‘Secret garden’ wins Edwardsville Green Thumb Award

Vickie and Mike Hellmann live on one of Edwardsville’s main streets, but you’d never know it sitting in their backyard.

A wooden fence encloses big and small trees, perennial flowers and plants, walking paths, koi and goldfish ponds, waterfalls and a greenhouse.

“We want it to look like nature,” said Mike, 54, who sells horticulture supplies for a living. “We don’t want a crew to come in here and landscape it. We want the fence to look like it has been here for 100 years.”

On summer evenings, the quiet gives way to a chorus of croaking frogs and toads. The Hellmanns live just south of Watershed Nature Center, east of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and north of Woodlawn Cemetery.

“We love to sit out here on the deck,” said Vickie, 53, a kindergarten teacher at Goshen Elementary School. “It’s so peaceful.”

The Hellmann yard at 1405 St. Louis St. is one of 13 properties recently named Green Thumb Award winners by Edwardsville Beautification and Tree Commission. The program honors residents who go that extra mile to beautify public or private spaces with flowers and other plants, regardless of cost, size or location.

Nominations come from the gardeners themselves, as well as neighbors, friends, family members or passersby who appreciate their hard work and creativity.

“It’s contagious,” said commission member Mike Reinhardt. “You see one person in the neighborhood do it, and then you want to do it.”

Vickie Hellmann is the second person in her family to win a Green Thumb Award. Years ago, the city honored her stepmother, Phyllis West.

“(Phyllis) has two acres that she pours her heart and soul into,” Mike Hellmann said. “It’s like a mini Missouri Botanical Garden. And talk about wildlife ... She has everything but caribou.”

The Hellmanns live in a white, frame home built in 1910. They also own the house next door; it’s being rented by their two daughters, Heather and Holly.

The compound is shaded by dogwoods, redbuds, Japanese maples, magnolias, crepe myrtles and a curly willow tree that Mike trims down to about 12 feet each year to keep it away from power lines.

“It was just a twig in a Valentine’s Day arrangement that Mike got for me (five years ago),” Vickie said. “It rooted, and we put it in a pot and then planted it out in the yard.”

From the street, drivers can see the Hellmanns’ landscaping beds in front, including Mike’s new desert garden of cacti and other succulents in a bed of New Mexico rock.

“They’re cold-hardy, but you need to provide good drainage, good exposure (to sun and air) and do other things to give them a chance,” he said. “You’re pushing Mother Nature a bit.”

Mike has several hundred more cacti in the greenhouse and other succulents and bonsai on a picnic table in the backyard.

“That’s my passion,” said Mike, a member of the Missouri-based Henry Shaw Cactus and Succulent Society.

More traditionally, the Hellmanns have planted hostas, ferns, azaleas, English ivy and clematis. Vickie’s favorite flowers are daylilies and hydrangeas.

“There’s such a big variety,” she said. “And they look so pretty when you bring them in the house and put them in vases throughout the summer. I have early bloomers and late bloomers.”

Mike also dug a bog (wetland) garden in a sunny patch and filled it with carnivorous plants, which obtain some of their nutrients by trapping insects. He waters only with filtered water, plus rain.

“Carnivorous plants such as Venus fly traps and pitcher plants need a significant amount of sun during the day to keep their color and do well,” Mike said. “But they also need a significant amount of water. They need to keep their feet wet.”

Frequent visitors to the Hellmann property include deer, racoons, squirrels, skunks and a variety of birds that eat from hanging feeders. Vickie also keeps a metal candleholder filled with string, dryer lint and other nest-making supplies.

Reinhardt nominated Vickie and Mike for a Green Thumb Award. He was impressed before he even passed through the gate to the backyard.

“It was like stepping into a secret garden with all the flowers and ferns and two fish ponds,” he said. “It was just beautiful. It’s not a huge lot, but they fit a lot into it.”

Other Green Thumb Award winners in the residential category are Sheila and Greg Arth at 740 E. Lake Drive; Alec and Betty Harrison at 328 N. Fillmore St.; Scott and Janna Evers at 4 Pine Hollow Court; Milford Marshall Jr. at 821 Troy Road; Jean Weishaupt at 1342 Chancellor Drive; Deb and Pat Corkery at 2508 Hunters Ridge; Nancy and Peggy Meyer at 204 Third Ave.; Wanda and Gary Holliday at 211 S. Brown Ave.; Mary and Bob LaRose at 312 W. Fourth St.; and John and Sylvia Putz at 435 W. Lake Drive.

Other winners are Victoria’s Hair Designers (owner Kathy Cochran) at 211 Commercial St. in the business/commercial category and Buchanan Fillmore Friends neighborhood in the neighborhood category.

This story was originally published July 9, 2015 at 4:59 AM with the headline "‘Secret garden’ wins Edwardsville Green Thumb Award."