Amazing Space: A greener green space

Home and Garden

Jeff Hayden and Susan Devine's garden, which will be featured on the Decatur Garden Tour, uses plants rescued from construction sites and their client's landscapes, rocks from a blasting site and gray water.

Jeff Hayden and Susan Devine's Decatur garden evolved as organically as the home they built 12 years ago. "We've always been great scavengers of used materials," said Susan, who with her husband owns Haydenscape, a contracting and landscaping firm. Their standard poodle Josie gets to enjoy the garden on walks with Susan.

The fountain and koi pond are made of gneiss rock Susan discovered while passing a blasting site. "I said 'Eureka!'" she recalled. She and her husband hauled 40 truckloads of the stone to their home to build the structure. Jeff joked of their property, "If not Decatur, this is the world's biggest do-it-yourself project."

The Hayden-Devine's equally handy son Greg, 20, installed the plumbing system. Ferns and annuals are planted within the rock slabs for a lush effect. "This is our favorite place to be," Susan said.

"Jeff has a Japanese maple problem," Susan said. Their garden features about 15 varieties with more than 20 trees. Here, an Acer palmatum "Shishigashira," or lion's head maple, takes center stage with its signature crinkled leaves.

Garden ornaments such as this Saint Francis statue are sprinkled throughout the space. Their garden will be featured on the Decatur Garden Tour this weekend. Most of the plants are rescues from construction sites and castaways from their client's landscapes, they said.

For his birthday this month, Susan gave her husband this weeping Japanese maple from ItSaul Plants, a wholesale nursery in Apharetta.

The couple's garden is primed for winter color with plants such as this edgeworthia. From late December through January, the shrub will bloom with creamy white flowers and intense fragrance. "When you walk through here in January, it's like a French brothel -- it's that fragrant," Jeff joked.

The drought has affected some of their landscape they said, though they use gray water to nourish some of it. The industrious couple rigged a hose to their upstairs bath. From a small second-floor window, they spray the gray water to the garden below.

Their Oak Lane garden is organized by curved beds and grassy walkways. A crepe myrtle seen in the background was rescued from the former Hastings garden center off Cheshire Bridge Road.

The couple planted this Harry Lauder's Walking Stick tree in honor of their daughter, Lauder Ann, 18.

Susan tends to a winter daphne shrub in front of their home. Like the edgeworthia, the shrub will bloom in January with intense fragrance. The daphne also will drop its leaves without warning, earning the nickname "the suicidal plant."

Long before the drought, Jeff built this rock swale, or dry stream bed, as a way to direct water away from the home. Ferns and annuals are planted alongside the rock slicks, though the ferns have struggled without the moisture, Jeff said.

The couple shies away from growing vegetables, except for this attractive ornamental pepper planted next to hostas and other shrubs.

An Encore azalea makes a fall appearance just in time for the tour this weekend. While this azalea is an exotic variety, the couple primarily uses native plants in their landscape.

Originally from Boston, Jeff said his first memory was of him and his mother picking Japanese beetles off zinnias. When asked what they want people to experience in their garden, the couple have different responses. "A place of peace," Susan said, as Jeff added, "Controlled chaos."

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Jeff Hayden and Susan Devine's Decatur garden evolved as organically as the home they built 12 years ago. "We've always been great scavengers of used materials," said Susan, who with her husband owns Haydenscape, a contracting and landscaping firm. Their standard poodle Josie gets to enjoy the garden on walks with Susan.

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