Watercolorist Mary Vander Molen knows the properties of water and color and light, shape and texture and composition.
“Gardening is very much like painting,” says the artist, whose painterly eye and green thumb have rendered her Aurora garden nearly picture perfect.
Perennials bloom in a curvilinear border. A honeysuckle – coral and yellow – snakes its way around a pergola; clematis climbs an arch over the garden gate; Virginia creeper wraps a lamppost.
Paths lead through thick turf, past a mini hedge of boxwoods, potted dwarf Alberta spruce and a weeping juniper, adding texture and various values of green. Tchotchkes – including a friar on a swing, a terra-cotta greyhound sporting pearls, bird houses and gazing balls – add dimension and dashes of whimsy.
Squirrels and birds and the artist’s two cats commune and sometimes conflict, so Isabella, the younger feline, is leashed. Wind chimes lend voice to the breezes. Baskets spill over with artfully selected palettes of plants.
Vander Molen cultivated her garden, in its ninth year, from nothing but a few unfriendly junipers.
“It’s a constant process. You live a garden,” she says. “If you really want a garden, you have to work in it daily. I know every leaf in this place.”
Yet not every botanic adventure has succeeded.
“Despite the fact that I grew up on farm, I knew nothing about plants,” Vander Molen said. “I could pay for a doctorate in botany with all the money I’ve paid for plants I’ve killed. It has taken years to figure out sun, soil and that when the little tag says ‘full sun,’ it means ‘full sun.”‘
A lush oasis off a sunny greenbelt, Vander Molen’s backyard is mostly shade, thanks to a mature maple tree.
“The most important thing is good soil,” says Vander Molen, who adds compost twice a year – in spring before plants are up, and in autumn, after plants die back. She fertilizes monthly with Miracle-Gro. The moist and leafy microclimate provides a perfect home for her biggest gardening challenge: slugs.
“I put in one plant for myself and one for the slugs,” she says, not the least bit squeamish about pulling a sizable one from hostas. “A little butter, a little salt. I could feed France on these things.”
Known for her sense of humor and hospitality, if not her escargot, Vander Molen enjoys entertaining in her secret garden.
“In Colorado, the minute you set the table, it pours for five minutes, then stops,” she said.
Her patio, just off her dining room and kitchen, used to have an awning stretched above, but rain pooled in the canvas.
“And you couldn’t see the stars,” Vander Molen said.
To open the sky and protect her place settings, she had sheets of quarter-inch-thick Plexiglas installed atop the pergola.respite from harsh sunlight, she draped fabric from the pergola beams.
Above her round glass-and-iron table, she installed a rustic chandelier. The effect is airy, yet contained and protected from precipitation.
On the concrete slab below, Vander Molen painted a faux tile floor, which after six years has acquired a convincing patina. The garden defies being pigeonholed into a particular style, falling more into eccentric eclecticism.
“I think of it as American cultivated chaos,” she says. “It’s not English, because they use more muted colors.”
While Vander Molen’s plant palette ventures from pastels, she eschews reds. “It’s a good color for fast cars,” she says.
Her restful garden invites visitors to downshift enough to absorb the beautiful vignettes.
“There’s not an angle out here that doesn’t work as a painting,” she says.
A night owl, Vander Molen paints late, which leaves her days free for gardening: “I can paint in the dark, but I can’t garden in the dark.”
At night, stands of tiny white bulbs and spotlights on timers illuminate the garden, visible from sliding glass doors in her bedroom.
Whatever the hour or season, Vander Molen’s garden delights.
“It’s a different world here.”
Mary Vander Molen shows her artwork from her home and is represented at Breckenridge Gallery.
