Garden in the pines

Southern Living, Jul 2002 by Bussell, Gene B

Returning to their roots, this Georgia family embraces their land and their heritage.

As the wind passes through the needles of pine trees, it creates a quiet song of summer, lulling us to peaceful thoughts. It makes us pause and look at clouds, stuffed like pillows, floating gently across the sky. Among the pinewoods of Monroe, Georgia, lies the garden of Dexter and Kelley Adams. It is a garden of simple uses and colorful flowers. It is also a refuge where their sons, Sam and Tyler, can hide and play among the tomatoes, blueberries, and sunflowers of summer. It is a place for imaginations to grow and run wild.

Paths run from the garden, through the pinewoods, to places for exploration and play. They meander through a meadow of black-eyed Susans and lead to a tree house with burlap windows. They then continue through the woods and around a creekbed that a beaver has dammed to make its own pond. They lead to the homes, gardens, and fields of relatives: Grandma Evelyn, Uncle Tony, and cousins beyond. The Adamses' garden remembers family and their ties to this land.

It Was Meant To Be

Both Dexter and Kelley grew up around gardeners. Dexter's family has lived in Monroe for generations. His father, Grady, was an avid gardener. Dexter remembers his father always "sweating and digging. He gravitated to the outdoors because he couldn't fix a washing machine," Dexter says.

Grady grew more than a hundred selections of daylilies. Dexter recalls his fascination when opening boxes of mail-order bare-root plants destined for the family's small orchards. They grew their own figs, blueberries, peaches, and tomatoes. Such ties to land and gardening imparted more than just memories to Dexter; they later inspired him to become a landscape architect.

Kelley, who grew up in Little Rock, has similar memories. She says her father did a lot of gardening and began with daylilies. Her mother, an artist, now runs her own perennial nursery. Kelley, who is an elementary school art teacher, is also an artist. After finishing college at Sewanee in Tennessee, she made a trip to Athens, Georgia, to visit a friend. There she met Dexter at the Bluebird Cafe. He confesses that he asked her about a newspaper just so he could talk to her; they've been together ever since. Although they first lived in Athens, Kelley says, "We moved to Monroe after Sam was born, because we needed to be around family."

To Grow and To Eat

A circular stone wall surrounds the kitchen garden. Terraced along a slight slope, it is, in effect, a large raised bed that supplements meals with tomatoes, squash, eggplants, beans, and peppers. Kelley says, "You can buy corn on the cob from the grocery store, but you just cannot buy homegrown tomatoes." She cooks all summer long with herbs planted in the openings around the vegetables and flowers. She regularly uses thyme, rosemary, oregano, tarragon, and basil, the king of herbs, which she reserves almost exclusively for pesto sauces.

Dinners are memorable summer events at either Kelley's table or at Grandma Evelyn's next door. Slices of fresh tomato, green beans, fried okra, and yellow squash-peppered and cooked in butter and onions-are served with fried chicken. The cornbread has to be strategically placed because, as Dexter admits, "We fight over the corner pieces." And for those who might still have room, there is also blueberry pie and ice cream. Colorful bouquets of fresh flowers cut from the garden-bright sunflowers, daylilies, zinnias, black-eyed Susans, and cosmos-grace the family's summer table.

More Than a Toolshed

Generations of Adamses have lived in Monroe. Most worked the land at some time, but now the numbers are fewer. In the fields that surround his home, Dexter has come across various parts of tools and machines from times past. He has collected them and created a thoughtful display on the sides of his rustic toolshed. Saw blades, chrome hubcaps, chains, locks, picks, wrenches, license plates, springs, pulleys, pitchforks, and hooks-each has its own place. The tailgate from his father's Studebaker serves as the centerpiece. Each find has intrinsic worth, but as a group, the tools are perhaps more beautiful because they represent and honor those who used them.

The Path to Inspiration

Dexter is always tinkering with things. A few years ago, he went through what he describes as his "birdhouse period." That's when he began making a series of birdhouses from old wood, rusted tin, and whatever else he found that was weathered, including antique farm implements. Fifteen birdhouses later, the air is filled with the vibration of flight and the joyous sound of birdsong.

His latest fascination with stone and pattern, paired with a love of history, has inspired him to create mosaic paths in the spirit of South American landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx. So now, using a 4-pound masonry hammer, Dexter taps, cuts, and sets brick and stone on sand. His pathways, made of scrap brick, granite cobble, and river stone, are merged with the native ferns and mosses.