Steve Skalecki’s green giants

Dear Editor,

One of my favorite summer daily rituals is strolling my Bay View neighborhood with my red wire coat Irish Terror (oops, I meant terrier but my neighbors would say I had it right the first time). I admire the gardening creativity and artistic diversity applied so aesthetically in the small urban spaces in the yards of Bay View. I never stop at the curb appeal of the front yards because the back and side gardens are too good to miss, so the red canine and I weave through alleys and up and down side streets endlessly.

For the Luce, the main objective is squirrel watching. As for me, I enjoy soaking in the visual beauty created by our community of talented gardeners.

When friends visit, I take them for garden walks and show them the neighborhood gardening gems. They are always impressed with the effective use of space and the fabulous diversity of plants and designs. Mostly though, they are awed by the green giants.

While it is hard to say which garden in Bay View is the most visually interesting because there are so many beyond-gorgeous yards, the most impressive gardener is easy to choose. Hands down, it is my neighbor Steve Skalecki. Steve is a master gardener who would make the horticultural designers at Boerner Botanical Gardens turn green with envy. Seriously! This guy is a gardening genius! He is responsible for the green giants in Bay View.

After years of envying his prolific gardening successes, this year I practically begged Steve to help me with one plant. “Just one plant, Steve. A tomato plant. Please help me grow a tomato plant.” Steve mulled it over for moment, remembered how my tomato plant from last year fared, and accepted my request for gardening help.

Steve bought a six-inch Mountain Fresh tomato plant from Stein’s for $.50 in April and nurtured it along in his own greenhouse before planting it in just the right spot in my yard. He found the spot that had the optimal sunlight conditions, but he shook his head when he tested the soil. “You have bad soil, Lynn. I’ll need to get rid of it and bring in topsoil and peat moss. Where do you want to go with it?”

He removed soil, added soil, worked the soil, and planted the tomato plant in late May. He built a greenhouse of clear plastic and kept control of the plant’s climate conditions. By June the plant was taller than my grandson. By July the plant was taller than Steve.

My attempts to help Steve nurture the plant were futile. One day I put the clear cover over the plant on a 85-degree day and nearly fried it. Another day, I accidentally dropped a rock on it, knocking off the main shoot. Yet my plant grew amazingly tall and wide until it looked more like a tree than a plant. Steve says my plant is an A-minus. (My neighbors across the alley, Lorena, and Steve’s parents Art and Clara, have grown plants much taller than mine, earning the grade of A-plus.)

Steve has a multitude of gardening giants, marigolds the size of azaleas, beets the size of melons, canna lilies the size of high school basketball players, and pansy plants that are larger than my dog. Incredulous, right? No one believes it until they see his green giants. And then they take pictures of themselves next to his tomato plants or marigolds because they know no one will believe them.

Lynn Rinderle

Bay View

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