When you walk past Steve Kotsines’ house in Soulard, you’ll see bunches of summer sun flowers peeking over a stone wall. Beautiful, yes, but perhaps not worthy of a first place prize in our annual Great Garden Contest. Walk up a few steps though, and that’s when Kotsines’ “Unsuspecting Soulard Surprise†makes its debut.
Japanese forest grass sweeps through the center of the 20-year-old garden, surrounding large pots of sun impatiens, mustard ferns and purple hearts. Around the rims, the garden is packed with foliage and dapples of color, with lenton roses, Japanese anemones, rose bushes, Asiatic lilies and perennials. Kotsines’ personal favorite is the spiderwort, which, unlike any implications by its name, are dainty purple flowers cradled by sprawling leaves.
“There’s a lot of stuff going on in this yard,†Kotsines says. “There’s a lot of places where you can rest your eyes, but collectively it all comes together.â€
The judges were also impressed by the busyness of the garden and its many plant varieties.
“We appreciated the fact that it seemed to be in a front yard, which many city homes don’t have the front yard completely designed, usually at most one area is designated as a garden,†says Hanna Kolaks, horticulturalist with the Kemper Center for Home Gardening at the Missouri Botanical Garden. “It seemed very attainable.â€
This year, a team of experts from the Missouri Botanical Garden sifted through nearly 100 entries to crown the top two gardens in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ area. First- and second-place winners receive a family membership to MoBot.
Kotsines, who won our contest in 1997, has always enjoyed gardening. He remembers playing in his grandparents’ garden as a toddler, doing some gardening himself as a young kid. Now, as an organization change management consultant, gardening is his passion.
Originally from Dallas, Kotsines moved to ºüÀêÊÓƵ in 1986 for graduate school at Washington University. Kotsines and his partner, John Hecht, have lived on this corner of the neighborhood since 1993.
The front yard is only one of the garden’s secrets. Hiding behind Kotsines’ home, and in the lot behind it, are two other gardens. The first nurses hot-pink bee balms, a mermaid statue he calls “Natalie,†and vibrant lemon balm that leaves its scent on your fingertips. The second grows rose bushes and banana trees, to name a couple.
A self-described “overconfident†gardener, Kotsines is not afraid to take risks. He points to a cypress in the back lot that sags with brown leaves, one that he hauled from the front garden this spring when he felt it needed more space.
Kotsines acknowledges the risk of moving a tree like that. But he also sees the bright green leaves that now sprout at its base. (“She’s not dead, she’s just pissed off,†Kotsines says, laughing.)
Photos of the original house show an empty front lot with a fragmented sidewalk and sporadically grown grass. To say Kotsines started from the ground up is no exaggeration.
“It was a major project,†Kotsines says. “But it was something that I love doing, and you just spend time with it, and it’s a good way to get out of your head.â€
As for the garden’s design, he lets the plants have the final say. Peonies and grasses thrive in the sunny parts of the yard, while the goose-neck loosestrifes curl most majestically in the shade.
Kotsines dedicates a couple hours a week to his garden — trimming plants, pulling weeds and chasing any Peter Rabbits a la Thomas McGregor. Kotsines, who is 60, says time is the best teacher.
“You know, I’m old,†Kotsines says, laughing. “I’ve been gardening for decades, and you just learn stuff over the years.â€
In the meantime, Kostines keeps moving plants around when they need it. When his shrubs didn’t make it through the winter last year, he replaced them with a new hedge. He looks forward to how his experiments turn out, as well as sharing them with his partner and friends.
“I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of being in the space,†Kotsines says. “It’s just the overall experience of being here. What I really like the most is that people come here and they just fall in love with it.â€
Second place
Almost 15 years ago, Susan and David Carriel laid out a garden hose in their Belleville backyard with a vision: a shade garden.
The couple had planted maple trees behind their house when their daughter was a toddler. About a decade later, the trees had grown so large that nothing, not even grass, could grow beneath their shade. So the Carriels decided to take a different approach.
Slowly, the shape laid out by the garden hose became a gravel pathway lined by luscious monkey grass.
“Basically, we couldn’t grow grass because of the trees we planted, so we turned it into a garden,†David says. “It’s just our little piece of paradise now that we’re retired.â€
With an ivy-covered fence as its backdrop, the garden nurses a variety of flowers and plant species, including pink phlox that Susan’s grandmother gave her 40 years ago.
“[The garden] was very inviting, and cozy,†Kolaks, from MoBot, says. “It was a well-constructed space with a variety of annuals and perennials.â€
Maintaining the garden is a team effort. Susan waters and trims the garden on the daily, and David focuses on the garden’s edging and rocks. Susan’s favorite accent color is a royal blue that presents itself throughout the garden, including the Adirondack chairs that David built.
“It seems like the goal in life is to work hard and retire and move down to Florida,†David says. “Ours is let’s make our happy place right here at home…Just take what we have and just transfer it into our little dream retirement space.â€
Purple Angelonia and orange Crystal Zinnia mix in the front garden of Steve Kotsines home in the Soulard neighborhood of ºüÀêÊÓƵ as seen on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
Stargazer lilies in the backyard garden of Steve Kotsines home in the Soulard neighborhood of ºüÀêÊÓƵ as seen on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
Goose-necked loosestrifes shows off it's white flowers in the front garden of Steve Kotsines home in the Soulard neighborhood of ºüÀêÊÓƵ as seen on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
The front garden of Steve Kotsines home in the Soulard neighborhood of ºüÀêÊÓƵ as seen on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
Steve Kotsines of the front steps surrounded by the front yard garden of his home in the Soulard neighborhood of ºüÀêÊÓƵ as seen on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com