Standish resident Kerry Dyer has been gardening most of his life.
As a child of eight or nine, he helped weed his grandparents’ flower and vegetable gardens and picked their raspberries and blueberries. Their flower gardens were filled with roses, irises, and peonies, as well as a lilac hedge and a grape arbor.
In exchange for his help, they gave him iris rhizomes to plant at his home.
“I think that was the beginning of my interest in gardening,” Dyer said.
He soon was starting flowers and vegetables from seed and it seemed only natural that he would study something plant-related in college.
Dyer received his degree in plant and soil sciences from the University of Maine in Orono in 1980. Although he worked for a time as a private consultant in landscaping and gardening, he found he was giving away his services to so many friends that he wasn’t making any money.
So, these days, Dyer works at the Windham Post Office and gardens just for fun. Since he and his family live next door to his parents, his gardening canvas stretches over the two yards, giving him plenty of room to splash a full palette of flower colors.
The day I visited Dyer’s gardens, the sun lit up the petals of hollyhocks and the leaves of the purple smokebush from behind, causing them to glow against the blue sky.
Dyer’s hot colors garden, with its drifts of butterfly weed, bee balm, and black-eyed susans, burns with fiery color. It’s one of his favorite spots, complete with a white pergola covered in trumpet vine, which attracts the eager hummingbirds.
Although Dyer is the gardener of the family, his wife Denise enjoys the beautiful results. In fact, in 1992, the couple spent their honeymoon touring many gardens in England.
Dyer says, “I really gravitate toward the English gardening style, although not any severely formal styles.” His favorite gardening book authors reflect that English influence: Christopher Lloyd, Gertrude Jekyll, William Robinson, Penelope Hobhouse, and Graham Thomas.
But he also likes “Crockett’s Victory Garden” and “Crockett’s Flower Garden” in part, perhaps, because he grew up watching Crockett’s Victory Garden on WGBH television.
When I asked Dyer for his gardening advice, he said, “Don’t be afraid to try new things. Combine flowers and vegetables. Mix shrubs, perennials, biennials, and annuals, as well as small trees. I’d say ‘mixed gardening’ is more fun and more natural.”
He added that it is best to stay away from poisons and chemicals whenever possible and “encourage birds, bees, butterflies, and wildlife but not woodchucks or deer.”
I had a wonderful time talking to Kerry Dyer and touring his gardens. He is a man with many interests, including his church, traveling, singing, playing piano, theater, and mountain climbing. He also is a family man.
“I love being a father to my two boys and reading to them after they get in bed each night,” Dyer said. “It’s fun to develop family holiday traditions with them. Sometimes they even help me in the greenhouse or the garden.”
And maybe they’ll grow up to be gardeners, influenced by their father’s love of flowers. After all, the flowers Dyer grew up with, peonies, snapdragons, lilacs, and bearded irises, are still his favorites today.
Garden tip: If you have bearded irises that haven’t been divided for a few years, now is the time to execute the dirty deed. Cut off the young rhizomes around the outside of each clump, making sure each has one or two fans of leaves. Pull off any brown leaves and trim the rest to six inches. Be sure to dispose of any rhizomes that are rotted and cut off any damaged roots. Dip rhizomes in a ten percent bleach solution to reduce rot. Work bone meal and wood ash into the soil and plant, making sure to expose the rhizomes’ upper surface, especially if the soil is high in clay content.
Remember, I’m visiting gardens for my summer columns. If you’d like your garden to be considered, please contact me.
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