Yelton Manor

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: MAY/JUNE 2004)

On a quiet summer night at Yelton Manor Bed and Breakfast, love is all around. In a secluded garden corner, honeymooners snuggle on an arbor swing. On the patio, another couple chats softly. Inside one of the South Haven, Michigan, inn's two Victorian-style homes, old friends play a board game.

And somewhere in the yard, flitting from plant to plant, armed with commercial-grade pruners and a half-bushel basket to hold clippings, Elaine Herbert is in love, too.

"Look at this monarda!" she enthuses over a stand of 'Cambridge Scarlet.' "I love, love, love it!" And there's more love in bloom: double impatiens, white veronica, 'Mr. Lincoln' roses, 'Palace Purple' heuchera and innumerable other plants in the gardens around her inn.

It's fortunate for her guests that Elaine is a garden lover. She and her husband, Robert Kripaitis, have run the bed and breakfast for 18 years. The plant-packed grounds are part of the appeal, along with the glories of the summer sun setting on Lake Michigan just across the street.

Besides the romantic setting, the two-building, 17-room inn offers comfortable and spacious rooms, breakfasts, access to 1,500 movie videos, hors d'oeuvres in the Manor, and other amenities such as fresh rose petals strewn on the walkways. "Everyone asks if someone got married," Elaine says. "We tell them, 'It's so you can feel like a honeymooner! Don't waste the magic!'"

The lush, full flower borders set Yelton Manor Bed and Breakfast apart from other lodgings in the community.

"The bigger my garden gets, the more guests like it," Elaine says. "It's a show garden. I want it perfect every day. My entire summer, every evening, is spent enjoying my garden."

Long-blooming annuals and perennials, from knee-high to above Elaine's head, grow in 8-foot-wide beds. Frothy clumps of cosmos, roses, coneflowers, mallows and other perennials grow as companions to blue flowers such as scabiosa, white blooms that include veronica, and silvery-leafed artemisia.

Though initially she didn't intend to include yellow in her pink-blue-and-white color scheme, Elaine relented because she likes the long blooming periods of Missouri primroses--which multiply so fast, she gives them to admiring guests as gifts--and Stella d'Oro daylilies.

Mindful that her garden belongs to her guests (it isn't open to the public), she plans accordingly, putting in plants that can stand up to people stroking the leaves and flowers. Tough and lovely "PeeGee" hydrangeas are an example. "They just go crazy blooming, and everyone loves them," Elaine says.

For many years, Elaine has grown purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria). It's no longer sold in many states, including Michigan, because it chokes out other plants, especially in wetlands. But Elaine loves the bushy, spiky pinkish-purple blooms. She responsibly--and obsessively--prunes, so they never have a chance to reseed.

Though Elaine relies heavily on perennials, no two years are alike, thanks to variations in growing seasons, her constant use of the pruners and her penchant for moving plants around.

"People think the gardens are going to stay the same," she says, "but they're never the same." What doesn't change is the love. It's everywhere.

Yelton Manor Bed & Breakfast, 140 North Shore Dr., South Haven, MI 49090 (269/637-5220). Contact for reservations and current rates.

Related Links: