Platter-sized hibiscus, hydrangea, cardinal flowers, small yellow blooms called partridge peas, chartreuse creeping Jenny, daisies, and lavender fill the front yard of the Merion Station home.
The plantings extend from the porch to the curb, where parked cars push against tall stems of deep pink celosia. “It’s a hostile environment. You hope for the best,” said Boots Levinson.
Levinson and his wife, Laura White, own the three-story Tudor surrounded by colorful vegetation.
“Laura’s the gardener,” Levinson said. “I’m the waterer and manual laborer.”
The couple moved to the 3,000-square-foot property in 2021 from a one-bedroom condo in Center City. “We bought the first house we looked at,” White said, then conceded, “We had no idea what we were getting into.”
The stucco-and-brick, four-bedroom, 2½-bath house had a new kitchen and bathroom. There was space to entertain and for corgis Archie and Ozzie to romp.
Levinson and White met on Jdate, an online dating service for Jewish singles. They had in common a Midwest background. She grew up in Missouri, while he lived in Minnesota until moving to the Philadelphia area in the sixth grade. White came to Philadelphia for her medical training. The couple married in 2013.
The house needed new air-conditioning and heating systems, and a basement leak exposed a drainage problem.
Landscaping amounted to little more than a crab apple tree in the backyard, rocks and dirt, and a flower bed covering a parking space in front of the garage.
White and Levinson hired mason Deen Vinci of Surrounded by Stone in Merion Station to repoint and repair the stone arch that leads to the backyard. Vinci also built the arch’s wood door and paved the front driveway. In the backyard he reset and repaired patio bricks.
White furnished the patio with a wood table and chairs from Arhaus. The large umbrella from Wayfair is set in concrete so it won’t tumble over in a storm. Plants in the backyard include hydrangeas, zinnias, jasmine, dahlias, gardenia, a juniper and a pine tree.
White, a psychiatrist, had no horticultural training. But she learned a bit from watching her father, Bruce, garden and is grateful to neighbors who share knowledge and plantings with her. Watching hummingbirds and bees flit about her flowers, she and her neighbors “have created a pollinator pathway.”
Neighbor Suzanne Kane, who tends a lush garden across the street, is a particularly helpful mentor, White said.
Levinson, a Realtor, said his wife’s cultivating talents have been aided by her medical training. “She’s a scientist and is observant and nurturing.”
White planted a kitchen garden on one side of the house with honeynut squash, Swiss chard, Thai and Shishito peppers, and varieties of plum tomatoes she will can. Cucumbers grow on a trellis. In late summer, Ozark strawberries are ripening. Alpine strawberries, which ripen in the front yard in late spring, are so sweet neighborhood children pilfer them.
White has harvested garlic stored in trays in the basement where she starts seeds in the winter with hydroponic lamps. She likes to garden year-round. Soon she will move the Amaryllis plants from outside to the basement for eight weeks or so before placing them in a sunny spot indoors in time for them to bloom at Christmas.
White grows flowers because they are easy to dry for year-round flower arrangements. And she chooses perennial plants that span the seasons, such as Muhly grass, which turns from green in the summer to fluffy pink in the fall. Amsonia grass has blue blossoms in the spring and turns from green to gold in the fall.
White shops for plants at several locations, including Primex Garden Center in Glenside, Wynnewood Garden Center, and Lancaster Farmers Market.
Caring for the property is work.
“Sometimes,” Levinson admitted, “I miss just paying a monthly condo fee.”
Still, he said having gardens on all sides of his home is “like having four extra rooms.”
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