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On A Mission To Beautify Home

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By PENNY BRAGG

Special to the Tribune

Published: December 10, 2008

PLANT CITY - The Plant City Garden Club beautification award for October goes to Mike and Janet Maze of Lakeview Way. Their house was built in the 1980s, and the Mazes bought it from her parents in 1993. It has lent itself well to the mission-style feeling Mike and Janet Maze have chosen.

This style is artfully carried out starting with the large Southwest-looking wrought-iron artwork on the burnt-orange walls of their sprawling ranch home along with the many landscaping choices the couple have made.

A sweeping circular driveway across the front yard carves out a large semi-circle garden plot filled with a variety of plants of many shapes and heights and textures. The Mazes were glad to have the help of her neighbor and friend Martha Genualdi in the creation of this garden and other areas around the home; Genualdi is an artist and an art teacher. The three of them have had fun working together, and the ongoing project has kept them in step with their philosophy that if we all had flower beds, as in days of yore, we would do a lot to help fix and clean up the environment.

The front semicircle is divided by a pebble path with sunken, round steppingstones. This path cuts through the mulched areas and leads from the street to the driveway, and gives you access to the mailbox if you are coming from the house. A "little guy" filled with straw and wearing a sombrero-type hat, is positioned next to a tipped-over earthenware jug beside the path, while ground lighting is provided by several bluish, metal lanterns that have the quaint look of having aged over time.

The mailbox is to the right side of the path and is surrounded by Mexican petunias. A maple tree lends a vertical element, and an 8-foot queen palm on the other side of the path balances that. The palm is a variety that will not grow any taller than it is right now.

The Maze family is always on the lookout for odd plants. In the side yard to the right is a crape myrtle from a nursery in Tallahassee that bears pink, fuchsia and purple blossoms at the same time. In the same area is a very large cedar tree with its deep-green foliage and brown-gray trunk.

Hugging the house on either side of the centered front entrance are plants in pots, plants in built-in planters and plants growing in the ground. There are ixoras, star jasmine, caladiums, allamanda, plumbago and purple shield to name a few. A large ligustrum tree shades the front entrance on one side, and the other side is a botanical mix of plants.

One I call "the mystery plant" because it was there originally and no one quite knows what it is, but it is very interesting because it has two colors of leaves. Some are green and some are orange; and it's like that all year round. Lower plantings consist of a phaleanopsis orchid in a terra-cotta pot as well as croton, peace lily and a number of amaryllis that were transferred from Janet Maze's grandmother's 1926 home.

In the side yard to the left of the house with a backdrop of plumbago, Mexican petunias and hibiscus, is a double swing to sit on and enjoy the surroundings. Janet Maze is fond of her hibiscus and has three. The peachy one grows at the corner of the house, but there is also one with pink blooms and one with purple blooms growing elsewhere. She also dabbles in orchids.

Penny Bragg is a member of the Plant City Garden Club.

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