Yes, we are plant-loving, water feature-passionate people, but another aspect of our work that we couldn’t do without is our amazing clients we’ve known and worked with for years. It is fascinating what a landscape can say about a relationship like that we’ve enjoyed with longest-standing client Patty Koehler. Eagleson Landscape Company’s owner and chief landscape designer Bill Eagleson worked on her yard even before our company existed. She was one of the people who encouraged Bill to go out on his own and start a landscape business back in the 1980s.
Recently we had the chance to visit Patty in her home, where we still maintain and adjust her landscaping to this day. Patty is the mother of four, a grandmother of many, and a great grandmother to boot. She lives with her beautiful singing pet canary in a neighborhood near Allisonville and 71st, where Bill grew up. Her canary is named Andy Williams “after the best singer in the world.” The yard is maintained pristinely, with lovely beds of hostas, boxwood bushes, roses and a variety of other plants.
Bill and Patty, sitting around the kitchen table and looking outside, recalled quite a bit of history between them, accompanied by much banter and good-natured ribbing.
“I love to go out there and watch them all working in the yard,” said Patty. “Especially Sam, he’s a cutie.”
“Oh yes,” said Bill. “Sometimes I’ll be out there in the yard and I’ll hear, ‘Hello Bill, is that you?’ from somewhere, and I’ll look around, and now I know to look up ‘cause she’s calling from the upstairs window.”
“This all used to be a field,” said Bill, referring to the yard and Patty’s house. “We played here all the time. When they tore up the field and built houses, we came back here and got scrap wood for forts. I built one in my grandfather’s backyard. He told me, ‘they’re gonna make you get a building permit for this.’ I was the first fort to have low voltage lighting—and carpeted floors. It was not your average fort.”
A creek runs through the back of Patty’s yard that also ran through to Bill’s old house. “We called it the Little Colorado, because when it rained it filled up so deep you could swim in it,” said Bill. “It would near 8 or 10 feet by my house. We’d float down it on boogie boards and those galvanized wash tubs.”
“We moved out here because of the school—John Strange Elementary school was one of the best schools in the country then,” said Patty. “Bill was a neighborhood kid we knew when my two sons were in middle school and high school. We reconnected when Bill was working at Allisonville Nursery. I saw him at a flower and patio show, and had him come over and do a few things in my yard.”
“That was even before I met my wife Elizabeth,” said Bill. “Actually you can still see the trees we planted in the backyard just after we got married. We’ve been maintaining Patty’s yard for over 30 years now. A foundation landscape’s lifespan is about 10 years on its own, but it’s lasted pretty long because Patty had us take care of it. We’ve replaced some things that have gotten too big, moved some hostas, cleared out a bunch of undergrowth, added roses, and kept the boxwood bushes feather-pruned because Patty doesn’t like shear cutting them.”
“Everybody likes my stuff here, even my daughter who has to have everything perfect. You have the Kelly approval.” Patty said. “Bill’s great in giving me what I want. Did you see the pretty roses out front? They knew you were coming today, Bill, because they finally bloomed.”
Since she would not let us take her picture, Patty wanted us to post a picture of Sam somewhere in the blog. Here it is, as promised!
Eagleson Landscape Company provides landscape and hardscape services in the Greater Indianapolis area, including Carmel, Zionsville, Westfield, Fishers and Geist.
