch.

"Although there's no such thing as a maintenance-free garden," Carolyn observes, "I give mine a good backbone with hardy perennials and just fill in with colorful annuals."

Insects and weeds aren't the only invaders in the McIntyre's garden. "We have armadillos and moles and raccoons," Carolyn says. "Deer love daylilies and begonias."

Her next project? The wooded area along the west of the house. Carolyn has already planted hundreds of daffodils, as well as a "Lady Banks" rose, which climbs the trunk of a skyscraper-talk pine tree, and a fairy rose that appears to have occupied its spot since the beginning of time.

"I'm still thinking about what I want to do here," Carolyn explains, eyeing the mature pines dotting the rough terrain. not sure, but it'll be something good."

CAROLYN'S FAVORITE AROMATIC PLANTS

Because Carolyn feels that a proper Southern garden needs flowers that smell good, these sweet-smelling plants have found a place in her wonderful garden:

Sweet olive

Banana shrub (michelia fuscata)

Butterfly ginger plant

Gardenia 

Confederate jasmine

Evergreen clematis (armandii)