Home Front contest winners never really stop improving homesteads
Kousa dogwood, itea, cypress and papyrus are among the far-from-traditional plantings that welcome guests to Kim and Paul Novotny's home near Wheaton.
And Jenny Risch lets her grandfather's rhubarb bloom beside her front walk near St. Charles.
When we announced the Home Front contest we were looking for something different - it's time to break out of the box. You know what we mean, let's get rid of the row of evergreens standing like soldiers and threatening to overgrow the house.
The Novotnys won first place among about 70 entries. They are followed by Jenny and Jeff Risch in second place and Linda Nitch of Arlington Heights in third.
The Novotnys built their home 21 years ago, and have been improving the landscaping ever since. Paul Novotny, who is chief executive officer of industrial fan companies, is the tree man, and now they have 70 varieties, including katsura, ginkgo, cypress, coffee tree, hickory, black locust, bur oak, white oak, Japanese maple, bottlebrush buckeye and pines on their 31/2-acre property.
A major project that improved the Novotnys' front landscaping was hiring firms to replace the wooden steps and install stone walls and planters and a wide bluestone front walk.
There's even a fountain that sends water falling from a stone wall into a little pool where a papyrus plant (that must be overwintered indoors) is a star.
"It's lovely to listen to the water and the frogs that come there," said Kim Novotny.
She changes the beauties in one stone planter seasonally, with caladium the current choice for spring and summer. And Kim Novotny does love her impatiens, especially New Guinea hybrids.
A secret revealed by Kim, who is a pilot for United Airlines: "If I don't have a plant, I usually tried to get it. A woman talked at our garden club about her favorite plants. I didn't have a hellebore. Now I have three."
And here's what she has to say about the award-winning front entrance:
"We wanted it to be welcoming. We're living in the woods and we wanted to maintain that woodsy, natural look with bluestone and quarry stone and combine stone and wood."
The Risch family has sponsored major projects in the seven years they have owned their home. The front of the house itself was even rebuilt for more of a colonial or Nantucket look.
Believe it or not, that's a man-made stream meandering across the front lawn, complete with small pond and seven miniature waterfalls. Guests walking to the front door can see it flowing under the sidewalk, and the family enjoys its music when eating dinner on a new little porch or balcony off to the side.
Jenny Risch likes plants spilling over her front path, which guests will find edged with barberry, peonies, weigela and a large foxtail blue spruce chosen because the house is close to the Fox River.
It's obvious that Jenny Risch loves designing landscaping. As soon as the family bought the house they replaced railroad ties with stone retaining walls along the side of the front yard. And since she's crazy about sedum, several varieties grow there in the outcroppings.
"I always pick plants that contrast in leaf color and shape to create visual interest. I don't like them too uniform; that's not how my eye works," she said.
And Jenny is nostalgic about her garden, selecting hens and chicks, a small succulent perennial, because her grandmother grew them and digging up her grandfather's rhubarb so it could grace the front walk.
Jenny Risch's secret: "The only plant I don't have is roses. I got rid of the roses that were here."
The ivy Linda Nitch planted on the '50s Arlington Heights ranch house she bought a decade ago provides a great backdrop for colorful additions like the planters of impatiens and a birdhouse or two she hangs among it.
Mature trees - elms, honey locust, crab apple and box elder - have taught Linda how to be a shade gardener with hostas, hydrangeas, creeping jenny, euonymus, pachysandra, hellebores and brunnera. Her continuing effort to add color brings impatiens, perennial geraniums, tulips, iris, rhododendrons, and a planter with curly willow and red twig dogwood.
The portico that shelters guests standing at the front door was added after Nitch removed aluminum awnings installed by a previous owner.
Linda's secret: When she bought the house pfitzer junipers made an ugly, half-bare scene under her windows, so they are gone. But she did keep a row of yews on the other side of the house to provide winter interest.
<p class="factboxtext12col">The Growing Place, with locations in Aurora and Naperville, donated the prizes for the winners of the Daily Herald Home Front contest.</p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">•First place, winner of $150 The Growing Place gift certificate: Kim and Paul Novotny, Wheaton</p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">•Second place, winner of $100 The Growing Place gift certificate: Jenny and Jeff Risch, St. Charles </p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">•Third place, winner of $50 The Growing Place gift certificate: Linda Nitch, Arlington Heights</p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">Wait, there's more</p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">With more than 70 entries, there were others that we couldn't pass up without giving an honorable mention nod to:</p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">•Sharon and Ronald Cobb of North Barrington</p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">•Marti Gorun and Don Shupe of Libertyville</p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">•St. Alphonsus Liguori School in Prospect Heights, submitted by Joe Romanowski, a member of the Garden Design and Landscape Ministry.</p>
<p class="factboxtext12col">Online: See these and a handful of other notable entries in a photo gallery at dailyherald.com.</p>