A Visit with the Queen Of Spades
by Lois Alcosser

On Sunday, June 5, from 10 to 4, Terry Karpen’s woodland garden in Redding will have its debut in the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program, a chance to stroll, enjoy and talk to Terry about any and all aspects of gardening. Each year, since 1995, the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days have been an opportunity to visit some of  America’s finest private gardens. It’s a tremendous honor to be chosen.

For Terry Karpen, who is not only a gardener but also Queen Of Spades, a garden and landscape designer, June 5 will be an exciting day, though she knows all about the event because she maintained and hosted a client’s Garden Conservancy Garden in Redding for two years.

Terry wears many hats. In addition to creating gardens and landscapes, she can manage any size property, rejuvenate or renovate a small section or an entire garden. She is a garden consultant, does real estate staging, artistic pruning, deer fencing, just about anything and everything that has to do with gardens. Her goal is to create harmony between house and garden and between garden and the surrounding landscape.

Her own garden looks as if the flowers, plants and trees chose the location themselves. There is an immediate sense of naturalness and spontaneity. “Since it’s a woodland garden,” she says, “it’s a good example of my belief in placing plants where they will grow best and most beautifully, not changing nature but embracing it. Plants flourish according to their inborn needs.

”How does one go about achieving this? What must a gardener do to create a thriving garden? “Beauty comes first,” Terry says.That’s the main thing, but there has to be a plan to make it happen.“

First, as objectively as possible, look at the property with new eyes. What already exists? Where does sun come up, and go down? Is it mostly shady or sunny? Wet or dry? What kind of soil do you have — clay or sandy? Before you do anything, get to know the lay of the land and understand what you have as opposed to trying to make it the image of something else.”

She suggests finding out as much as you can about the region, its history, culture, ecology, because all these factors form the recipe for what you can do or choose to do. “For example,” she says, “suppose you have lots more shade than sun. You’re not going to cut down trees to change it to a sunny garden. Instead, learn about all the shade-loving plants that can give you the color, the look you want. Let’s say you’d love to have a rose bush. But if your land is wet and shady, no matter how hard you try, you won’t have roses. It’s a case of the right plants in the right place, not wishful thinking. When you go to a garden that has all the elements it should, there is the same satisfaction as viewing a work of art.”

Terry is often asked what pesticides to use on a lawn. Her answer is, “Your children, your pets are going to play on that lawn. You’re bound to bring in some soil on the soles of your shoes or on your clothes. Do you really want to use chemical pesticides? After all, gardeners are stewards of the earth.”

Before she became Queen Of Spades, Terry was a chef. As Queen Of Hearts, she baked specialty cakes, like wedding cakes.“But someone told me they all looked like landscapes,” she said, smiling. For 25 years, she had a career as a chef and pastry chef.  Just as beauty comes first in gardening, taste came first in running a restaurant, bakery or catering , and that meant the finest quality ingredients. “But cakes are my former world,” she says.

The path to gardening started when she worked at the Bartlett Arboretum in Stamford, and then took the Landscape Design program at the New York Botanical Garden and theUniversity of  Connecticut’s Master Gardener Program.

Terry is a follower of the Arts & Crafts Movement, which isn’t about making pottery but is a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and its assembly-belt production. “We believe in simplicity, not artificial gimmicks. Natural ingredients. Artisan-made, not mass-produced. Respect for the individuality of people’s different backgrounds.”

Her newest adventure is her quarterly newspaper column in The Redding Pilot. “There’s a community volunteer garden in Redding called the Parade Path. I’m just trying to get the word out.“

As a gardener,” she emphasizes, “you keep learning all the time. Perhaps, when you want a shrub with bright yellow flowers, you think of forsythia. But there are 10 other interesting choices. There are at least 200 choices besides daffodils.” One of Terry’s favorites is hellebore, an early blooming perennial, shade tolerant, deer resistant, beautiful flowers, comes in different colors. Its blooms last for months, and the leaves stay green all winter.“

The idea is to create a unique sanctuary to restore us. My mother knew this. I remember we’d plant seeds together. My brother had his own strawberry patch. When I was five years old, I’d go out by myself into nature. Being out in the woods as a child are my happiest memories. I guess gardening is what I’m supposed to be doing.”