Constable: Nature does some planting, then gardener handles the rest
The towering, woody plants forming a canopy above Don Marchese as he walks through his yard in Arlington Heights are covered in dark pink flowers. They draw comments from admiring passersby, but Marchese pleads ignorance.
“I don't know what they're called,” says the 80-year-old retired cement finisher. “I never planted them. They just showed up. They come back by seed.”
According to a plant-identification app, the plant is Persicaria orientalis, also known by the common names of Prince's Feather or Kiss-Me-Over-the-Garden-Gate. It's a wildflower that is considered a weed in some parts of the country, but Marchese has even more in his backyard.
“The seeds somehow got into these pots. I don't know how,” he says, gesturing to the plants surrounding his swimming pool. “There's probably another 50 or 60.”
Those in pots share space with about $1,500 worth of flowering plants that Marchese purchases every year from local nurseries.
“My wife hates them. She wants me to take them down. I told my wife, 'God must have wanted these things here because he knew they would be taken care of,'” Marchese says of Karen, whom he started dating in 1957 and married 57 years ago. “That's all I do. I don't golf. I don't go fishing. If I didn't do this, I don't know what I'd do.”
Weighed down by large white flowers, his hydrangea shrub “bent over with the last heavy rain,” says Marchese. He put a long stick in the ground to give support to his morning glory vine, which is covered in trumpet-shape flowers and might be 12 feet tall. His garden boasts begonias, petunias, marigolds, snapdragons, and a spider flower that's also known as a Pink Queen or Grandfather's Whiskers.
The orange Campsis radicans, or trumpet creeper, has climbed up the side of the house and beyond the second floor. Flowering plants, hibiscus plants in many colors, and purple Persian shield plants circle the heated swimming pool and the nearby koi pond, where several foot-long koi swim among smaller fish.
“The rest are all goldfish I bought for 15 cents, and some of them are 15 years old,” Marchese says.
He and his wife had their home built for them 51 years ago when the Surrey Ridge West subdivision was new. He hired a guy to dig their swimming pool, which boasts a diving board and a slide. “He hauled away 30 loads of dirt and he charged me $350,” says Marchese, who also remembers the pool cost about $3,500 to complete. Not that he spends much time in it. “I've probably been in there more time to paint it than to swim in it,” he says.
Their two sons and dozens of their friends used to swim in the pool. In the winter, they'd skate on the ice. With fall's arrival, Marchese has to dismantle his garden.
“This kale, I nurse it through the winter in the garage,” he says. More-delicate plants require extra care.
“These things have to come in the house in the winter, and I've got to carry them upstairs,” he says, noting that a recent addition to their home has made that chore a little easier. “Now, my plants go up on the chairlift.”
Plants aren't the only thing on which Marchese goes a bit overboard. He's had two heart attacks, prostate cancer, back surgery, other health issues, and remains a legend with the cardiac rehabilitation crowd at Northwest Community Hospital, where he once logged 83 miles in four days.
He lavishly decorates his front yard for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter and the Fourth of July. He sets up a massive Christmas village that includes many antique houses and structures that light up and move. Sometimes, he puts in a miniature pond with goldfish, from his assortment in an upstairs bathtub, swimming beneath the glass.
But it's his garden and koi pond that take up most of his time.
“People think this is so much work, but for me, it's really not. To me, none of this is work,” Marchese says. “I don't have nothing else to do. I'm retired. I just like to sit out here and listen to the water.”