Betsy loves her Mardi Gras Rose
Betsy Brubeck was just a delight to visit and photograph her beautiful landscape. Betsy’s gardens were on the 2012 SWIMGA Garden Walk, where hundreds of people toured her beautiful gardens. She moved into her Newburgh home in 1984 and became a SWIMGA Master Gardener in 2005. She has been the SWIMGA Treasurer in 2008-09; Financial Review Committee in 2010-2012 and is currently Financial Administrator of the Master Gardener Display Gardens. She also served on the 2012 SWIMGA Nominating Committee.
Betsy comes from a long line of gardeners on both sides of her parents. She has a picture of her posing with her grandmother when she was a very little girl with her arms full of flowers. Her mother was a Director in the American Daffodil Society and a board member. Living in Indianapolis, she had over 500 varieties of daffodils in her yard, many of which have been brought to Betsy’s Newburgh home for her own yard.
In her sun room she has a Fuchsia Pink Christmas Cactus that belonged to her grandmother, Irene Maish, who died in 1975. She also obtained a fern from her grandmother, Eleanor Vonnegut, after her passing in 1979. I sure can’t provide any plants my grandmother had in her possession and I know Betsy is so thankful to have those plants with her.
Richard Harper of Creative Landscaping designed her garden beds and edged them with brick. Betsy did plant most of the perennials around her home. Betsy being able to name all of her plants without hesitation amazed me. (I need plant markers!) You will see in the pictures below how beautiful they all fit together.
In 2012 she and her husband visited the botanical garden in Amsterdam; attended the Floriade in the Netherlands (a horticultural event held in the Netherlands every ten years); Monet’s Garden in Giverny, France and saw the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. A picture below shows Betsy, naturally, in the bulb section of a store in Amsterdam, probably wishing she could take them all home.
Betsy has even hybridized her own daylilies! She took the pollen of a purple one to the pistol of a red. You can see the result in the picture below. She purchases many of her plants from Judy Schneider-Kron; Robin’s Nest and Nancy Hasting. I am sure you will love viewing Betsy’s gardens as I did. Double-click on each picture for further description and to enlarge. Also hovering the pointer over each picture will give more information.
Interview by Belinda Dillback, Web Assistant.
