Home for horses

The horse won. "To me, living in the country means having horses," she says. The Boones purchased Miss Royal Lady, an Arabian, and a few years later, Tom Thumb, to keep her company.

Today, the two horses, although 34 and 29 years old, respectively, still graze the meadow outside the Boones' country home near St. Charles, Illinois, a far western suburb of Chicago.

"It's very peaceful to me, to look out the window and see the horses," says Gerda.

Took the first opportunity

The Boones haven't always lived in the country. When they were first married, all they could afford was a small home in town. But as soon as they could get enough money, they purchased their first country home. "Too much concrete in town," explains Ed.

The sounds of the country are soothing, says Gerda. Instead of waking up to a neighbor's barking dog right outside the window in town, the sounds of country dogs are distant and blend with the chirps of resident cardinals, juncos, chickadees, and nuthatches.

The Boones are getting more traffic sounds now that commuters are using the two roads that border their property, but they have worked to muffle that by planting evergreens, shrubs, a meadow, and ornamental grasses.

A fast learner

Gerda has loved to garden since she had her first house and threw some flower seeds out on the ground in March. They didn't germinate, she says with a laugh, because the soil was too cold. But after that, Gerda picked up some books and started learning about gardening.

Now she has planted beds all around the house, filling them with hostas, ferns, and perennial geraniums in the shady areas. Hollyhocks, delphiniums, lilies, and coneflowers thrive in the sunnier areas.

Now that Ed has retired, he has become a Master Gardener through the University of Illinois Extension service. He gardens an area beyond the meadow where he can be wild with his free-form plantings of wildflowers and poppies.

Meadow garden

Gerda's meadow garden, filled with colorful beds, got started quite by chance, she says. Ed would always walk with his wheelbarrow through the meadow to get to the gate that led to his garden on the other side of the fence.

"First I mowed a little path for him, then I thought I would put a bed along the path, then put some shrubs up. Every year I started putting in more, and that's how we got all these garden beds out there," she says.

Now, Gerda's meadow has a wide, welcoming mown path bordered with a series of flowers that bloom all summer long.

Gerda says she loves just about all perennials. When it comes to annuals, she favors spikey flowers such as larkspur, hollyhock, and blue salvia. "Blue salvia really fills out a garden nicely and blends well with the other perennials. They've reseeded themselves the past couple of years," she says.

Gerda admits to a weakness for impulse buying when it comes to plants. "I might go out for milk one day and come home with a tree."

Even though she has more than 20 garden beds, Gerda does not spend a lot of time watering them. "We have the original well of our 1880 house, and it's shallow," she says. "We want to preserve the well, so I don't water the grass."

She tries not to water the meadow garden at all, except to carry buckets of water to plants that are just starting out. Ed rigged up some barrels with spigots to catch rainwater from the gutters. Even during a drought, they'll hardly ever run out of water.

"Sometimes I will run a sprinkler, but only for 20 minutes, because that equals 1 inch of rain," says Gerda.

Keeps her eye on the horses

Occasionally, Gerda has to battle pests in the yard, both domestic and wild. Rabbits and deer munch a few plants here and there. Unless she keeps Tom Thumb and Miss Royal Lady out of the meadow until fall, he will eat the ornamental grasses, and she will trample the beds.

Of course, the dear horses are always forgiven. After all, it's their home, too.