“Driveway Garden” Flourishes on Lyon Street

When Ginny Nelson put in a rubber plant in the long narrow plot by her driveway, it wasn’t because of a metaphorical connection to tires. Still, it joins a banana tree and six large hydrangeas to make up a distinctive garden that says: No treads on me.

When Nelson and her husband Ken bought their 1844 Greek Revival house on Lyon Street in Wooster Square 15 years ago, there wasn’t a flower in sight by the driveway, or anywhere else.

Out-of-control hedges of prickly weeds along with invasive phragmites that had migrated from the nearby rail yards were five feet high. They climbed the length of the driveway and in back and front, said Ken Nelson.

A Depression-era ​“fence” made of old pipe sections added to the charm.

What Ginny Nelson described as a growing ​“addiction” to make horticultural use of every piece of limited earth on the property over the years led to a transformation: A shade garden of bromeliads, ponytail ferns, and lily of the valley appeared on the front/side of the house where she and her husband enjoy breakfast time.

Another garden was put in back framed by two large potted cacti, and a recliner and table between them. There the Nelsons retire for a glass of white wine at the end of long summer days.

The space that became the driveway garden was perhaps transformed most of all.

Handsome, waist-high, black ornamental steel fence now both beckons and protects the driveway side plot. Although its content varies, on a visit in late August, it featured those rubber trees and a banana plant, along with a Norfolk pine, the hydrangeas, some lavender, and a crouton.

“I love tropical plants,” said Ginny. She described herself as the gardener organizer. Ken was happily recruited to be the main waterer and weeder.

Bushy hydrangeas and tropicals are often large. They thereby make a statement to walk gingerly to those dismounting from their vehicles.

The Nelsons originally saw the long two-foot wide plot of the driveway as they did all the limited areas of open soil.

“Here’s a little piece of land. How can we make it look nice?” Ken, who teaches molecular biology at Yale, recalled asking.

Soon the driveway garden presented unique challenges.

Ginny said the first design for it featured a border of portulaca, a ground covering also known as moss rose, on both the driveway and house side of the plot. But these small plants with small bright flowers flourished only on the house side.

The cause of the disparity turned out to be not horticultural care but the crush of shoe leather.

In fact, the portulaca were routinely squashed underfoot on the driveway side by visitors getting out of their cars.

Now there are no more portulaca on that side. In their stead an area of moss grows, a green welcome mat that the Nelsons don’t mind people stepping on before the tropicals and the hydrangeas begin their lineup.

It also helps that hydrangea and tropicals are Ginny’s favorite plants, and the hydrangeas her husband’s. So their numbers are growing. Each of the hydrangeas shows a different kind of flower.

Ginny doesn’t miss the border on the driveway side. ​“Now the first thing out of their [visitors’] mouth is, ​‘Oh your garden is so pretty,’” she said.

There have been no other ​“accidents” by the driveway since the death of the portulacas (which in any event have reseeded themselves in the back garden). ​“I have so much now it’s hard to miss it,” Ginny said.

Along the far side of the driveway, beyond but another shade area of ferns, lilacs are flourishing. Ginny said these were there when they bought the house, but had to be retrieved from the weeds and now must be regularly cut back so they don’t overhang the driveway.

Then for the balance of the driveway length there are hostas along with several trellises of Mandeville flowers, surrounded by bases of petunias and impatiens.

Ken pointed out that a three-foot-long row of lavender along the driveway has a praying mantis family setting up business every season.

The driveway garden stands out because most driveways on Lyon Street appear to be completely asphalted or paved over these days. It’s likely that 79 Lyon St. also stood out nearly 100 years ago for its unique driveway use.

So Ken discovered after doing some research. He pointed out the base of two curved, cut-off jagged steel poles framing the driveway. These are the remnants of an arbor that arced across in decades gone by, he said.

A family that moved in the house in 1926 and stayed until 1972. The family grew grapes from the arbor, perhaps even as it drove trucks and other vehicles in and out.

“Della Rocca [the arbor builder] was a building contractor,” Ken explained. Then he pointed to that name and ​“May 1953” engraved in the cement near the arbor base, along with a child’s footprints.

One of the corollary benefits of gardening on land of a man who was constantly moving stuff in and out is that old bottles are coming up.

Ken demonstrated a Bromo Seltzer bottle from the 1870s that turned up in the back garden, which is on the site of their home’s old outhouses.

Along with that old artifact is the newest challenge for the Nelsons; a lemon tree, which is flourishing. It, along with so many of the potted plants lining the driveway, will move into the house as the cooler weather nears.

Previous Gardeners Of The Week:

• Maria Meneses
• Katie MacRae
• Christopher Schaefer
• Xiaoping Li and Yonggui Diao
• Rebecca Kline and Wanda Albandoz