Manitoba Opera singers setting the stage for gardening

Opera singers bring the work of composers to life on the stage and tell a story through music and singing. Like opera, gardening is also an art form that tells a story. Recently I had the chance to talk with four Manitoba opera singers – George Nytepchuk, Monica Huisman, Lara Ciekiewicz and Linda Feasby — who all share a passion for gardening. Here, they provide a glimpse into their gardens and what’s happening now as they prepare for the spring season.

George Nytepchuk, an operatic tenor and chorus member, gardens in east Winnipeg. Nytepchuk is waking up scores of canna lily bulbs that he stored for the winter and will pot them up in the next week or so. In past years, he has mass planted cannas to create a glorious hedge. “But I have this wonderful Linden tree that is 35 years old now and it is turning much of my garden into a shadow zone. You have to learn how to pivot. So now I am becoming Mr. Hosta Man. And once you start collecting hostas, then you start dividing. I like the idea of propagating my own plants.”

Nytepchuk is a thrifty gardener. “As far as my garden goes, I have a mandate: it’s not meant to cost me anything.” He has a mini greenhouse in his basement and starts numerous plants from seed. At the end of March, Nytepchuk started tomatoes and peppers from seed. A self-described hot pepper fanatic, Nytepchuk likes varieties that pack a punch but aren’t too hot for comfort. A good choice, he says, is Super Chili which is an All-America Selections variety.

Many of the vegetable seeds he starts have been collected over the years through seed exchanges with friends, family, and neighbours. He has unique names for his favourite varieties such as ‘Neighbours Italian long hot curlicue peppers’. One tomato variety – ‘Noreen’s Big Beefsteak’ – is named for a neighbour he refers to as the tomato whisperer. His sister-in-law is the inspiration for the name of another favourite variety that he starts from seed – ‘Lo’s Huge Tomato’.

“I have about six or seven mothership geraniums that are 10 years old,” says Nytepchuk. Each fall, Nytepchuk lifts the geraniums, shakes the soil off their roots, and stores the plants indoors in paper bags over the winter. He repots the geraniums in early April. “I don’t fuss too much; I like to keep it simple and let Mother Nature look after things. I clip off all the dried leaves but everything else I let grow – and most of it does.” For now, his geraniums will grow indoors in a bright, sunny room until the risk of frost has passed. “In summer, the flowerheads are glorious, massive.”

Nytepchuk also grows Asiatic lilies and maintains a small fruit orchard on his corner lot that includes apricot trees, pear trees, cherry shrubs, and haskap berries.

Soprano Linda Feasby is also a chorus member. Feasby has a large property along the Assiniboine river. Deer pose a significant challenge to much of her garden but a 1.8 metre or six-foot high fence around her vegetable garden has proven to be a successful solution. Deer routinely prune the three Jackmanii clematis vines that she grows, biting off the stems right at the base over the winter. But fortunately, they leave her Alpine Constance clematis alone. An early variety that flowers in late spring, Alpine Constance has semi-double deep pink flowers. To protect her plants from being eaten by deer during the growing season, Feasby uses Bobbex deer repellent.

In addition to a vegetable garden, Feasby has eight flower beds which are planted densely with perennials so that minimal weeding is required. “I like to see what’s coming up and if there are any spaces, I transplant,” she says. “It’s fun to move things around and see how the combinations work.” For a succession of colour and texture throughout the growing season, Feasby relies on her favourite plant staples which include Echinacea purpurea coneflower, hosta, Heliopsis false sunflower, clematis, grape vines, daylilies, and Virginia creeper vine. She has three rose shrubs which are covered in bright pink blooms in summer. Currently Feasby is preparing to pot up dahlia tubers that she stored for the winter and she is also starting zinnias from seed.

Soprano Lara Ciekiewicz has performed in numerous title roles and is also a voice instructor with the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba. At home, the window of her studio where she practices her singing looks onto her backyard garden. Ciekiewicz enjoys all the preparation that goes into gardening such as amending soil and getting beds ready for planting. One of her first tasks this spring will be to cut down the perennials that she left standing for winter. The amount of pruning that will be required, she says, will depend on the extent of rabbit browsing.

“My garden has almost a square-foot gardening feel to it and I plant as much food as I can: beans, carrots, tomatoes, and herbs,” says Ciekiewicz. A favourite tomato variety is Mountain Merit, an eight- to 10-ounce slicing tomato with great flavour. “One year it weighed in at 24 ounces!” She also grows mini-salsa container gardens which she plants with a variety of tomatoes, a bit of cilantro on the side, and some jalapeno peppers.

Ciekiewicz grows several different types of flowers. Mammoth Mix sweet pea which has large, ruffled flowers and beautiful fragrance grows on a trellis along with Heirloom Painted Lady, the first named scented sweet pea cultivar, dating from 1773. Echinops ritro Blue Globe Thistle is a standout perennial in her flower beds which attract numerous bees and butterflies.

Dutch-Canadian soprano Monica Huisman is a voice instructor at the Desautels Faculty of Music. Opera is her first love, she says, but jazz is her go-to music when she is working in her garden. “I always have music playing in my garden from jazz to rock ‘n roll, love ballads, 70s greatest hits, and opera.” Huisman’s river lot is opposite the University of Manitoba. “In summer when I hear the bells of St. Paul’s college ringing on Sunday mornings, I head out to work in my garden.”

Huisman says that her garden is all about balance, different heights, and splashes of colour. She places emphasis on texture and colour contrasts. These design elements are exemplified by woody plants such as weeping caragana, top-graft blue globe spruce and low spreading cedars. A carpet of red begonias provide vivid contrast and perennials such as irises, peonies, daylilies, Hosta Praying Hands, phlox, and coneflower provide a succession of blooms from spring to fall. Interspersed among her plants are two small garden sculpture figures, one playing a violin and the other playing a saxophone. “I like stories so I also have a little mushroom – paddestoelen — that is painted bright red.”

Manitoba Opera is celebrating its 50th season anniversary. The company will be closing out the season with a brand new production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s comic masterpiece, Così fan tutte, (April 22, 25, and 28). Visit mbopera.ca .

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