Michael Zajic describes the property as a “walking garden” with many wandering paths and rooms for maximum garden and plant enjoyment. (Photo by Kathy Jentz)

Down a private road in Sussex County, Del., is a garden that backs up to Old Mill Creek, the eastern-most branch of the 150-acre Red Mill Pond.
This American-style called Mill Pond Garden, is designed by its owner, Michael Zajic, a former horticultural supervisor of Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Md.
Zajic describes the property as a “walking garden” with many wandering paths and rooms for maximum garden and plant enjoyment.
The garden’s mission is to “give joy, inspire, and educate through a holistic experience of nature, and to provide useful information including plant labels.
The woody plant collections are significant in themselves.”
The garden mixes and layers plant textures, leaf shapes, and colors in fascinating combinations.
The plant palette is large and varied, but there are repeated plants that punctuate and tie the gardens together each season.
In summer, the annuals used to marry the various theme beds together are SunPatiens “Compact Purple,” the Sun Coleus “Redhead” for its huge growing, lush, velvety crimson, and the new hybrid Cleome “Senorita Rosalita,” which fills a lot of space and blooms its head off.
Zajic says his favorite pollinator plants are several highly disease-resistant cultivars of Phlox paniculata and for shady places in the garden he likes the groundcover Saxifraga stolonifera.
His favorite ornamental grasses are the Hakonechloa aureola and “All Gold” and the Diamond Grass (Calamagrostis brachyathera) for its manageable size and fine inflorescence plumes.
“Being asked what my favorite plants are is like being asked which is your favorite child,” he says. “But, there are some plants whose astounding rewards or visual delight do stand out. For amazing and powerful visual impact and total ease of care (almost none), I would choose the Yucca rostrata ‘Sapphire Skies’, a Big Bend native. Everyone likes it, even those who seldom notice plants.
“A most favorite garden tree is the Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku,’ Japanese Coral Bark Maple, for its extreme beauty in all seasons, including a seldom mentioned very drooping spring habit, when the leaves are bright chartreuse, which is astonishing and magical.”
Zajic grew up on a farm with big vegetable gardens and greenhouses and spent countless hours wandering in the local woods.
“I am especially pleased when visitors bring children,” says Zajic. “About the ages of 7 to 9 is when a life-long interest becomes possible for children. I recommend parents give their eight year old some bean seeds to plant in a windowsill pot, if nothing else, and take children to public gardens and to visit friends’ gardens.”
For gardeners on the Delmarva shores, Zajic’s best advice is to make sure you suit the plant to the exact site: soil, drainage, light, wind, possible salt exposure, and amount of space.
His next tip is visit other gardens and gardeners in your area to see what’s possible, what thrives, and what you like.
Then, decide your purpose or purposes in choosing plants and how to allot space in your garden.
Consider, for example, play or social areas, where you want sun or shade, fragrance, flowers, ease of care, vegetable plot, kids, dog, room for storage, compost, wildlife habitat like a pond or brush pile.
He also recommends adding a big, noisy splashing fountain to provide soothing pleasure, aliveness at all times, and considerable privacy by masking outside noise.
“Quiet and privacy in a garden are important for connecting and enjoying,” Zajic says. “Spend time sitting and dreaming in a garden space, maybe with a cup of tea or glass of wine, just absorbing the soft sound of leaves, breezes, the sight of birds, insects, and small animals, enjoying the whole as a self- conducting orchestra of nature. Walk in your garden every single day rain or shine to learn your plants as individuals.
“The plants will train you.”
He advises that gardeners often try to use mostly native plants, especially in choosing large canopy trees, favoring Black Cherry, shrub Willow and Oak, for the survival of birds.
He recommends leaving mowed lawn cuttings on the grass to feed worms.
“Leave some leaves in beds for birds to hunt in,” Zajic also advises. “Reduce the amount of lawn in favor of large mixed beds of trees and shrubs and perennials. Use only pine bark mulch; none of the others are good for plants. Prefer plant ground covers to mulch. Fertilize once a year with pulverized horse manure for the best fertility and performance, excepting only the few plants that prefer non-fertile soils, and not on vegetable gardens for health safety reasons. Use organic fertilizers when needed including some kelp and some Epsom salts. Keep all your soil and leaves and clippings chopped into beds to recycle.
“Provide clean water for birds and small animals. In designing your garden, remember to go for 60 percent evergreen and 40 percent deciduous for year round beauty.”
Zajic’s Mill Pond Garden has hosted numerous group tours as varied as camera clubs, international herbalists, and orthodox Jews from New York City performing a holy holiday visit to “nature.”
You can visit Mill Pond Garden yourself by subscribing to its e-mail list at www.millpondgarden.com for notices of its 13 “Open Garden Days” each year.
“Three of these events are for the annual “Garden of Lights” show,” Zajic says. “Each open day presents a different view of the garden at a particular peak of flowering.
“The first is Daffodils, Hellebores, Camellias. The second is Ephemerals, Tulips, and Azaleas. Then, peak display days for sweeps of Rhododendrons, Roses, Lilies, Phlox and pollinator plants, Crape Myrtles, annuals and tropical plants, Asters and Chrysanthemums, ending with spectacular fall leaf color.”
Zajic also encourages the local wildlife.
“We have wonderful pollinators and butterflies,” he says. ”We also have Great Blue Heron, ducks, cormorants, and the turtle-basking logs often covered with turtles up to a foot in diameter. One might even see one of the beautiful Eastern Garter Snakes on duty controlling the slugs, voles, and moles.”

(Editor’s note: Kathy Jentz is the Editor/Publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine. A life-long gardener, Kathy believes that growing plants should be stress-free and enjoyable. Her philosophy is “Inspiration over perspiration.”)