Malbis gardener Robin Sapin has visited various tropical locales and spent hours recalling fondly the good feelings of inviting lushness and vivid images she relished in those gardens.
Not content with happy reminiscences, however, Robin took note of the plant groupings and designed and labored to recreate a tropical palm garden to accent the newly installed pool in her backyard. She has effectively taken her vacation home with her and made it into a permanent place of peace and relaxation for herself and husband David.
“I have a real passion for landscaping,” Robin shares. “My parents taught me how to care for our yard growing up, and I have extended that early knowledge at each home we have lived in over the years. We moved a lot and I usually tore out the existing plants and designed and installed my own garden to reflect my likes.”
This Northfield, Ohio native, along with her businessman husband visited the Fairhope area several years ago, and when their kids finished high school, joined so many others and relocated into our beautiful area.
The Sapins and their four adopted dogs left the cold Ohio climate, with its limited gardening choices, and moved into their new home near Malbis two-and-a-half years ago.
“I am basically a self-taught gardener,” Robin says. “I am so grateful to now live in the South. I laid out my garden hose to form beds in the bare front yard, had 21 truckloads of soil hauled in, rented a tiller and went to work. I did the front yard first and indulged my love of the amazing colors of flowering plants that can be grown here year round.”
Her welcoming front yard is evidence of that love with camellias accenting her front door, colorful Encore azalea varieties tucked invitingly in spots and knockout roses budding in hues of pink and red. Large crepe myrtles and palm specimens command attention near the street.
“My husband travels a lot in his work,” Robin shares. “Shortly after we moved here, he left on a three-week extended trip. While he was gone, I worked in the front yard from 6 a.m. until dark every day, getting the beds ready and planting. When he pulled into the driveway after those three weeks, the front yard was done and he was quite pleased to see it.”
Her neighbors tease that maybe she got carried away —”There’s no grass left,” they tell her laughingly.
Robin says she loves enjoying flowers year round in Baldwin County. This certainly wasn’t the case in Ohio, where often, even in July, “you would have to go in and put on a jacket to do any gardening, and in fall and winter, forget growing anything.”
With the front yard completed, Robin set to work creating her tropical paradise in the backyard around the inviting focal point, her new swimming pool.
“This backyard was bare-a blank canvas,” Robin explains. “A canvas ready for decorating. I took a couple of months to plan and design the tropical oasis I envisioned.”
She placed large, mature palms in first — each weighing between 900 and 1000 pounds — with sturdy men and a fork lift. She chose cold-hardy varieties, like triple and double Pindo palms, Washingtonians, Sables and Sago palms to include the variation in texture and height that she so loves.
The result is impressive: a vista of tropical tranquility including more than 30 palms that bespeaks of the luscious paradise Robin has dreamed of.
She has included new favorites around and under the palms — Encore azaleas, double knockout roses, the autumn-hued orange and red crotons and the tropical touch of hibiscus. But it is the majestic palms that steal the show.
“I love my palms, and I love my flowering plants that give me color all year — the camellias, the roses, the azaleas and hibiscus,” Robin shares. “I was never able to enjoy such beauty in Ohio.”
In the side yard garden, Robin indulges her new successful passion of growing and sharing citrus. She grows Meyer lemons, satsumas, two orange varieties and Key limes and is already sharing the bounty with grateful neighbors.
“One of my neighbors,” she explains, “is a professional baker, and when I brought him some of my Meyer lemons, he made me a lemon meringue pie on the spot.”
And so, among a colorful, citrusy, palm-filled garden paradise, Robin Sapin joins the ranks of gardeners all over coastal Alabama who, through hard work and a love for the birds and breezes of nature, have nurtured their plants and grown closer to God in our beloved Baldwin County.
All about palms
People have been fascinated by palms for centuries-they seem to be magical hallmarks of graceful, relaxed living. Even during the times of early colonization, explorers would return home with exotic palms as gifts for their sponsoring governments or royalty.
The palms’ broad variety — from short to tall, their thin to bulging-in-the-middle trunks, their round or long, feathery leaves and shows of color in varying hues — can create a stunning effect when planned well, as is the case in Robin’s garden.
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