5797 Taggert Drive, Hixson 37343
I have a long story of how I developed an interest in landscape and gardening and what led me to be where I am today. To briefly tell my background so people who read this will have a little understanding of what brought me here and why I have a passion for landscape and gardening. For those of you who know something about the history of Cambodia genocide you have some understanding of where I came from. This is where it started shaping my life and interest in landscape and gardening. When I was a little child, I was taken to concentration camps and was forced to work in rice paddies for long hours every day. Starvation and persecutions are understatements. Because starvation was so bad, in my little child’s mind was to learn how to grow food so I could survive the starvation. That’s where it started, it made me develop an interest in how to grow foods. When my family escaped Cambodia and came to the United States, I went to school. During the school year, I did yard work for people in the afternoon and on weekends when I was not in school, I went to work for a landscape company during my summer break. When I finished school, I went to work for a landscape company. I worked at different nurseries also Then I started my own self-employed landscape business. I enjoy what I do. Now I have a passion for landscape and gardening. I feel connected to nature. I love my duplex. This is all I need; I don’t need a big house.
When I bought this duplex in February 2001, there was nothing around the property, not a single plant. It looked like an abandoned property, woods and trash all around. I cleaned out trash and cleared the land. I started from a blank canvas after I cleared the land. Everything you see here, except a couple big oak trees, I planted from one gallon pots and smaller plugs. I planted all with my own hands with my own design. My property is sloped, flat, and curved. I designed each section differently and yet it flows together. I designed the landscape of how I wanted to feel when I’m home. I want to feel peaceful and yet have a sense of class. I don’t want it to be too formal and I don’t want it to be too wild. So I combine the two styles together. I created designs that look peaceful and yet a sense of class. Formal hedges and topiary gives it a formal look and feeling, and loose style gives it a relaxing and peaceful feeling. I used ornamental grasses and ferns to make it look soft and serene. I used formal hedges with boxwoods and hollies to give a sense of style. I planted spiral Alberta spruce for a formal touch along my front lawn. I plant different kinds of blooming perennials and annuals for colors to brighten the landscape. I have too many plants to name! I have a little of everything. I kind of collect plants. I always have something in bloom from spring to fall, such as peonies, hydrangeas, lilies, and daylilies (hybridized myself) blooming in spring. I have beautiful hibiscus dinner plates (hybridized myself) that bloom in summer along with different varieties of canna lilies, oriental lilies, and dahlias bloom at the same time. In fall I have camellias, ginger lilies, and other fall blooming perennials. I also grow a vegetable garden at the back side of the property. I grow green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, butter beans, peppers, asparagus, and more, as well as different kinds of herbs. My home, my cats, my garden is my sanctuary!
Photo by Sandee Jenkins