Room to grow 2-acre garden 'really isn't work if you enjoy what you are dooing'
“Early on, I had an overall concept,” said Dick.
A concept that changed as he went.
“I had a five-year plan I put together in ’93. I’m still working on it.”
“If we have an empty space, he likes to fill it up,” said Esther.
Like he did when he built a hillside waterfall and couple thousand-gallon pond filled with koi and goldfish. He determined the size by what he thought he could maintain and what would fit the space.
“I think he’s very good at visualizing,” Esther said.
It doesn’t hurt that Dick has a background in carpentry — he learned from his dad –that he likes to apply his math and physics skills, and that he worked for a construction company.
The 63-year-old retired this year from Kilian Corp. in Mascoutah where he was a controller. He’s also a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel in weather service.
The Skillings walked through a hosta-filled shade garden to a backyard stone bridge he built.
“I always overbuild,” said Dick. “I make them bigger, heavier and stronger than they need to be.”
“You don’t have to worry about someone getting hurt on it,” said Esther, 67. “There are steel girders beneath it.”
On a breezy morning tour of the Skillings’ delightful well-kept garden, the retired couple dropped tips on their successes the way the snowbell tree was dropping its bell-shaped white blossoms.
“We put a lot of compost in the ground,” said Esther. “You have to to amend soil. Before we started, we lost a lot of things after two or three years. Compost seems to really help plants a lot.”
“I was fortunate to work for a construction company,” said Dick. “When they did work and had to haul off topsoil, I asked, ‘Could you dump it right here?’”
Dick compared the garden beds to rooms.