A promise of a Rose Garden

Who says you can’t grow roses in our climate? Not Jenny Christiansen, at least not after watching them thrive in a memorial garden at Bigfork Valley.

Christiansen admits that she didn’t think the roses would make it and says “I was really surprised, they’re very hardy and have done beautifully.” She attributes the garden’s success to the plants’ Canadian origins. “It’s the breeding,” explains Christiansen, “they’re made for the cold weather.”

Christiansen doesn’t mention that all of the hospital and facility gardens benefit from her watchful eye and devoted attention. Volunteering 8-16 hours weekly, she’s mulched, weeded, tended, and this year watered, a variety of plant material that rivals the diversity of many landscape arboretums.

Completion of hospital construction and remodeling projects has presented an opportunity for emphasizing Bigfork Valley’s core value of “stewardship.” Christiansen says a new master plan she is preparing for the grounds and gardens will include a more natural transition from forest to formal plantings. “Of course everyone loves flowers, and residents will continue to have summer color to look at,” she says, “but we’ll have plants that look more natural and don’t require constant tending.” She also envisions a dry creek bed of gravel with very low maintenance plants and ground covers at the emergency room entrance.

The key to making all this come to fruition will be having more hands to help. After a long season showing off, perennials, plants that come back year after year, need to be divided so they can perform their miraculous reappearance act in the spring. Some plants need to be moved to better spots to get more sun, or spare their roots from compacted clay soil. Others just need a blanket of newspaper covered with mulch to prepare for a long winter’s sleep.

Christiansen would like to see a garden club form to adopt various areas. “If a person couldn’t come every week there would be a group that could come in and get all the beds mulched in one day. Or they could help improve the soil by working some good black dirt into the clay.” She also suggests that garden lovers who don’t have time to spare can still contribute. “We’d love to have plant divisions from their gardens, or if they’d like to make a monetary donation they can specify that it go to the gardens.” In fact, it was a $400 donation in memory of a loved one that started the rose garden.

If you would like to participate in a Garden Club to help maintain the landscaping around Bigfork Valley, call Laurel Laudert at (218) 743-4148. In addition to gardening, volunteers read to residents, work as bingo callers, accompany seniors on shopping trips, and help with pet care. Laudert says, “If someone has a desire to volunteer and doesn’t have an interest in some of the things we’re already doing I encourage them to call and share what they would like to do.” She adds, “We can tailor our orientation and volunteer training to their interests.”