I interviewed Ilka McConnell about her garden back in July, but because of life and publishing schedules, I am only now writing about it. I do see her garden every week on my produce delivery route, so I can confirm it’s still there and looking great.
McConnell is Athens-Clarke County’s director of economic development. As a confessed introvert, McConnell said gardening gives her the time and space to recharge. “It’s really my favorite thing to do,” she said. It’s noticeable in the care and detail she gives to the garden.
Fist-sized river stones outline the garden beds running along the house, creating a flow and continuity in the yard. Trips to Denmark and Sweden inspired the look, McConnell said. In those countries, many gardeners use natural stone to outline their plots. After spying the technique on her adventures, McConnell knew she wanted to recreate it at her home. It took five pallets of stones to finish the project, but it was worth it, she said.
Focusing on gardening infrastructure and knowing the bounds of your garden can provide structure for good long-term growing. As someone who has both planned out multi-year projects and impulsively planted pretty things higgedly-piggedly in the yard, I know physical boundaries can help keep your budget and energy in check.
McConnell moved to her current home about two years ago and discovered a yard awash in light. Her former garden remained in shade for most of the day. A few of her favorite shade standards, like hostas and heuchera, are at the back of her new home, but she’s had to switch up her plantings to fill in the rest of the sunlight-heavy beds. “Pretty much anything with sun is new to me,” she said.
One thing McConnell’s learned from planting in a different environment? “If it doesn’t look good, don’t wait ‘til it dies,” she said.
Her garden beds contain beautiful blooming zinnias, euphorbia, salvia and some huge specimens of foxglove and columbine. I think she’s doing just fine with the transition from shade to sun. I plan on planting the liatris, or blazing star, myself, after seeing McConnell’s specimens in the dry rain garden in front of her home. The tall native perennial blooms white or purple, and it can grow up to 5 feet tall.
McConnell’s garden also sported a few Japanese maples, azaleas, tea olives and of course, a laurel—a nod to her daughter’s name. She prefers to buy plants from local sources like R&R Secret Farm and the Athens-Clarke Master Gardner’s plant sales. Those plants must be hardy to survive in her garden.
“I’ll water you for three weeks after I plant you,” McConnell said. “That’s it.” Plants who can’t survive on rainwater after that window aren’t a good option for her garden, she said. McConnell does have a rain barrel to help with irrigation for times when the rain’s scarce. “I’m not heartless,” she said.
Whether you set a three-week rule or not, it is a good idea to water deeply and less frequently to build healthy roots. Daily watering invites disease, especially in the South, where humidity lives everyday, whether it rains or not. Wet foliage plus soil diseases can eventually take down even big, healthy plants.
Besides her plants, McConnell’s garden contains art from a potter and family friend. The pieces, a few feet tall, are concrete studded with stones, colored glass and pottery shards. The artwork adds some whimsey and echoes the stone boundary around the perimeter.
I love the originality it shows. Mass-produced yard art is not my favorite. But finding something that looks and feels special to you—whether it’s a family friend’s artwork or interesting knobby sticks you found on a walk or a 4-foot tall metal loon your partner made—can make your garden distinctive and fun.
Future garden projects include finding an excellent hammock spot, McConnell said. None of her trees are big enough to support a hammock yet, so she’ll likely have to find a creative solution. McConnell’s also building a collection of kitchen scraps in a fairly new compost bin. Longer-term, she’s mulling over building a garden shed to store tools, start propagating and enjoy general tinkering in her downtime.
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