The Pineridge Garden Club announces the winners of the 2023 Garden Awards. The club presents three to four awards annually to local gardens that beautify our community. This year’s awards were presented as follows:

1. 1)  Merry & Cory Hunter, St. Paul Park, have beautified their front yard with a front porch hung with baskets of Boston ferns and trees surrounded with beds planted with vinca, hosta, & spirea, as well as a smoke bush. Their side yard includes a sitting area with a variety of planters & cute ornaments. Other features of their property include bird baths, an arbor covered with climbing roses, trumpet vine climbing an old slide ladder, tall daylilies, sedum, ferns, hydrangeas, coleus, sweet potato vines, clematis, creative use of planters & hanging baskets, a covered swing with wisteria clambering over top, a playground that includes large & medium turtle sculptures & treehouse, a “grillzebo”, deck with a table, picnic table & benches, firepit.

2. 2)  Chad & Marta Mohr, Cottage Grove, enchant drivers & walkers passing by their backyard as viewed from Jamaica Ave. Their property is flanked by screened-in porches on each end of their home, which serve to frame their patio area. They have a colorful umbrella table & outdoor fireplace, a waterfall & small pond with a bridge, and many trees including evergreens & amur maples, as well as pops of color from coneflowers, hanging baskets, stella lilies, spirea, & hosta. A staircase leading down to the yard has pots of herbs & tomato plants mounted on the railings. A honeysuckle-covered arbor leads from the backyard to the front yard. The front yard also beautifies their cul-de-sac with many plantings in curved beds, hydrangeas, and lovely pots of flowers.

3. 3)  Bernadette & Rick Evenson Cottage Grove have a property with a fun mixture of formal and rustic settings. The front yard includes a lovely porch, a kidney-shaped bed planted with roses, stella lilies around a tree, a fountain, a white cast-iron seating area & table, & sculptures. They have used brick pavers to lead around the side of their house to the backyard, which includes several small ponds & sitting areas under trees, a covered arbor/patio shaded by lattice, a clematis-covered arbor, a firepit, & a vegetable garden. They have included a wide diversity of plantings such as lamium, beebalm, salvia, iris, echinacea, canna lilies, English ivy, bush & climbing hydrangeas, multi-color sedums, dianthus, peonies, jack in the pulpit, bush clematis, snow on the mountain, ferns, smoke bushes, hostas, mums, Maltese cross, & wisteria. The area behind their property is wooded, which adds to the charm of the setting.

4. 4)  Dee Denning, Cottage Grove, has a traffic-stopping front yard. The entire front yard is planted in flowers, with paths winding through the trees, colorful rocks, and a footbridge over a stone “creek” & cute ornaments & gazing balls dot the property. Stand-out trees/shrubs include a paper & river birch, golden arborvitae, a weeping cypress, weeping larch, smokebushes, & a dark red-leaved maple. Paths connecting the various parts of the property consist of rock, brick, or grass. There are several arbors & sitting areas around the property, including a “covered porch” in the back. Clematis or wisteria cover some of these arbors. Dee has designed her property to have shared access with two neighbors, with pathways connecting their yards so they can share plants, conversation, a pool, a playground set, & a covered area to sit while supervising children/grandchildren! In addition to the many containers of annual flowers, Dee’s wide variety of plantings include daylilies & oriental/Asiatic lilies, sedum, coreopsis, creeping jenny, lamium, beebalm, clematis, hosta, ferns, phlox, hydrangeas, hollyhocks, astilbe, ornamental grasses, ribbon grass, peonies, baptisia, roses, tomatoes, rhubarb, and raspberries. Water features include a pond in the back & a large tortoise sculpture fountain.

Gardens which have been nominated are voted on by a committee in late June/early July. The entire club tours the award-winning gardens the third Wednesday in July. The Pineridge Garden Club wishes to thank all local gardeners who work hard to add color & beauty to our local environment!