Stopping to smell the flowers
Subtropical paradise in Woodfield Park
Arlene Marturano

Arlene Marturano is a master gardener, writer, and educator. As an advocate of gardening as a tool for learning, she helped develop the Carolina Children's Garden at the Sandhill Research and Education Center. She is an education consultant with T.E.A.C.H. marturano@yahoo.com

Yoshiko Wallace has recreated the place of her birth in her garden. Yoron, a small carbonate island in the Ryukyu Island archipelago in the Pacific is a dream destination for geologists, gardeners, and travelers.

The active seismic region borders the colliding Philippine sea plate and the Eurasian plate. Yoron is made of raised coral reef limestone.

In the front yard of her Woodfield Park home, Wallace built a koi pond in the turtle- like shape of the island.

Large sea shells are interspersed atop the rocks. A tea olive tree, native to Japan, is trained to provide some shade for the koi and a Japanese lantern sets high atop a pedestal of rock.

Smaller plants, like sedums, grow out from the rocks, and pebbles simulate the white beaches of Yoron.

The koi fish is a carp and is observed as a very energetic fish churning up the water. In Japanese culture, koi symbolize strength and individualism. The koi is seen swimming against the current and surviving. Wallace has tried to breed koi but says, "When eggs coat the surface of the pond in spring, Koi eat the eggs like Pac Man."

Wallace has a subtropical green thumb that oversees banana, kumquat, loquat, pomegranate, and lemon trees. A fence is covered in watermelon vines heavy with fruit.

Vegetables, the heart of stir fries, sushi and tempura, vigorously thrive across the back of her prop- erty: daikon, the long white radish; ichiban eggplants; bell peppers; hot peppers, Japanese cucumbers; lemon grass; bitter melons; and grape tomatoes the size of large eggs.

Wallace's Yoron Island Koi Pond, which is outlined with rocks found in South Carolina and some from Kentucky coal mining regions.

A driveway fence supports Thai foot long green beans underplanted with Thai peppers, spicy Thai basil and chives. Companion planting with herbs may help explain the pest free plants. A trimmed rosemary hedge borders a front foundation garden of juniper, roses, Christmas cactus, daikon, kumquat, lemon, peonies, begonias, dahlias, and tea olives are in the nearby company of Japanese maples.

Wallace continually adds grass clippings to all the beds and feeds 10- 10- 10 fertilizer to everything in spring.

Wallace's success with plants seems to come second nature to her. She propagates many of her woody plants from cuttings, which she says she sticks in the ground, and they just grow.

Wallace displays large watermellons maturing on a fence.

Many gardeners have a bucket, belt, or apron for their tools, but Wallace uses a tree. The luxuriant green canopy of a tea olive shelters tools from the rain while crotches of the tree hold the tools.

Wallace shares tidbits on using garden ingredients in cooking, "Lemon grass flavors stir fries and fish dishes and is used also to make tea."

Wallace gives much of her bountiful harvest to others so they too may taste paradise.