Home and Garden: Constant Gardeners

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Constant Gardeners

I really didn’t have a plan for the garden,” confesses Brenda Bragg as she surveys the broad expanse of her backyard from her perch on a rocker in the screened-in porch. A quick glance in the direction she’s studying reveals a curvaceous border garden edged with emerald grass and filled with hydrangea and lilies. “I just laid out my beds to follow the way I mow the grass,” she says, making it sound like she plans landscapes every day for breakfast. But her light tone belies the fact that she put in plenty of hours—thinking and dreaming about how to landscape her 3.5-acre property. And that was after she’d spent about four years working on the design of the house itself.

Brenda Bragg and her husband Terry had been eyeing the property in a newer Simpsonville subdivision for a while, but it didn’t come up for sale until after they’d put a deposit on another lot. Luckily, Brenda says, the builder was happy to swap, and the whole transaction took less than a week. What wasn’t quite as simple was the design of the house, which was tailored to the other plot. Undaunted, Brenda worked with the builder to generate a mirror image of the plan. Soon it was in the works.

“I started with templates of all my furniture,” Brenda explains. “I knew we wanted to live mainly on one floor.” And that one floor had to have multiple views and entrances to the gardens. “I love to sit and just look at it.” For this, she borrowed some ideas from her other home, and improved on them.

“We had a screen porch like this at the other house, but here we added a fireplace,” she says, gesturing to the stacked stone structure against one wall. The rest arranged itself organically. With the fireplace came the idea to have glass replacement windows for the winter, then came the flat screen TV (“so Terry can watch Clemson games,” notes Brenda) and a pillow-strewn hammock just opposite.

Terry leans forward in his armchair and points out the ceiling, painted blue in the Charleston style, which Brenda says is supposed to keep the “haints” away. Terry thought to have Terry Helms of Simply Marbelous, who artfully faked leather and various stone textures throughout the interior, add some clouds and birds. There’s even a wheeling hawk to commemorate the real one who took up residence along with the Braggs when they first moved in.

From the porch, it’s an easy walk back to the well-appointed kitchen that’s flooded with light even on this overcast morning. But before we can walk through, one of Terry’s business partners stops in to say hello on his way to the Braggs’ offices downstairs. With Terry running an engineering and surveying business, and Brenda working with him and doing design consulting of her own, she says, “People are just in and out all day long.”

It’s easy to see why. Both Braggs are quick with a smile, and their home, though filled with lovely fabrics and furnishings, makes visitors feel instantly at ease. “I like it to look pretty but it has to be liveable. We put our feet on the furniture, and there are doggy nose prints on the door, but I don’t care,” declares Brenda.

In fact, says the accomplished cook, one of her favorite things to do is to have folks over to try out her newest recipes. “I have a group of friends who are my guinea pigs,” she says with a hearty laugh. Both family and friends are regularly treated to delicious grilled suppers accompanied by vegetables from the garden. Even when it’s just the two of them, the Braggs often opt to eat at one of the many bistro-style tables they’ve placed in picturesque nooks throughout the garden.

“We used to eat out a lot, but now I’d just as soon have supper here and listen to the birds and the sound of the water.” You can hardly blame her. Thanks to Terry’s engineering expertise, the landscape includes an impressive collection of water features: seven fountains, a pool and hot tub, and a stunning waterfall that’s tucked away at the back of the property—each with its own signature sitting area.

Brenda says she could never have done it without her husband, who chimes in, “I’m the grunt,” while she argues that he’s come a long way towards being able to identify the plants himself. Not afraid of heavy lifting, Brenda says they tackled the rock work themselves—a four-month project in which the two hauled 73,000 pounds of varying sizes of stones. “I just wanted a trickling stream,” Brenda says, laughing helplessly as she remembers what she thought would be a small project.

But that’s the way it always seems to go for this life-long gardener who can remember being as young as three and having her own rows in her family’s garden. “My father just cut down the handle of a regular hoe so it wouldn’t be too tall for me,” she recalls, “And I’ve always worked by trial and error.”

Though she’s come a long way from failed experiments, such as placing an entire flat of impatiens in a sunny patch of yard (“I’m from Pittsburg, they thrive in the sun there,” she explains), Brenda says that other than taking evening classes in landscape design to earn a certificate, she’s no master gardener and she doesn’t like cranky plants. “If they don’t work in one spot, I’ll dig them up and put them somewhere else.” She’s also quick to point out that she’s not particular about where she acquires the plants. “I’m not a plant snob, I’ll shop anywhere,” counting venues from Lowe’s to local nurseries among the places she’s shopped.

While Brenda thrives on the haphazard approach, Terry is a planner. Walking through any part of the garden, he can point to a clutch of lilies here or an innocent-looking stack of rocks there and urge you to look carefully. Even on close inspection, his clever natural screens are doing an admirable job at hiding catch basins for rainwater all over the garden. Says Brenda, “He’s done wonders with low-voltage lighting because he put conduits underneath everything.” And he’s also crafted the birdhouses that rise up here and there across the garden. “When a tree dies, we leave the trunk up and stick a birdhouse on it,” says Brenda. Because there are so many, it’s easy to overlook the one that faces down the slope of the waterfall to the gazebo, but that’s not for the birds. Demonstrating, Terry lifts the front, “It’s a light switch,” he says with pride.

He’s also the one who put together the greenhouse, now home to the Braggs’ small collection of citrus trees. “In the middle of winter, I can come in here and get the good smell of dirt,” says Brenda with eyes closed, sniffing deeply at the memory. Terry also masterminded the woodshop, a necessity for the copious shelves and cabinets he built and installed throughout the house. The two share a chuckle as their descriptions of the place collide. “I told him it had to look pretty from the outside,” she says, and he adds, “But inside I keep it as messy as I like.” Indeed, in the far right corner of the property, what looks like a fairy-tale cottage with a charming porch surrounded with fragrant vines and unusual plants such as a tree dahlia, disguises the sawdust-strewn
workshop within.

Evidenced by the harmony in the garden’s hardscape and plantings, it’s easy to see the couple has worked happily side-by-side both professionally and domestically for years. Walking around to the front of the house, Terry explains how they’ve now taken to cultivating thornless blackberries and daylilies for sale to the public. “We’ve always run two jobs,” he admits and pauses for effect.

Standing at the far edge of the property from the street and taking in the view, it’s hard to believe this is part of a subdivision. Maybe it’s the way the eye is drawn naturally along the sweeping arc of a gardening bed punctuated by the nodding, blushing heads of David Austin Heritage roses and sprays of pink deutzia.

Or perhaps it’s the sound of the pattering water from the fountain right next to the front door. Or even the façade of the house itself, with its pleasing array of wide, sparkling windows. No matter. Taken together, it’s the kind of well-ordered abundance that begs lingering. Good thing the Braggs’ are more than inclined to ask you in for a visit.

Garden Favorites by the Season

Brenda Bragg laughs helplessly when asked what her favorite flowers are. “I love winter interest,” she admits. But, in truth, her garden thrives all year long. Here’s a look at how her garden grows through the year:

WINTER
Evergreen Clematis (Clematis armandii ) A tough evergreen vine, this variety is hardier than its hybrid cousins, but what makes it truly a standout are its clusters of fragrant white blooms that appear in late winter, at the end of the branches. The 2.5-inch blossoms make a dramatic appearance against the handsome foliage. Plant in part shade.

Carolina Sapphire Cypress (Cupressus arizonica) Fast-growing, attractive foliage is bluish-grey in color and extremely aromatic. It does better in marginal soils and best in full sun.

Winter Honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) A sprawling and leggy shrub, it fades into the background until the fragrance of its small, creamy-white flowers command attention in January and February, followed by red berries in spring. Prefers average, well-drained soil and
sun to part shade.

SPRING
Forest Pansy Redbud (Cercis canadensis) This small, deciduous, understory tree can eventually grow twenty to thirty feet tall. Clusters of tiny, rose-purple, pea-like flowers bloom profusely on the branches in early spring (March–April) before the foliage emerges. Prefers medium soil and sun to part shade.

Deutzia (Deutzia gracilis) Used as garden shrubs, and the smaller varieties can be grown as groundcovers or in containers. Deutzia is an easy shrub to grow, tolerant of a wide range of growing conditions. Deutzia prefers moist, humus-rich soil, but is tolerant of soils within a wide pH range. It does best in full sun but will also grow in light shade.

SUMMER
Big Leaf Magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla) A medium-size deciduous tree with giant leaves that can grow up to thirty inches long. Fragrant flowers, which can be a foot wide, appear in late spring or early summer, with six white petals surrounding a yellow and purple center. Somewhat shade tolerant, it is best to grow in a sunny, sheltered area.

Carolina Sweetshrub (Calycanthus sterilis) Delightfully unfussy, and a quick grower that’s entirely fragrant, from leaves to flowers. Blossoms appear in mid-spring and continue blooming into the summer. Colors are rich shades of bordeaux and bronze. It likes a neutral to mildly acidic soil pH and only requires water during times of drought.

Plume Poppy (Macleaya cordata) A dramatic addition to the border with its large, sage-colored lobed leaves, that can reach eight inches across on stems that are eight feet tall and don’t require staking. The flowers by contrast are small and bloom in late summer. Sun to part shade is best, and they can also be grown in pots.

FALL
Silverthorn (Elaeagnus pungens) Silverthorn is a huge, sprawling shrub that, if left unpruned, will form a symmetrical mound of foliage fifteen feet high. In late fall and early winter it produces scores of flowers that are cream-colored, bell-shaped, and supremely fragrant (similar to gardenia) that mature into dark, small, reddish-brown fruits that birds love. Easygoing, drought tolerant, and prefers full to part sun.