A garden paradise (with water features both natural and man made)

Gardeners are typically enamored with new life, and Bob Burant isn’t any different.

But Burant has infused growth into more than just his Town of Belgium property. After joining the Port Washington Garden Club last year, he proposed expanding the organization’s annual garden walk so properties wouldn’t be repeated as often.

He even offered up his piece of paradise on Lake Michigan.

The club obliged. Of the six properties on this year’s walk, a handful are in the Belgium area, as well as the city and town of Port.

Burant’s might be one of the more scenic sites just because of the backyard. A good portion is Lake Michigan beach.

“We love where we live and invite people over regularly, and they mostly say yes,” Burant said.

Visitors pass by a collection of hostas placed at the edge of the driveway because of their whimsical names.

“Guardian Angel and Praying Hands are working to reform Striptease, who is working the corner,” Burant said.

Burant and his wife Mary, both Milwaukee natives, moved to their spot on the lake from Brookfield nearly 25 years ago after inheriting the property. They donated the cottage to the fire department for a practice burn, then designed their own house.

Burant worked with a landscaper to develop the gardens that border the house on all four sides, tweaking plans at his pleasure.

Some plants thrived; others didn’t.

“Everything here is kind of trial and error. We’re on a sand dune,” Burant said.

While the lake is a draw, Burant elevated the acre-plus property’s peacefulness with years of hard work.

A waterfall and pond grace the front yard, complete with koi fish, goldfish, fantails and shubunkins that spend winters inside the house. The Burants have nets so their five grandchildren can catch and release frogs in the pond.

Lush green vegetation surrounds the waterfall, making for a serene scene even without the lake behind it. Concrete stepping stones Burant made himself from a mold lead from the pond to the grass.

Trees were added to the garden areas so Burant wouldn’t have to mow grass around them. He mows twice a week, one time riding and the other walking.

Hummingbirds, orioles, woodpeckers and indigo buntings grace the yard from the sky.

Burant enjoys the environment while working from home as a relationship manager for a financial services technology company.

“If I’m working and I need a break, I’ll just pull up a chair under the deck and enjoy the fish,” he said.

Mary, who retired in March after 38 years as an occupational therapist, appreciates the meticulous yard as well — she had visited the property since she was 2 — but Burant is the gardener, picking up the hobby when he visited family up north.

“My grandpa was a gardener. When we would spend a week there we would always come home with a bouquet of flowers for my mom,” he said.

Burant doesn’t have formal training in gardening, but he considered going to school for horticulture. He would like to own a dome.

Mary has come to enjoy gardening.

“She became my yard apprentice. She keeps trying to be fired,” Burant said.

Like Burant, Mary is in constant education mode.

“She’s learning more plants,” Burant said. “‘I don’t want any of this in here,’” she will tell her husband.

Both are diligent weeders and try to control invasive plants. Yellow yarrow weed grew from about the size of a 50-cent piece to a foot in a year. Desired plants like hostas can grow at the same pace.

“I consider it now in maintenance mode,” Burant said of the yard. “Every week there’s always something.”

Being on the lake, the changing of the seasons are two weeks behind properties farther inland, they said, and it’s often cooler during summers and warmer — although not enough to help much — during winters.

Burant relishes watching the plants return.

“I just love to see life growing. It’s exciting in the spring when you see a perennial grow. It’s new life,” he said.

Mary likes to grow Roma tomatoes to make pasta sauce, bruschetta and for pickling. Peppers, zucchini and herbs also fill the gardens, as do as many as a dozen deer at a time to partake in a smorgasbord of salad they think the Burants have laid out just for them. A woodchuck also comes to visit, and raccoons have climbed up the stairs to the home’s deck.

Meals are sometimes served outside, but a quick shift in wind Lake Michigan is known for is met with an appropriate reaction.

“The east deck is known as the executive dining room,” Burant said, adding diners move to the west side of the house when it gets cold.

Burant’s plants come from all over. He bought some at last year’s garden tour, and he often fights the steering wheel when passing garden centers.

“I don’t hunt, fish, go to bars. This is kind of our thing,” Burant said.

With seasonal plants and often trying out new vegetation, the Burants’ gardens won’t look the same for long.

“The yard’s been a work in progress since we moved out here. It’s ever changing,” Burant said.

Mary added, “And it always will be.”

 Burant does have a legacy in mind.

“When I die,” he said, “I’d like people to say I made the world a more beautiful place.”