An unexpected gift in Iowa blossomed into 15 gardens for weddings and visitors -- and preserved some unforgettable memories of love.

By Deb Wiley. Photographs by Pete Krumhardt and Clint Farlinger.

A New Escape

(Originally Published: May/June 2005)

MARY ELLEN HILL didn't set out to create a wedding-worthy garden. She just needed an escape. "I felt like a bird in a gilded cage," she recalls. Gazebo on the Green, her gift and floral shop in downtown Iowa City, Iowa, was thriving. "But I hated being cooped up." She wanted a place to grow flowers for sale, but acreages, especially those with enough sun for her needs, were hard to find near this university community.

Then one evening in 1989, her husband, John, led Mary Ellen to an eight-acre rural property just north of the city near the wooded area where they lived. Reaching a point where the sloping view was the most beautiful, John pulled a trowel out of his back pocket and invited her to check the soil. "I dug down and said, 'Oh, John, this is good soil.' And he said, 'Oh, thank God! Honey, I bought this land for you yesterday. Now go plant your flowers.' " So she did. "I wanted to be a hermit," she said, not to be dealing with people.

Mary Ellen closed her store in 1991 and started ridding the land, untended for years, of nuisance weeds. After a year of preparation, Mary Ellen built a two-room white cottage with a loft she could use as an office and as a place where she and John could enjoy a glass of wine together after a long day.

It wasn't until 1994 that Mary Ellen started "gardening seriously," as she terms it. "It's nothing I intended to do." But her creativity couldn't be repressed. The initial idea of growing cut flowers to sell fresh or dried to retailers never took off, but Mary Ellen continued doing flower arrangements for weddings. An engaged couple asked if they could hold their wedding in her garden. Though Mary Ellen said no, the couple persisted. Almost before she knew it, the couple had bused 375 people to the grounds because it didn't offer enough parking.

"The garden held the event just fine, and everyone exclaimed, 'Ooh, this is so nice!' " she recalls. Soon, Mary Ellen's time as a hermit was over; word spread about the idyllic setting. With its white picket fence, white arbor, allee of crabapples, petite white cottage (which became a gift shop) and 15 gardens spread over three acres, the property is especially fetching during the spring wedding season. It's also when Mary Ellen's signature pink color scheme is in full sway.

Garden clubs asked for tours, so Mary Ellen began escorting them through the gardens, then offering tea, lemonade and cookies. She resurrected her former business name, and the new Gazebo on the Green became a preferred location for weddings, formal English teas, bridal showers, concerts and other events.

Amid the lacy hardscaping and the pretty florals, Mary Ellen's guests have come to celebrate important people and moments in their lives. And though she couldn't have predicted it, it's also where Mary Ellen remembers many of hers.

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