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     Gardening is a family affair for the O'Neill's (lef to right): Kyle, Jack, Shannon and Theresa |
Home&Garden feature article summer 06
A garden by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet as Theresa O'Neill's Longmont garden, brimming with roses and other delights. Text by Lisa Truesdale, Photos by Jack O'Neill Boulder County’s heavy clay soils don’t scare Theresa O’Neill. In fact, they’re a welcome change from her native state. “In Minnesota, you could be digging in backfill,” O’Neill says with a laugh. “I once shoveled up a license plate!” If she hadn’t grown up in that state, however, O’Neill might not have developed an intense passion for roses. “There was this rosebush across the street from our house that bloomed every year on my birthday [in June],” she explains. “It was very neglected and I was afraid it wouldn’t make it.” The rosebush survived, though, and continued to bloom every year as a special birthday present. When O’Neill was 14, she marched over and asked the homeowners if she could take care of the rosebush. They agreed, so she spent her baby-sitting money on a rose-care book. Even though she’s since amassed dozens of gardening books, “That’s still my favorite rose book today, 30 years later,” she says. “I call it my ‘drool book.’ ” After moving to Colorado in 1989, O’Neill dreamed of having a big yard filled with rosebushes. Ten years later, after marriage and two children (Kyle, 12, and Shannon, 8), O’Neill and her husband, Jack, bought a house in an Longmont subdivision known for its relatively spacious lots. Theirs is one of the largest lots in the neighborhood, at just over a third acre. O’Neill wasted no time getting to work in her new garden. “I’d already spent years sketching, drawing, planning and making lists, so I was anxious to get started,” she recalls. “I think I was out back digging even before I had any boxes unpacked!” The first thing she planted was, of course, rosebushes. “I planted more than a dozen varieties that first year”—a number that’s ballooned to more than 200, taking up nearly half the garden. O’Neill especially likes David Austin varieties because “they look like Old-World roses, and they get big and happy, with the whole bush covered from top to bottom in blooms.” Her sprawling garden also contains wildflowers, irises, fruit trees, strawberries and “enough vegetables to eat huge salads all summer long.” Decorative and functional elements include numerous archways and trellises, a covered screened-in pavilion, a huge compost pile, a playhouse, and numerous swings and benches. There’s even a “secret garden” for daughter Shannon that’s “a shady retreat where she can sit and read, or play with her friends.” And then there are the magnolia trees, still only about a foot tall after three years. “Those take a long time,” she laments. “In about 35 years, someone will be very happy that I planted them.” The Rose Lady O’Neill’s family is more than supportive of her gardening efforts and the long hours she spends in the yard. She loves getting her kids involved (see “Theresa’s Tips for Garden Success”), and her husband has his own reasons for loving the garden. “I love to grow beautiful flowers and Jack loves experimenting with photography,” she says. “It’s the perfect arrangement.” During her recent stint as president of the St. Vrain Rose Society, O’Neill gained even more rose knowledge and resources, and was able to share her passion with others. But since most society events are in the middle of summer, she was away from her garden too much, just at the time her hard work was paying off. O’Neill even hesitates to leave her garden for the family’s summer vacations. “I wish we could go away at another time of the year instead.” Last summer, the O’Neills visited her parents, who still live in the Minnesota house O’Neill grew up in. She was devastated to discover that new owners had moved in across the street and dug out “her” rosebush. “I couldn’t understand why my parents didn’t tell me,” she says. “I would have flown to Minnesota myself to take cuttings from it!” Currently, O’Neill lends her extensive knowledge as president of her neighborhood’s HOA. Among other projects, she secured a neighborhood grant from the city and designed (and helped plant) landscaping for the open space across from the neighborhood’s new park. She also helps approve landscaping plans that homeowners must submit to the HOA. Since O’Neill is known around the neighborhood and at her kids’ schools as “the rose lady,” people often walk right up to her to ask for advice or e-mail her at theresa@jackoneill.com. “It’s actually turning into a little consulting business,” she says, because several neighbors have hired her to help design their gardens. Now that her dream garden is just about where she wants it to be, O’Neill admits she has another dream: attending the Chelsea Flower Show in England, where the new David Austins are introduced each spring. “But I’ll never get there,” she sighs, “because it’s always in May and that’s when my garden needs me the most.” Related articles: Lisa Truesdale is a Longmont-based freelance writer and copy editor for Boulder County Home & Garden Magazine. Her own garden usually gets two new rosebushes a year. At that rate, she’d match O’Neill’s total in roughly 98 years.
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