Along the rolling farm fields of the Portage River in Pemberville peeks a small cottage with an English
garden, perfect for enjoying a spot of tea.
Wes and Jean Long combine cozy, cottage living with a spectacular garden area that features a gazebo,
large sitting area, huge hedges and glorious flowers.
THE GARDEN
The Longs’ garden is nestled behind a purple door, which was specially built by Steve Fork of North River
Woodworks.
A small sign next to the door hints as to what’s to come: Rivendell Cottage.
“I’m a big (J.R.R.) Tolkein fan,” Jean said with a smile, adding that in Scotland, every cottage is
named.
The purple door opens to an acre of flowers, vegetable garden, gleaming green hedges and sitting areas,
including a gazebo.
The retired teachers, Jean in art at Eastwood and Wes in industrial arts and special education in Toledo,
used their summers to travel to Europe, including England and Scotland, where they have family. They
scoured the countryside for garden ideas.
“This garden is nothing like you would see over there,” Wes said of theirs.
They once met Gordon Hayward, author of several garden books, and ended up booking a stay in his English
home five years ago.
“You see things in Europe that you want to try to adapt,” Jean said.
Back in the states, there are several garden favorites that they’ve also culled ideas from: Longwood
Gardens in Pennsylvania, Schedel in Elmore and the Kingwood Center in Mansfield.
“It’s trial and error, and every year is a little different,” Jean said. “You just try things and see
what grows.”
Some favorites — and functional — flowers include black-eyed Susans, daisies and cone flowers.
“You have to really baby things like foxglove,” she said. “They like it cool and damp.”
Jean also has pots of fuschia here and there. They don’t normally grow well in Northwest Ohio, but she
said they are a beautiful bloom with such vivid reminders of their trips.
“The key is picking plants that survive in this climate,” Wes said.
Rugusa and hybrid tea roses were a test.
“They’re really, really fragrant,” Jean said, but they didn’t weather the heat or the Japanese beetles
well. “You’ve got to baby them all the time.”
The couple likes to plant reminders of their families and friends. Those include poppies and bachelor
buttons. Many of the George Carruth plaques that dot the patio walls are in memory of her mother, who
died last year.
The patio was bricked at one point, but it was a lot of work to weed it and maintain it.
“Then we saw in England where they just put down pea gravel,” Jean said.
At $13 a ton, it’s a bargain. The gravel is also easy to walk on and pretty to look at.
Another thing that’s come and gone is a fish pond in the front yard. Jean said it was too difficult to
maintain. Fruit trees also got the boot for producing too much.
One of the themes of the Longs’ yard is that nothing takes a lot of time, and it can mostly be done by
them.
Most of the intensive work is completed in mid-May and early June. Trimming of the hedges, which line the
backyard and back of the home, takes about 20 hours, Wes said, but it’s only done once a year.
Jean said once the beds are established, plants grow quickly and often have to be thinned and divided.

“This is my garden philosophy: Put things in that grow forever and you can mow in the fall,” Wes said.

The back beds on the property grow vegetables and perennials like hostas and lilies. There’s also a
white, fenced-off compost area.
The garden is in all its glory around Memorial Day with the peonies and iris in full bloom.
When the Longs do need help, they turn to North Branch Nursery and Tom Oberhouse.
“It’s handy having that big of a nursery close by,” Wes said.
Jean spends a lot of time in her shed, which is along the back of the property, just past the gazebo.
“Shed” is deceiving. The space is more like a small guest room than a storage area.
She paints in it and relaxes on a chaise lounge chair.
“This is my hideout.”
The color scheme goes along with the rest of the area, purple and green.
One of Wes’s favorite spots is a hammock that swings in a wooded area on the west side of the home.
THE HOME
The Longs built the Cape Cod, timber-frame home, mostly by themselves with the help of family and
friends, in 1982.
They were at a home and garden show in Toledo and discovered the Riverbend Timber Frame Co. out of
Blissfield, Michigan.
“They were just starting up,” Wes said.
Riverbend put the frame up, and they did the rest, with the home taking a year to complete.
Jean said the “bermed” style of home, also known as an earth house, was a compromise. It’s built somewhat
into a hill, which isn’t noticeable from the front.
“He wanted to do an underground house and I wasn’t quite there,” Jean said of Wes.
“You see these in Europe a lot,” he said.
The 1,500-square-foot home has a full basement, first and second floor.
The star is the wood.
Thick, dark oak beams crisscross the entire house, giving off a cozy, comfy vibe.
Six skylights open the space up, and heat it up in the winter.
For the first 10 years, the Longs used only the wood stove to heat the home. It had to be stoked twice a
day, which limited day trips and vacations, so they started using a furnace.
The couple updated the kitchen in 2005 and re-did the skylights, installing the Velux brand that has
blinds which can be adjusted mid-window to control the lighting.
Then there are the purple accents: the doors and garage door and front door to the shed.
The color isn’t just any purple.
“We ride our bikes on the river … there’s this flower, we call it ironweed,” Wes sad. “I snipped one of
those off one day and went to Home Depot and said, ‘I want that color.’”
“Summer flox” complements the periwinkle blue that Jean fell in love with at the Carruth Studio in
Waterville. It’s the color of the store’s front doors.