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Walden Oaks House A Charmer

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By PENNY BRAGG

Special to the Tribune

Published: January 14, 2009

PLANT CITY - The Plant City Garden Club beautification award for November goes to Sarah and Harold Mott of Walden Oaks Place.
Walden Oaks is interesting because, although almost every house on that street was the same model to begin with, everyone has applied their own creative designs and ideas to their house. The Motts' house is a standout among them due to the overall charm they have bestowed upon their home and gardens through landscape design and selection and placement of yard art and plantings.

The Motts moved into this house in 2001 and brought some of the plantings from their previous home of 41 years.

In the front yard is a circle garden edged with pavers and planted with Aztec grass in the center, with its silvery-green spikes, then surrounded by large bursts of oyster plant with their green and red elongated leaves. This arrangement is well thought out, with the two plants very much the same shape but contrasting in size and in color.

The cement walkway leading up to the wreathed front door is lined with small plants such as red coleus and green coleus, Aztec grass and small crotons. Near the house is a large ligustrum tree. It is bedecked with two birdfeeders; one especially catches the eye because it is bright red and looks like a small Vermont barn.

The ligustrum tree provides shade for the approach to the front entrance, where you will find a 3-foot, dark-leafed croton and a rafus palm that moved with them from their prior residence. A small wrought-iron fence and a brick pillar topped with impatiens separate the front entryway from mulched area under the ligustrum tree. There's also a scalloped-edged birdbath filled with bright red impatiens as well as a small white shepherd's hook that supports a multicircular ornament that Sarah Mott got at the Florida Strawberry Festival.

Across the driveway, as you round the corner of the house, are a dwarf nandina hugging the garage wall and a 3-foot croton ringed with Aztec grass. A pathway of steppingstones takes you around to the side of the house. While taking the path to the backyard, you pass a variety of plants. Among them are pink impatiens, red and white petunias, oyster plants, schefflera and coontie palm.

The Motts enjoy sitting on their screened back porch and looking out into the backyard, which is enclosed by a tall weathered fence that provides the backdrop for their botanical vista. Harold Mott has spent many hours in that garden. First of all, he had to take out many loads of dirt by hand and wheelbarrow so that the water back there would drain properly. Then he planted the grass and did all the rockwork.

The largest plants are the live oak tree in the middle of the yard, a pink crepe myrtle off to the right side and an English dogwood.

A large planted rafus palm used to be in a container until Sarah Mott decided it was time to plant it. Since then, it has grown and flourished and really dresses up the left back corner next to the fence. Mature azaleas are along the perimeters of the yard while other plants, such as smaller azaleas, oyster plants, peace lilies, crotons, coleus, impatiens, spyglass plants and cut leafs, fill in the mulched and bordered areas.

Begonias are planted in an old yard cart that used to belong to Sarah Mott's dad. An antique water pump, a sculpture of a girl feeding bunnies, and a small tower of stacked pots and saucers add charm to the gardens while ornaments, also purchased at the Strawberry Festival, gently swing from a shepherd's hook.

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

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