My thanks to my friend Laurie Gyde for sharing some pics with me, directing me to a home and yard that just HAD to be featured in the Free Press Homes section.
What some people are able to do with their yards is almost magical. Today’s stars are Judy and Gary Aubert of St. Vital, who have lived in their beautiful cedar-clad home since 1979, and I swear must have been working on their yard the entire time. When you walk through the house, exiting through the oh-so-comfy four season room into the back yard, you feel like you’ve just stepped into a national park.
The fence cuts the yard off from the outside world and you do not feel as though you’re in the middle of a city: the landscaping is downright dreamy. Did I mention their back yard looks down on the Seine River, with nothing but some pretty forest, deer and other gentle creatures in between?
Something to get in perspective here? We’re talking a 50 by 200 foot lot. But it feels like a much larger mystical forest hideaway.
Forest fits well because perhaps the highlight of the yard, if it’s possible to pick one, is the rustic tree house Judy calls her “camp” for which you climb the old wooden hill (stairs …), open the door and enter a wonderfully cozy room with a phenomenal view of the Seine River, the viewing wall screened to keep the skitters out. Such a peaceful place to sit, sip a coffee, a tea, or perhaps a libation and think about nothing but relaxing.
The home was built in 1973, which to me feels like about five years ago, and the tree house built in 1996. Judy loves her camp room for lots of reasons, two of the most important being the old electric fireplace with mantle her dad built in shop class in 1945, and on the walls and shelves, wonderful memories in the form of gifts given to her (The Frog Lady) over the years by the students she taught in the Pembina Trails School Division.
A stroll through the yard itself reveals so many memorable features, a few that are more than just eye candy. Judy collects bird houses, which the birds appreciate more than they can say, there’s a bee bath, and for Swallowtail butterflies, a dill garden they’ve pretty much finished harvesting for this year. (For the Monarch butterflies, Judy says there’s a run of wild milkweed behind their property.)
Judy also collects amethyst, and has some gorgeous pieces.
You’re never alone in the Auberts’ yard, because there’s always the “little old lady and little old man” as Judy refers to them, a remarkable sculpture reproduction of an older loving couple sitting chatting. It is heartwarming, and the work of skilled artist Chano Navarro Betancor, who created the original in the Canary Islands. Where else would they have purchased this keepsake here in the ’Peg but at Ron Paul Garden Centre! No surprise there.
The creative mix of flowers, so many different kinds of plants, bushes, art, all the product of two of the greenest thumbs in Winnipeg, makes this a backyard escape that’s hard to beat.
My main effort in the yard growth department this year is to let the clover grow as much as it wants, no cutting/mowing whatsoever, and the bees do indeed seem grateful. They are attending and shopping in record numbers. The grasshoppers seem pretty happy too.
The Auberts definitely enjoy sitting in their tree house and watching out over the Seine, where they had so many good times year round raising their three children. Now each year they enjoy going out and helping with the cleanup local folks perform on the Seine, preserving one of the neighbourhood’s most beloved features. Well done Judy and Gary. Gold star!
Comments and column ideas welcome at lmustard1948@gmail.com.
