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Walkers’
Garden of Eden
Where the Motto
is “Waste Not,
Want Not”
by Jaine Treadwell
If Fred Sanford and Michaelangelo had designed a garden, it probably would not have looked much different from the Walkers’ Garden of Eden on Smart Road in Troy.
Charles Walker laughingly admitted that he “hauls in the stuff” and his wife, Ruth, turns the stuff, a.k.a. junk, into things of beauty.
Charles believes in the old adage, “Waste not, want not.”
He likes to scavenge for things that can be recycled. He finds “things” and brings them home to his wife who can see the raw beauty in anything and everything. |
Ruth Walker relaxes with a good book in the gazebo that is a focal point of the Walkers’ Garden of Eden. |
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“I don’t like to see anything go to waste,” Charles said. “I’ll find things that are going to be thrown away and bring them home, knowing that Ruth will find a place for them and a use for them.” |
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One area of the gardens that Charles Walker said is strictly his own is the scuppernong arbor. It’s the sweetest place in the gardens.
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This has been a practice at the Walker home since 1979.
“We bought the house then and we really didn’t do a lot as far as landscaping at first,” Ruth said. “But little by little and year by year we worked to get the gardens where they are.”
Today, the Walkers’ gardens are works of
art. Charles gives his wife most of the credit. After all, she is an artist and she has an eye for beauty. But she admits his contributions are monumental.
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“He brings it all here,” she said.
“It” is everything from marble slabs from a local vault and marble company to a canon from an anything goes shop.
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“All of our gardens are named,” Ruth said. “The Shade Garden was our first.
“Charles brought home a ton of bricks from Love Street in Troy. They were redoing the area and he got the bricks.”
Ruth laid the bricks herself and the path begins at the arbor entrance and winds its way around the backside of the house.
“Because the bricks came from Love Street, we call the path the Love Walk,” Ruth said.
When Hurricane Ivan played havoc with Florida’s Panhandle last fall, the Love Walk took on greater and lasting meaning.
“Our son was planning to get married in Destin that weekend and because of the storm, there was no way that the wedding could take place,” Ruth said. |
Salvaged columns dot the
landscape at the Walker home. Ruth Walker will paint one of the columns
and turn it into a lighthouse that offers quiet and peaceful harbor to
all who visit the gardens. |
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“We suggested that they get married here in the gardens. They were thrilled and got married under the arbor in the Love Walk. It’s a very special place for them — for all of us.” |
Charles Walker built this place of rest from materials that he salvaged from a local church and from an old family home place. |
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The Whimsical Garden is fashioned from crepe myrtle branches and salvaged items. |
Statues are a part of the landscape in the Walkers’ gardens. When winter comes, the statues bring interest and variety to areas that Mother Nature has turned bare. |
However, there just aren’t any places in the garden that aren’t special.
The Lower Garden was phase II of the gardens and the other gardens bridge the gap between it and the Shade Garden.
Marble and stone paths lead visitors up, down and around the gardens that have a surprise at every turn.
“The grill on the back of this bench was below the windows of First Baptist Church,” Charles said. “When the church was renovated, the grill was discarded. I found a use for it. The bench is made from wood that came from the porch of an aunt’s house.”
Wood
has a special beauty of its own and, when it comes from the homesteads
of relatives, it takes on an even deeper beauty.
Some
wood in the gazebo, which is a focal point of the gardens, was salvaged
from Charles’ parents’ home place. Other wood was part of the old
Standard Chemical Company building. |
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“We’ve
used bricks from chimneys that came down all around Troy,” Charles
said. “I’ve gotten columns that were thrown away and Ruth has found
a place for every one of them. Just about anything that I bring in,
she’ll use.”
Charles
was crawling around under the old family home before it was taken down
and found a large, white marble marker. It has been engraved and now
marks Petra’s Glen.
“Petra
means rock,” Ruth said. “In the Bible, Peter was the ‘rock.” We have a statue of Peter in Petra’s Glen. I love rocks and we have used so many of them in the gardens.”
The gardens are nestled under towering pines with sweet gums, oaks, silver leaf and red maples and poplars giving the gardens seasonal color.
“We love color in the garden and we depend on |
An old barrel has been recycled for use as a fountain in one of five water gardens in the Walkers’ home gardens. |
| the Pike Farmers Co-op to supply us with the bedding plants we need each spring and fall,” Charles said. “I don’t think we could have done as much with the gardens without their help.”
Charles said the many of the trees in the garden came from the Co-op.
“I always get lime in bulk from the Co-op and I buy nitrogen, potash and potassium there but I do my own mixing on their advice,” he said. “A lot of what’s here we started with seeds from the Co-op and note this — they work!” |
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This marble marker was found under a family home that was being razed. It was engraved and is part of a rock garden at Charles and Ruth Walker’s home near Troy.
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Work is the operative work in the Walkers’ garden.
Years of tender loving care and a whole lot of work have gone into making the gardens a private paradise for the Walkers.
“We love to sit out in the gazebo and enjoy the gardens,” Ruth said. “There always a breeze and it’s so quiet and relaxing.”
The sounds of the garden get any day off to a serene start and bring any day to a quiet and peaceful close.
The trickling water from the five water gardens is the harmony and the singing of the birds is the melody that is played day in and day out at the Walkers’ gardens. And there are no doors to close the Walkers in or to keep friends out.
Jaine Treadwell is a freelance writer from Brundidge. |
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