Sue Stormer looked out her kitchen window at the thick stand of grass and two hickory trees. “The perfect lawn” is how one friend had described her simple Fort Thomas back yard

        But a crisis consumed her thoughts on this day in 1991. Her oldest son had been diagnosed as manic depressive, a mental illness about which she understood little. She felt hopeless and powerless, frustrated and discouraged.

        “I needed something,” she says.

The first backyard pond Sue Stromer built is home to koi and catfish. (Tony Jones photos) | ZOOM |

        She didn't know what — until she started digging a hole in “the perfect lawn.” That's when she discovered that gardening offers healing powers and life-teaching experiences.

        The hole soon became a pond, a home for koi and catfish. The back yard became Ms. Stormer's refuge, the place where she could forget her troubles.

        “It's been therapy for my soul,” she says of tending the many plants that populate her yard. “When I'm in my garden, there's nothing on my mind. I love being down on my hands and knees and getting dirty. You can't experience gardening unless you get dirt under your fingernails.”

Little grass remains

        These days, Ms. Stormer's finger nails stay dirty.

        The thick stand of grass has almost disappeared, replaced by morning glories, clematis, butterfly bushes, elephant ears, two willow trees, yarrow, baby's breath, black-eyed Susans, lavender, flaming honeysuckle and much more. Pathways connect the flowers, grasses, bushes, trees, two water gardens and a continuously growing collection of yard art.

Stones for a walkway came from Lake Cumberland. | ZOOM |

        Every plant, brick, statue and rock in Ms. Stormer's garden has a special meaning or story. The marbles that sparkle along the white concrete path to the “tropical garden” are backyard digging finds. She thinks they were the toys of the children who lived in the house before her. She used them to create a “marble path.”

        The path leads to a garden that looks like something you'd find on a South Seas island. A banana tree, fig tree, palm tree, asparagus plants and other tropical foliage flourish in their Midwestern spots.

        “All of the tropical plants are about 15 years old,” Ms. Stormer says. “I got them as house plants, but I decided it was crazy to keep these in the house in the summer.”

        Every spring she plants them in her yard. Then in October, before the first freeze, she digs them up, replants them in pots and takes them inside.

        “My house is a jungle in the winter,” she says.

Nothing thrown away

        While Ms. Stormer's home is a cold-weather haven for tropical plants, her yard is the resting place for discarded household items.

        “I don't throw anything away,” she says.

        The high-heeled shoes she no longer wears serve as pots for shade plants that live under a willow tree.

        “Those are my retired dancing shoes,” she says. “I didn't need them because I don't dance anymore. Now, I garden.”

        The stakes from an old clothes line became a directional sign for the garden. She painted the names of her plants on the stakes and drew arrows pointing out their places in the landscape.

        The headboard of an old water bed is an outdoor shelf for potted plants. Stray earrings have become ornamentation for a brick pathway to Ms. Stormer's “spiritual pond.”

        The pond earned its name from the inspirational words Ms. Stormer painted on the bricks: knowledge, memories, intuition, honor, wisdom, prayer, trust, prudence, faith, forgiveness, hope, love and bliss.

        “All those words on the bricks are what I get from my garden,” she says. “Gardening has taught me about life. All year long I have changes in my garden. Sometimes things will die back. There's a time for everything. But if you have faith and hope, you'll spring back.”

        The spiritual pond is 4 feet deep; its waters are dark and murky. But out of it grows “the most beautiful plant in the world,” Ms. Stormer says. “It's a lotus with leaves that resemble elephant ears and blossoms as large as basketballs. It smells heavenly.”

        Other plants — lambs ears and daisies to strawberry mint and baby's breath, — grow around the pond.

Her own ideas

        Ms. Stormer's late summer project is a path made of bamboo stems and the slats from an old bed. She is painting some of her favorite sayings on the slats. One example: “You don't have a garden just for yourself; you have to share it.”

        A splicer for Cincinnati Bell, she often runs into gardeners while on the job. She's quick to share ideas for planting and growing, and she's even taken some clippings from her garden to the homes of new-found acquaintances.

        But she almost never borrows ideas from other gardeners.

        “I've got my own ideas to fulfill,” she says. “I can only hope I don't run out of room.”

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