Unique plants, creativity make garden stand out ... from space

Some of the most interesting gardens are owned by plant breeders. 

If you need proof, consider the Michigan garden of Hans Hansen (the first name pronounced like the last name), who is the chief hybridizer at Walters Gardens, one of the biggest perennial plant sellers in the country. 

Hansen lives on a quarter-acre, suburban lot in Zeeland, about 15 miles from the (other) shore of Lake Michigan in a garden so full of interesting plants that you know when you’ve arrived that only a true plant nerd could live there.

In fact, his garden stands out so much from its neighbors that when I asked for the address from his coworker, he proceeded to zoom in on a satellite map image to find it.

There are two reasons why the gardens of plant breeders are especially intriguing. The first is that the plants they surround themselves with at home are the ones that they are particularly interested in, which can be an insight into their hybridizing goals.

I was struck by the number of lily of the Nile (Agapanthus) in Hansen’s garden. Although that region is warmer than Ozaukee County (it is a solid zone 6 on the USDA hardiness zone map), even hardy lily of the Nile are borderline there. And since all of them had finished blooming, their beauty and interest was found solely in the nodding seed pods and attractive foliage.

Other notable perennials in his garden include Baptisia perfoliata, a variety of false indigo that is native to the southeast and looks similar to eucalyptus, and a low-growing, spreading form of bluestar (Amsonia). Hansen has developed more than a dozen false indigo varieties currently on the market and the popular bluestar variety ‘String Theory.’

Plant breeders have a tight network of fellow breeders and plantspeople, giving them access to hard or impossible-to-find plants that sometimes are never available to the public. In Hansen’s garden, these connections have led to a remarkable display of conifers that are meticulously pruned to maintain a desired shape or size that helps them all fit in his smallish yard.

Among the outstanding specimens are a pair of weeping white pines that frame his front windows, a small pine found as a witch’s broom harvested with a plant friend from a Virginia gas station parking lot, a concolor fir that he prunes every few weeks to keep it a manageable size and a dawn redwood that he manages to keep modestly sized with diligent pruning. 

That all of these trees that would ordinarily overwhelm a yard of this size can coexist at manageable sizes is inspiring for gardeners who may feel limited by their space. Hansen describes his garden as being in an almost constant state of pruning, a little at a time.

If there’s a takeaway from Hansen’s garden, it’s that almost anything is possible if you’re willing to think outside the box and seek out extraordinary plants.

And that’s how you get a garden that you can spot from space.