THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505100656
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT STIFFLER, GARDENING COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
HERE ARE BRIEF descriptions of the ``By The Sea'' gardeners and their gardens, starting on 69th Street:
The Gibbs garden
112 69th St.
Ethel Gibbs celebrates her 90th birthday on the day her garden is open, testament to the fact that gardening is an enduring hobby. Her garden is an old one, rich with memories dating back to 1959, when she and her late husband, Albert, moved to their home. Ethel Gibbs has been gardening there for more than three decades.
She says she learned gardening from her father as she grew up outside Philadelphia.
Seven flats of dusty miller and pink dianthus fill a border, flanking the front lawn. Simplicity and Fairy roses are behind them. Farther back are some of the largest and most beautiful live oaks in the area.
Her daughters, Caroline, a Master Gardener in the Chicago area, and Sally, who lives in Chapel Hill, N.C., helped her get her garden ready for this event.
Note the many beautiful hollies, especially one flanking the driveway. Under the old-fashioned back arbor are hanging baskets of New Guinea impatiens, with a climbing hydrangea on a lattice nearby.
In the back is a miniature vegetable garden, plus nectarine, pear and fig trees. In an ancient greenhouse, she propagates many plants and grows others from seed.
Ethel Gibbs will be in her garden to ``show and tell'' how to keep gardening at 90.
The Campbell garden
108 69th St.
Next door to Ethel Gibbs live William T. and Meg Campbell. They are writers and artists and applied their creativity to design much of their own garden, though they credit Jack Campbell, formerly a landscape designer with McDonald Garden Center.
Much of the garden is shaded by huge live oaks, but the primary feature is an elevated boardwalk through the garden. Lamium covers the shaded area, while blue pansies and pink carnations highlight sunny areas. Many of the shrubs in front are plantings from when the house was built in 1925.
Bill Campbell likes to grow vegetables, so you'll find a vegetable garden behind a playground for their younger son, Graham. Bill and Meg both like to garden and continually experiment to find perennials resistant to wind and salt spray.
The Campbells, however, also enjoy the beach, a few steps away, so their garden is purposely low-maintenance.
Pause for a moment before leaving 69th Street to hear the birds sing. If you look closely, you can spot nests in some of the trees.
The Addington garden
7016 Ocean Front
The dunes are low around Anne and Joe Addington's house, so you can get a get a good view of the ocean from the garden. Masses of hydrangeas and Japanese black pines greet you as you enter the garden. Note a tamarisk, the only one on the tour, as you walk around to the front of the house. Tamarisk is a seldom used but excellent plant for salt and sea locations.
Along the pathway of walking stones are Powis Castle artemisia, lythrum, plumbago, daylilies, Yaupon holly and Vitex. Continue around the house to a protected southwest spot in back where you'll find an excellent rose garden with more than two dozen vigorous tea roses.
The Wagner garden
7106 Ocean Front Ave.
Dr. Alan L. and Jody Wagner have a terraced garden, with an 8-foot drop from dunes to driveway. The gardens were planned and planted by Bill Pinkham of Smithfield Gardens, but the Wagner family all ``pitches in to help garden.''
Their front patio is surrounded with pink Meidiland roses and white Indian hawthorne and offers a wonderful view of the Atlantic.
The Wagners have young children, so you will find a children's playground, surrounded by many Fatsia, plus holly ferns and eleagnus, all tough plants.
Walk from the Oceanfront to the lower terrace to admire Gold Flame yellow-foliaged spirea, plus Vitex, Wax Myrtle and a fig. Most of the plants are native varieties, best for surviving winter winds on the Oceanfront.
The Marshall garden
8208 Ocean Front Ave.
The small, private garden of Eleanor and John Marshall is one of the most interesting on the tour. Eleanor Marshall is a devotee of native woodland plants. Her garden reflects this. Fish in a pool with a fountain are canopied by a beautiful small Japanese red maple.
A slate walk guides you through this peaceful garden, with native columbine, clematis and other woodland plants. It makes you want to sit down and spend the rest of the summer there.
Buddleia bushes and blue salvia attract butterflies and hummingbirds, and a purple martin house has attracted residents for 15 years.
Unfortunately, rabbits devour native plants, so the Marshalls have a low-visibility fence surrounding their garden to protect it. Who would have thought rabbits would be a problem amidst sand dunes?
The Darden garden
8402 Ocean Front Ave.
Betty and Josh Darden have a new garden, designed by Smithfield Gardens. It uses shades of lavender and purple with Homestead verbena and Baths Pink dianthus. A stone walk leads through a perennial bed of ornamental grasses, Russian sage, Autumn Joy sedum, Stella D'Oro daylilies and Moonbeam coreopsis.
Low creeping herbs, such as prostrate rosemary, thyme and Herrenhausen oregano, provide a fragrant edge to paths and tumble over a low retaining wall.
Check the oleander to see how winter winds savaged it, but did not kill it. Rugosa roses provide color at the garden's perimeter.
This garden was planted so that as it matures, it will be in the bold style popularized by Oehme and van Sweden at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.
Mastracco-White garden
8404 A & B Ocean Front Ave.
Next door to the Dardens is the impressive garden kept jointly by two neighboring families. The homes of Suzanne and Vincent Mastracco and Catherine and Preston White are back to back with a shared garden. They call their garden ``Very Virginia Beach,'' achieved with the help of Smithfield Gardens' Bill Pinkham.
The homes, pool, black iron fences and gates are in the Mediterranean style. Single pink climbing roses cover the wall with overhanging lavender wisteria as you enter the garden from the Mastracco side. In front, you'll be greeted by masses of white daisies.
Large clay planters border the front patio, filled with flowers of many varieties. Catharine White says she's found that vining geraniums do best near the Oceanfront.
Boston ivy climbs the side of the home on the White's side, which is dominated by a swimming pool. ``I like Boston ivy, but it's heavy maintenance,'' commented Catharine White, as she swept away its droppings.
When you are in the ocean side of the garden, be sure to glance upward. There you will see three floors of planter boxes, filled with flowing flowers.
The garden includes many ocean-resistant perennials such as daylilies, veronica, yarrow, santolina and Joe Pye weed. Giant crimson hibiscus, rugosa roses and Vitex provide a riot of color in summer. by CNB