Enjoy garden all year, says Mt. Lebanon master gardener
Claire Schuchman and Fergus enjoy the garden in winter.
A rhododendron maximum bud emerges in anticipation of spring.
Claire Schuchman’s floral arrangements adorn a table inside her Mt. Lebanon home.
Winter weather won’t dissuade Claire Schuchman from showing visitors the garden behind her Mt. Lebanon home and the flora within.
“I think the previous owners brought them back from the Laurel Highlands,” she’ll say about a patch of rhododendron maximum, an evergreen shrub also known as – appropriately enough, considering its origins – the great laurel.
“These are called ‘species rhodies,’ which means that they’re not hybridized,” she’ll add. “So they are just the way God created them.”
Mention a certain variety of plant, and Schuchman is likely to tell you its scientific name, knowledge that is indicative of her passion for horticulture. So is one of her favorite statements: “I believe a beautiful garden can change your life.”
Schuchman, a certified Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens master gardener, regularly shares her outlook and expertise by teaching related classes through area learning institutions. A current example is her “The Garden in Four Seasons” series offered at the public libraries in Mt. Lebanon and Upper St. Clair, which features a Feb. 26 walk through her own garden.
“The man who built this house in 1937 had a tremendous vision for the backyard,” Schuchman said, and she and her husband, Jim, have done a tremendous job of perpetuating it. Walkways constructed of century-old bricks from demolished North Side row houses meander through an array of trees, shrubs and other plants that are selected for their various attributes.
“There are all sorts of things the gardener, the designer, can do to carry the interest in the garden through the year,” Schuchman explained. “Structures help to carry out interest. When the snow just dusts the ground, we can see patterns that have developed in our design, like rhythm and line, that carry the eye.
“All of those sorts of things can be evaluated in the winter,” she continued. “We can evaluate the skeleton, or the bones, of the garden, the structure of the garden, and we can see: Do we have enough evergreen plant material that carries the show?”
Other plants she mentioned for sustaining yearlong interest include those with interesting and colorful bark patterns, such as oakleaf hyndrangeas and birch trees, along with varieties of helleborus, perennials that can bloom in February.
“One thing that makes this cool out here is this bed of green pachysandra,” she said about an especially colorful patch of green boxwood, “because it just pops everything. One of the things I tell people all the time is about using your evergreen ground covers with your deciduous shrubs, so it gives a little extra punch to your visuals.”
Schuchman often uses her own yard as a testing ground.
“Before I put anything in a client’s garden, I like to try it out here,” she said about her business, Exceptional Gardens. “If it’s going to be finicky, I want to find out about it first.”
Schuchman drew early inspiration from her grandmother’s residence in Dormont.
“Her little backyard garden was an oasis of beauty in my childlike opinion,” she recalled. “All of that was just magical to me.”
It remained a point of reminiscence as she and Jim – both are Mt. Lebanon High School graduates – moved to various locations before returning to suburban Pittsburgh and eventually settling into their home with the picturesque yard.
“I began to understand what having access to a beautiful garden, how that could infuse a sense of peace and give a person an opportunity to sit quietly and listen to the birds, and be aware of a world beyond ourselves,” Schuchman said. “That is what I mean by: I believe a beautiful garden can change your life.”