
DATE: Sunday, July 27, 1997                 TAG: 9707250126
SECTION: HOME                    PAGE: G1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   98 lines

GARDENER QUICKLY PUTS DOWN ROOTS

IN JUST A LITTLE over a year, Susan Callnin's new garden across Atlantic Avenue from the Oceanfront looks as though it has been there for several seasons.

Her yard had a semblance of permanence soon after she and her husband, Bill, moved in last Memorial Day, but this summer, it is a delight, one of those rare yards that causes passersby to stop and take notice.

Neighbors and tourists pause to look when they ride or bike by on the Feeder Road at the North End. Even an occasional motorist on busy Atlantic Avenue can't resist the temptation to pull over and take a gander at the profusion of colorful blooms and interesting vegetables.

In the front yard, hollyhocks stand tall behind the likes of snapdragons, daylilies, black-eyed Susans and a host of multi-hued petunias that tumble out of the border.

Folks are then drawn to an array of lush, colorful vegetables interspersed with flowers in the vegetable garden on the side and then to the back yard where a shady deck, accented with pots of flowers, is surrounded by more flower beds.

Callnin, a gardener all her life, has one secret she learned from years of traveling with her husband, now retired from the Navy: She moved her plants around the country as carefully as she moved the furniture.

For example, when the Callnins moved to this area, they brought along the largest rental van they could safely drive. In it was nothing but potted plants.

``We came here with over 600 pots of perennials and bushes,'' Callnin said. ``Some have been with me for 30 years.''

Among them were many heirlooms, handed down from one generation to the next, like the lamb's ears, bleeding hearts and artemisia, that once belonged to Callnin's mother.

Only a very close look reveals that some of the larger shrubs are still in their ``moving'' pots to make sure they'll survive Oceanfront conditions.

``I've been a gardener all my life,'' Callnin said. ``But this is my first garden by the sea. I was worried how it would do, but I raised a whole crop of potatoes without a single bug.''

That plus the overall well-being of the yard convinced Callnin that living close to the ocean would work. ``I've learned I have to water more and fertilize more because I water more,'' she said.

Although maintaining mature plants and toting them around the country in pots helped Callnin create a homey garden quickly, she doesn't make it easy on herself.

She doesn't rush out to the garden shops and come home with well-established plants and feed them growth-inducing liquid fertilizers. Callnin is an organic gardener, who also grows almost everything from seed - annuals, perennials and vegetables - under lights in her garage.

She hopes to have a greenhouse before long, but for now, the garage with a floor heater and fluorescent lights does the job both for her seedlings and her orchid collection.

In summer her orchids live in her back yard in a little nook where the previous owners left a swing set. Now the orchids hang from the swing frame, and Callnin also uses the area as a potting shed.

In an odd turn of events this spring, she found a tiny newborn duckling wandering down the middle of the street alone. She couldn't find a mother or a nest. Having raised ducks in the past, Callnin took the duckling in, and he has rewarded her with his slug control.

But birds are Callnin's main method of organic insect control. She keeps several feeders filled to keep the birds coming to her yard and in turn has watched the critters feasting on the cabbage worms for dessert.

``But the real secret is getting the soil right,'' Callnin said. She used eight trailer loads of Nature's Blend Compost in her beds last year and supplemented it with rock phosphate and New Jersey green sand, both organic chemicals.

When she fertilizes, Callnin uses dried poultry manure or fresh manure.

She has found her carrots thrive when she uses coffee grounds in the trench with the seeds.

Callnin even grows artichokes - real ones, not Jerusalem artichokes - and celery.

``The celery is tough for eating raw but great for cooking,'' Callnin said.

Her vegetables are as colorful as her flowers. Eggplants in creamy white with beautiful purple streaks hang over huge heads of purple, green and cream radicchio. A mixture of red, purple, chocolate and yellow peppers grow near six varieties of shiny red tomatoes.

She even grows squash, the bane of organic gardeners. Her secret is wrapping foil around the stems at ground level to keep the borers out.

``I experiment every year with different things,'' Callnin said.

Callnin had always lived and gardened in rural areas before moving to the Beach. She wasn't sure she would enjoy being on busy Atlantic Avenue.

``But I found I enjoy talking with people,'' she said, ``and having people appreciate the garden.''

And they do, indeed. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

CHARLIE MEADS/The Virginian-Pilot

Susan Callnin...

CHARLIE MEADS PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot

Susan Callnin creates lush gardens wherever she lives. Her backyard

deck is outlined by plants in pots and beds.

Verbascum ``Southern Charm,'' often grown in England, thrives in

Callnin's North End garden.