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By Linda Learman | Garden photos by Paul LaBeau
Photo by Linda Learman
Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, his reflection on the values of simplicity, self-reliance, and the wisdom of nature. Paul LaBeau, 57, of Manchester, may have had a similar idea 13 years ago when he moved to his home on ten-and-a-half wooded acres adjacent to a field near the western edge of Washtenaw County. And for LaBeau, living deliberately includes gardening and landscaping to his heart’s content. Growing up in the Detroit Downriver city of Wyandotte, “I always wanted to live in the country,” LaBeau says. One of nine children in his parents’ small house, LaBeau spent some time as a teenager living with his grandmother who kept a small garden, just a few blocks from his parents. “She taught me gardening, and I just took the ball and ran with it,” says LaBeau, “that was my thing.” Entering LaBeau’s property from the narrow lane of a long driveway, the field nods hello from the left side, and the woods from the right. Within a garden bed, hand-painted wooden signs, a weathered homemade birdhouse perched on a post, and a rusted antique plow point the way to the long circular drive to LaBeau’s house.
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“I WENT TO THE WOODS BECAUSE I WISHED TO LIVE DELIBERATELY…”
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Romanesque statues of gargoyles, angels, and cherubs peer out from the clearing within the drive, dotted with mature hardwood trees and evergreens. Multiple islands of garden beds arise from the grassy clearing, around and between the trees. A pole barn, carport, and former child’s playhouse converted into what LaBeau and his longtime girlfriend Beth Travis call their “We Shed,” flank both sides of the drive before the house is in plain sight, nestled inconspicuously among the trees. As the circular drive winds back towards the field to the north, the scope and size of Paul LaBeau’s masterful gardens and landscaping comes into clearer focus. LaBeau’s labor of love – his passion for gardening and landscaping – is everywhere in sight on his property. A gentle hillside sloping down from the field toward the house contains what LaBeau says is “the heart of it all.” There, LaBeau’s landscaping features a burbling stream winding down the hillside, cradled by rocks he brought in from a friend’s property and traversed by a wooden foot bridge he built. Edged by delicate fountains, Japanese maples, eclectic objects, succulents, potted plants – and frequented by numerous frogs – the stream flows into two smaller pools, which LaBeau refers to as “the top pond and middle pond,” and ends in a 2,000 gallon koi pond. “It turned out better than I ever imagined. I just had a vision and stuck with it,” says LaBeau.
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Annuals/Perennials Bedding Plants Hanging Baskets Climbing Vines Succulents Patio Pots Trees/Shrubs Vegetable Plants Dairy Doo Products
67,000 sqft Greenhouse
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The Bee House
aBeau has had no formal training in gardening or landscaping. “Most of my design ideas just come from my mind,” he says. In the couple’s vision of home and gardens, inside and outside appear to seamlessly meld together. They enjoy antiquing and repurposing found objects. “We go to flea markets, thrift shops, yard sales, estate sales. I’ve always been creative. I like creating things. We like to find things, put them together, and fit them in the garden,” says LaBeau. “And,” he adds, “we do it on the cheap.” What LaBeau saves in money, he invests in time. Some people dream of gardening in retirement, but he continues to work 45 hours a week as he has done for nearly the last 35 years at Huron Valley Steel in Belleville. Travis, who also works full time, says, “He’s built everything himself. There’s no contractors ever coming in.” Homegrown Gardeners continued...
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