Local residents open their gardens during secret tour
Randy Schott in front of one of his plots of native prairie flowers at his garden in Ellendale. He was part of Owatonna Art Center’s annual secret garden tour. Staff photo by Karen M. Jorgensen
A selection of local gardeners opened their gardens to the community Sunday for the Owatonna Arts Center’s annual secret garden tour. This year’s tour featured eight gardens, seven in Owatonna and one in Ellendale.
One of the gardens on the tour was Randy and Sherry Schott’s garden in Ellendale that includes native prairie flowers on the property they bought in 2008. Since then, they have cleared the 7.5 acreage of overgrown brush and boxelder trees, Schott said, and turned it into plots of prairie wildflowers and grasses. The plots now provide a habitat for a variety of pollinators including butterflies, bees and birds.
He said he seeded the wildflowers and grasses, and they provide a changing color of flowers as the season progresses from spring through summer.
Schott said they have a variety of visitors during spring and fall migrations. Birds that stay for the summer include cardinals, wrens, grossbeaks, orioles, nuthatches, indigo buntings, sparrow, cedar waxwings, swallows and others.
Randy Schott is retired from the Wisconsin Division of Forestry as a forestry supervisor in Forest and Fire Management. Sherry Schott is retired from MN Prairie County Alliance as a social worker.
Jennifer Arco Bellefeuille, who is the orchestra teacher at Owatonna Middle School, said that her gardens take visitors through a journey of love, remembrance and cherished memories.
She said the first garden honors her sister and is a peaceful place that also serves as the resting place of two beloved family dogs. Beyond the first garden is one dedicated to her mother and filled with plants and flowers shared by friends, family and fellow gardeners. She said it has become a living tapestry of friendship, generosity and connection.
The third garden, she said, was created in memory of her father and is a quiet space for reflection and gratitude.
The other gardens on the tour included those of Don and Verna Thiede, Lynette Yencho, Joan and Lowell Skelton, Rich Schnorenberg, Dan and Barb Guggisberg and Bonnie Jensen.
Don and Verna Thiede’s garden has evolved after 50 years of hard work. They enjoy landscaping using recycled natural materials. Don is the engineer his wife said, while she designs the gardens, plants them and adds additional pieces of interest. They also have a large vegetable garden. Verna Thiede is a 20-year master gardener and tests seeds for the University of Minnesota.
Lynette Yencho is an artist and walking into her garden is like walking into a little forest with a flower or two, she said, with a hand-built fence and cobblestones that used to be bricks from the Masonic Temple. Perennials are planted arbitrarily and annuals usually scattered around them, she said.
The Skelton Garden is a mix of flowers collected from friends and family. Schnorenberg said he loves the beauty in nature that Minnesota has to offer and is always willing to share his ideas of garden landscaping with others.
The Guggisbergs have a perennial garden including hostas, day lilies, roses, daisies, sedan, peonies, hydrangeas, cat mint and lilac bushes. Behind the lilacs they have planted tomato plants, rhubarb, cucumber and potatoes planted in milk crates.
Bonnie Johnson calls her garden her “tiny backyard sanctuary,” that they have been working on since they moved there in 2019.
The garden tour is a fundraiser for the Owatonna Arts Center that has offered each year for about 25 years. There are no formal tours of the gardens, but visitors are welcome to walk through them at their leisure and speak with the owners.