The Yard of the Month for August is located at 4535 Harrison St. in Leeds. The yard contains a variety of trees, bushes and flowers for wildlife.
The Yard of the Month honor for August goes to Tom and Gloria Widner, 4535 Harrison St. in Leeds.
Gloria Widner, a cook at North Middle School, said she started gardening helping her grandfather and has done it all of her life.
"It's my relaxation," said Widner. "I'm a yard person."
The Widners have five lots, including the house. They wanted a home that was open and bright, and their property in Leeds fits the bill.
"My dad grew up out here," she said. "My husband built this home, an inverted ranch. He also helps other people build homes. He did this (the house) and I did the yard. We will be here 18 years in November."
Widner estimated that she spends an average of 15 plus hours a week in their yard. She waters the plants, does some weeding and deadheading, and mows at times. When it's hot outside, as it has been lately, she works outside early in the morning or late in the evening.
"I do everything but the heavy stuff," she said. "Tom digs the holes, fertilizes, mows, and takes care of the pond."
Tom built the pond, which has goldfish, frogs, waterlilies and cattails, and is surrounded by rock. A water pump is currently used for decoration, but the Widners would like to hook it up to water.
"We had a pond by the deck, but Tom wanted a big pond with a waterfall," she said. "He maintains it. I feed the fish."
Tom also built the pergola over their deck to filter out the sun.
The Widners have several flower beds throughout their property. Many of them have purple coneflowers and other wildflowers. The bed in front of the deck, where the pond used to be, has coneflowers, bee balm, asters, brown-eyed susans, salvia, sedum, coleus, and alyssum.
Other varieties of flowers you would find in the Widners' yard include phlox, cosmos, lilies, butterfly bushes, Russian sage, morning glories, azaleas, hostas, zinnias, larkspur, bachelor's button, chrysanthemums, ruga roses, sweet william, and Mexican sunflowers.
"I save seeds. I plant things and they keep coming back," she said. "In the spring after we moved here, I planted wildflowers."
The asters, in light pink, red, magenta, and purple, are particularly bushy this year, she noted.
"This year, everything grew extra big, because of the rain, I think," she said.
The Widners also apply 10-10-10 fertilizer twice a year to grow big flowers.
In the front of their house, the Widners have hibiscus (perennial and annual), a hibiscus tree, pointentilla coral bells, and more. In the raised bed, they planted spirea, Knockout roses, moss roses, and yellow alyssum.
The Widners grow several varieties of trees on their property. They have Autumn Blaze maple, crab apple, tulip, yellow twig dogwoods, cotoneasters, evergreen trees, Washington hawthorn, and Canadian red cherry, to name a few.
Widner said the theme of their yard is a park for wildlife.
"Neighbors have seen turkeys in our yard. We have to have fencing around the trees for deer, and we have several birds that visit our yard: hummers, orioles, house wrens, cow birds, cardinals, chickadees, house finshes, sparrows, gold finches, wood peckers, and blue jays," she said.
To accommodate the birds, the Widners put out birdhouses, bird baths, and feeders. They have a feeder outside of their bedroom window. If the feeder runs out of food, a bird pecks on their window to let them know about it.
The Cotoneasters and crabapple provide berries for the birds, and the evergreen trees are for nesting.
"We grow everything for wildlife," she said.
The Widners also grow vegetables, including zucchini, cucumbers, onions, peas, tomatoes and, for the first time, dragon gourds.
To enjoy their yard and view the results of their hard work, they sit out by the pond, she said.
Widner couldn't imagine not gardening.
"Gardening takes you away from daily life. I've always enjoyed doing it," she said.
If you would like to nominate yourself or a neighbor for Yard of the Month, fill out an application at the City Manager's office. It's not too late to submit your nomination for the Morningside region in September.
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