After Mary and Richard Callahan were married, she moved into his beautiful home along Cannondale Road in Jefferson City's west end residential area. She realized she needed to put her passion for gardening to good use.
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"Before, you couldn't see our house until you got to our house. There were no shrubs or flowers, a little patch of lawn and a big sloping hill," Mary said, noting she moved in about eight years ago.
With ample woods surrounding the house's spacious property, Mary began envisioning how she could beautify the front area to create more curb appeal. She delved into those projects and then worked her way to the back of the home. After lots of hard work during the next several years, she created a complete circle of unique, colorful and even beneficial garden spaces that the couple, their children and their grandchildren greatly enjoy.
The admiration for Mary's hard work to her gardens caught the eyes of those outside her inner friend and family circle. Two years ago, the Callahan home's property became a community favorite as part of the 2016 Bittersweet Garden Club's annual Garden Tour, and now, that same organization has bestowed them with the first 2018 Garden of the Month award in May.
"They wanted to come down and look at my garden, and I thought, 'I have to get on these weeds,'" Mary said with a laugh. "I think it is great and I was very happy about it. It is very nice to receive this award."
Linda Block, 2018 Garden of the Month committee chairperson, said the fellow members were in awe of Mary's huge array of color and texture in her gardens.
"The explosion of greens in the wooded area at her property's entry is very calming and eye catching," she said.
Mary, too, commented the garden space in the middle of their home's circle drive is one of her favorites. She found herself sitting on her front porch drinking coffee, looking past the then landscaped lawn and planning out how she could transform the land in between the gravel roads into a beautiful green space. She first went out and bought five large red twig dogwood shrubs.
"I put in the bright green ones and then went from there. My neighbor brought me some hostas and some astilbe. My husband also brought a lot of stones up from our woods. I was using them as fast as he was bringing them up. I think he built up some muscle over that," she said with a laugh.
Mary grew her flower beds and flora in this serene space, including a few paths that lead through the garden, a 300-pound stone bench and a variety of repeated flowers, plants and native varieties, which can be seen in many of her individual garden areas.
"Mary takes advantage of dividing plants and sharing them with various beds," Block said. "There are different annuals tucked in everywhere, and the many perennials are abundant."
Mary echoed that she uses those same plants to provide harmony throughout her yard, her favorites being a variety of hostas and coral bells, as well as other flowering plants like astilbe, iris, tulip and daffodil. Different native plants, such as coneflowers like black-eyed Susans, are also used in the various spaces.
Mary did a lot of the work herself, putting down gravel and laying stones for the connecting paths between gardens, designing flower beds and accompanying landscaping, and becoming a frequent customer to Lowe's and local retail greenhouses through the years. She also did these projects while her husband was working in St. Louis through the week, surprising him with her nearly finished projects when he returned home.
"I would work from morning until it got dark because I wanted to have the project I was doing done before he got back," she said. "I knew he would be happy with the results, and he was."
Those results include a manicured lawn embraced by Mary's continued, creatively designed garden areas, including spaces speckled with a variety of flowers and ornate décor nestled near the home and back deck to woodland retreats that provide tranquility for adults and adventure for youth.
Mary and Richard's grandchildren enjoy running through the arbor entrance to the woods near circle drive garden, down the path marked "Chess Nut St." and into a secret haven filled with a painting area complete with an easel, loungers and chairs and a table that beckon a game of chess.
"I remember when I was little I loved playing in the woods, and they love this, too," she said. "My husband jokes with me about not making my 'Chess Nut St.' sign, and I said, 'What would your sign say?' And he said, 'Don't feed the bears.' So, I had one made for him and it is at the other end of the area."
A trail leads to the backyard gardens and another woodland spot near a fire pit. As another one of Mary's and her son's favorite garden spaces, the area includes a curved tree that "called to have a porch swing," a vintage door from a family member's Capitol Avenue rental property and many of Mary's antique and flea market finds - multiple birdhouses, window frames, mirrors and unique pieces that tie each garden together.
That same décor makes her husband's custom-built homing pigeon houses one of a kind, and carries on through pathways that connect the home back to the front. The side of the home has a birch tree mural she painted that matches birch limbs used to hold up birdhouses in that garden space.
Another favorite of Mary's and the Bittersweet Garden Club members is the butterfly garden that includes milkweed, butterfly weed and aster, and serves as a monarch butterfly waystation.
"As long as you have the host plants and the nectar plants and give a description of your garden, you get on a list and get a map of all the waystations so you can see where they travel," she said.
Mary may develop one last flower bed around an ornamental peach tree they planted in the front yard a few years ago. However, now she enjoys maintaining her beautiful garden spaces and being outside among her "labor of love." That passion is why the Bittersweet Garden Club recognized Mary with the award.
"Mary's gardens truly are a work of love of the outdoors, along with all the labor put into making it a beautiful Garden of the Month," Block said.