Chateau resident shares her green thumb with community

Few people get to share their garden with as many people as Marge Bauerle of Cape Girardeau does. Bauerle, 73, tends to the nature trail and gardens at Chateau Girardeau, a residential senior citizen complex on the west side of town.

Many of the plants along the trail -- wildflowers, azaleas and hostas -- were added from the generous blooms that thrive in Bauerle's care.

Her perennial beds filled with daffodils, coralbells, Gerber daisies, tree peonies and allium wind around the perimeter of her Chateau Estates home so that there are flowers from spring to fall. "It blooms all season, and I planned for winter," she said.

Some of the plants provide interesting detail during the winter as a backdrop for snow or frost. Often Bauerle can be found during the cold months checking on her plants, trying to find new locations for them or identifying areas that need more plants. "I love to be outside," she said.

Most of her life has been spent in the garden or reading books to learn more. She completed a master gardener course offered by the University of Missouri "and that just whetted my appetite for gardening and landscaping," she said.

Barely a day goes by in the early spring or late fall that Bauerle doesn't get a call from a friend asking her to help plan a garden. She freely offers suggestions, but lets everyone know she seldom stays within budget.

Her own garden, which she calls a friendship flower garden, is a mix of purchased plants and gifts. Many of the plants that she identified during a tour of the beds were originally a friend's or given to her by a neighbor redesigning a bed.

Bauerle mixed some annuals and a few plants that seem like misfits into her well-tended beds to create a sort of cottage garden look. A pokeberry plant that most gardeners would quickly yank from the ground because of its weedlike appearance thrives along the side of Bauerle's home. The plant is a reminder of her childhood, she says. Her mother used to pick the plant and cook its leaves.

Wild ginger grows in several locations, as does dianthus, dwarf hydrangea and spirea and dusty miller. Many of her peonies and sedum plants were gifts from friends. The Jack-in-the-pulpit plants were transplanted from her property near Hidden Valley, Mo. Columbine, foxglove and summer phlox will all bloom in her beds by the patio, as do the cosmos and zinnias that she grows each year.

Clematis climbs a trellis made by hand from willow branches. Comfrey grows by a statue of a rabbit near the corner of the house. A back patio is filled with benches and planters that house hibiscus and mandevilla.

Nandina bushes grow tall and showcase red berries in the winter months. Evergreen trees line the back of the lot and provide a screen from neighboring residences. A trellised bench also gives garden visitors a place to relax amid the blooms and beauty of roses near the bird bath in the back yard. All the benches and planter boxes are made by Bauerle and her husband, Jim.

Along the side of the house is a small kitchen garden filled with chives, parsley, basil, rosemary and a few other herbs Bauerle uses in cooking. She doesn't go overboard with the herbs but grows only what she knows she'll use.

Any of the plants that get too big to manage in her small beds are usually split and transplanted to a spot along the Chateau's nature trail. Bauerle helped develop the trail with donations from the community and service organizations. Much of the cost of the handicapped accessible trail was donated, as was the labor and mulch for the rustic section of the trail.

On most afternoons, she can be found working among the plants or enjoying lunch on a bench along the trail. Gardening isn't a chore for Bauerle, but a pastime.

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126