Issue No. 19, October 1, 1998

Allen Centennial Gardens
Shelley Ryan

I love visiting other gardens. It's a great way to see new plants and design ideas. Unfortunately, I'm usually so busy during the growing season that I never get the spare time. As the growing season draws to an end and things slow down a little, frankly I find myself tired of my own back yard and definitely tired of weeding. This is the time of year when I most enjoy visiting public gardens not only for inspiration but for the simple pleasure of watching someone else weed and to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor.

In this issue of The Wisconsin Gardener Notebook, we share with you a few of the many great public gardens to visit in Wisconsin. With this in mind I'd like to put in a bid for one of my favorite places, Allen Centennial Gardens on the UW-Madison campus. I enjoy visiting there as much as I used to enjoy working there. It's the only job I've had where every morning my boss said "thank you for coming!"

Working under head gardener Bill Hoyt was a wonderful learning experience. And Bill had a lot to teach, as he has been part of Allen Centennial Gardens since it's inception. I learned from Bill not only down-to-earth basics like double digging and how to make your compost really cook, but also how to design hanging baskets, and how to label all the thousands of plants that covered those three acres. Bill managed to make even manual labor interesting and entertaining. He taught me that there was a right way and a wrong way to shovel manure! It wasn't the most exciting thing I'd ever done, but as Bill pointed out, some people pay lots of money to build muscles at a club. Here, he was paying us!

I also have to give Bill credit. He was the one who gave me the confidence to go to Wisconsin Public Television and suggest they do a gardening show. Thanks, Bill!

Allen Centennial Gardens is located on the corner of Babcock and Observatory Drive, two blocks from Babcock Hall, home to some of the best ice cream around. My favorite time to view the gardens is in late summer/early fall. My favorite spot is the New American Garden. This relaxed, almost wild looking corner really glows even in late fall with drifts of Goldenrod and Russian Sage ornamental grasses. I helped plant this and many other parts of Allen Centennial Gardens so that makes me biased, but I still say this is a garden well worth visiting.

I may not be enjoying the fruit of someone else's labors, but at least now when I show up no one hands me a shovel.