On any given day and at just about any given hour, Sun Prairie resident Ann Broehm can be found toiling in the plants, flowers and herbs that surround her home on Blankenheim Lane.
Much of the past 41 years on her ¾-acre lot have been spent in the front and back yards, where upcoming seasons and holidays are celebrated with festive items she finds at garage, church and estate sales.
It is this dedication and the beauty it brings that the Sun Prairie Garden Club recognized by awarding Broehm the October “Garden Of the Month.”
Broehm’s first love has always been the outdoors. She learned the ins and outs of gardening and landscaping from her mother, and has spent many decades practicing and refining the art of bringing the outdoors to life.
Of the many types of gardeners that exist, from low-maintenance landscapers to retirees with hours to spare with their hands in the dirt, Broehm finds herself among the latter, seeking out the great outdoors for tranquility.
“Let me put my hands in dirt and I can hear some bad news, but it doesn’t bother me,” Broehm said. “ … I’m at peace when I’m outside.”
In October, her porch resembles a carefully done-up collage of autumn foliage, hay bales, and festive pumpkins. But there are also remnants of late summer color – punches of fuschia, gold, bright yellow, blue and red cluster in wooden and cement pots. The porch changes with the seasons, and serves as a beautiful reminder to passersby of what holiday is coming up next.
Around the back of her home is where her years of hard work are evident – the yard remains mostly open, but with a few spaced out areas reflecting her different landscape and gardening interests.
A vegetable garden in the corner grows radishes, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, beans, peas and thousands of cucumbers. This year alone, she picked and pickled 3,267 cucumbers, with the help of dill from her herb garden.
“When I can my pickles, I pick them immediately then I have my own dill so it’s all fresh,” Broehm said. “People just fight over my pickles.”
She also has a grapevine, which she uses to make concentrated grape juice.
Her backyard is host to not only her annuals, perennials and yard decorations, but to wildlife as well. She regularly attracts Cardinals, Blue Jays, Orioles, Blue Buntings, Finches, Mallard and Wood ducks, geese and foxes.
The telltale sign of her love for the outdoors and gardening? Laughter when you ask her about the time commitment.
“It could be 24/7,” Broehm said. “I just love it. I go outside thinking, ‘I have to do this one thing.’ It never is that way. I see so much that has to be done, always.”
The time she has spent outdoors has taught her a lot of useful tips for preparing her gardens.
To save money on geraniums, Broehm cuts the flowers off and puts them in her basement during the off-season. She takes seeds off flowers and holds them over to dry out, then starts growing them in a southwest facing window in her basement beginning in January.
“In saving on buying geraniums, that’s a big thing,” she said.
She also advises on the most important part of a good garden, good soil. Broehm has a compost bin in the garden, which she regularly fills with cow manure she receives from a farmer she knows and grass clippings from her neighbor.
She is also faithful to providing plenty of space for things to grow, and fertilizer.
From there, it’s all about choice.
“Just pick out some seeds that you would like … and start planting,” Broehm said.
Her talents have been recognized by countless family, friends and strangers, but it was still a pleasant surprise for the longtime Sun Prairie resident to be named the final “Garden Of the Month” of 2013.
“So many people have said, ‘With all your work and how beautiful it is, you should be the garden of the month,’” Broehm said. “I said, ‘Well maybe some day I’ll be picked.’ I was shocked and very, very surprised.”
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