Visiting their home is a special treat for flower lovers. Joe and Dani led a delightful walk through the yard and path down to the pond, and everywhere you turn is an infusion of color. Joe was quick to point out all the credit goes to Dani, but you can tell he takes pride in his meticulously mowed yard and paths.
The Mills family moved to their beautiful home about ten years ago. The first year they had the hard scape designed and redone by 5 Star Landscape Design of Morrison.
Being a busy mom of their two young children did not allow Dani much time or energy for outside activities for a few years. Now that Ivy, 12, and Drake, 10, are older, she’s gotten more serious about her flowers. Dani’s interest has quickly expanded and she’s filling more and more spaces with annuals and colorful perennials.
She starts buying plants early each spring to find the color selections. She then spends hours planting hundreds of annuals in her flower beds and pots. She is often accompanied by the family’s two cats, Paul and Esther. There are also many many beautiful perennials around the yard, especially an eye-catching hydrangea bush on the corner of the house.
Dani laughingly shared that she recently had to gather the pots into smaller areas to make it easier for someone to water while they were on vacation, and she was surprised to realize there were over 60 pots! Many of these plants find their way inside to winter over. Notice the wicker planter with a full thick growth of a mixture of purple and green wandering jew vines. Take it from me, it is not easy to keep all these plants so healthy from year to year.
As is obvious with the explosion of color, Dani has a fondness for petunias. The huge pink Supertunias are her favorite and spill out into the yard by mid-August. This year she played with some new color combinations and they really are quite lovely.
About three years ago, the couple decided to till up some areas of their two lots and plant lots of wildflower seeds in hopes of producing wildflower/pollinator gardens – and that they did! There are now some large colorful areas of coneflowers, gaillardia, daisies, salvia and bee balm. It is all so beautiful, filled in with delicate Queen Anne’s lace and grasses. The huge areas of wildflowers are divided by well tended walking paths down to the pond.
Walking up the path and back into the yard, you’re then greeted with another explosion of color. There are large sections of zinnias glowing in the sunshine. These were started with several bags of seeds that grew and bloomed very well the first year. Dani now collects seeds through the summer and fall to plant again the next spring. What a labor of love!
The Mills were presented a $75 gift certificate in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Morrison Garden Club, which was founded in December of 1948. Stay up to date with their events and projects at Morrison Garden Club.
