Photography by Donovan Roberts Witmer
Along a street lined with towering, mature sycamores that form a shady canopy over the asphalt sits a brick home. The house is sturdy, situated on an extraordinarily green yard, which provides a welcoming splash of color and stimulates the senses. Around the back of the home lies a fanciful garden like you’ve never seen before.
This is Staci Jasin’s masterpiece. It’s her respite and sanctuary from the world, as well as a place to test the outermost limits of her creativity. Every aspect of the beautiful, cascading garden is carefully planned. Each plant, flower, and tree has purpose; curves and bends add intrigue, while the well-placed vignettes and nooks provide surprising delights.
THERE’S WORK TO BE DONE
Jasin, of InSitu Design, and her husband, Robert Shertzer, bought the 1920s home over a decade ago. She described the property as neglected: It had sat vacant for two years and was now damp and moist, with overgrown shrubs. It was tired and stuck in another era. But Jasin and her husband are the handy sort, equipped to tackle hands-on projects with requisite diligence. Her environmental sciences background combined with his structural engineering knowledge primed them for the task.
“It’s who we are; we just do projects together,” she says. “This was the biggest project yet.”
And so they dug in: They cut down shrubs and got hold of a shredder. Another weekend, the couple rented a jackhammer to grind away the concrete walkway, clear to the brick retaining wall by the garage. They even borrowed a friend’s Bobcat to grade and seed the patchy, uneven quarter-acre yard.
“We thought we were going to flip this house,” Jasin explains. “We started putting in a lot of love and realized we loved being here. We like being in the city, love having a yard. And we thought the size of the house was manageable.”
After moving to Lancaster from the West Coast, Jasin started to progressively feel like she fit into the area. And slowly, surely, she and her husband grew an emotional attachment to the home on State Street in Lancaster. As only the third or fourth set of owners, they imagined each family that had lived, loved and played in the home prior to their arrival; their desire to resurrect the home with love and integrity strengthened as they felt called into the continuum of owners. One day, while excavating and regrading the backyard, Jasin and her husband found flagstones several inches below the lawn, the remnants of a forgotten garden path. Those very flagstones, unearthed after many years, now form a new path in the couple’s garden.
CHILD’S PLAY, CREATING MAGIC
It’s early in the afternoon and Jasin is cleaning up a children’s tea party that took place in her backyard. She bends low to scoop up teacups and saucers, pushing in miniature green plastic chairs to the pint-sized table. A Himalayan cat stays close to the woman, peeking out from behind shrubs and flowers. Meanwhile, their fluffy Pomeranian, Ziggy, toddles about the yard.
Next to Jasin, a bright garden-within-a-garden bursts with hibiscus, daisies, coneflower, tickseed, and catmint. Offset by a steel sculpture-turned-fountain, each aspect of this space was hand-picked by Jasin’s five-year-old daughter, Evelyn.
Tray in hand, Jasin strides past six stumps thrust into the ground; a child’s leap length apart, the log fragments serve as stepping stones for her children. A xylophone that her husband built hangs silently to the right of the stumps. Jasin’s eyes travel the path from the xylophone to a swing, hoisted high up in a tree, then to a slide inserted between two gnarled branches.
“I want my kids to have a memory of a magical childhood,” she explains as she gestures towards the vignette. “How do you create magic? Scale is important. It adds a sense of adventure.”
Jasin often designs in vignettes or nooks. But purposeful spaces for her two children to explore are paramount. As she watches her children play in the yard, she observes how they interact with various elements. Then she adapts her design. For example, Jasin noticed that the garden outside the children’s playroom was constantly a focal point. Adding a bird feeder and colorful flowers, she cultivated their interest in every season. A large swatch of grass had the feel of a traditional yard, a perfect patch in which her toddler son could run and kick a ball. But the once-square, open space is now curved, providing an element of mystery to everyday play.
Jasin puts the tray down momentarily to snatch up a basket of knickknacks and natural items gathered by her daughter: It’s a “fairy basket,” stuffed with shells, moss, pinwheels, and tree bark. Jasin explains that she loves the idea of her two children free-playing in the yard without agenda, feeling fully engaged and immersed in nature. After all, they are a TV-less family.
“I want them to know the power of nature. It becomes part of who they are. I don’t want it to be something separate,” she says. “They don’t ever say, ‘Oh, today Mom’s going to work in the garden.’ No, Mom is always in the garden. There’s something poignant about caring either for people or plants, and the energy you create.”
A STUDY IN DESIGN
When Jasin initially began to design her family’s garden, her goal was to experiment. In design school at the time, she used her own yard as a case study in landscape design. Leftover plants from jobs were incorporated into the garden; observations of interactions were translated into revamps.
“I like to watch people circulate in this space,” Jasin says. “I love the dynamic nature. I’m always capturing that, shifting things.”
And while she loves piecing together surprising vignettes upon which her visitors stumble, Jasin also incorporates predictability into her design. Repetitive plants ground the backyard and provide comfort. Jasin says nostalgic additions, like a wind chime from her former home in Scottsdale, AZ, remind her what’s important in life. “It’s not about sense of loss. It’s a way to remind yourself when you’re far from someone or someplace,” she says.
Around the yard there is a mixture of naturally occurring and cultivated plants. A pink, plush bush of sedum is a happy landing spot for bees. New additions of dwarf firs, Russian cypruses,
hydrangeas, and hostas are juxtaposed by the plot’s original trees: American hollies, dogwoods, Norway maples, and spruces.
The focal point of the yard, perhaps, is the space most tailored to the adults. It’s the patio with a wooden table, chairs, and a grill, awaiting barbecues to come. This is the place where Jasin and her husband will sip beers, eat meals, and connect. A pond, which can be seen from most rooms in the house, adjoins the patio; a plastic enclosure now surrounds the space, keeping wandering, curious children safe. The backdrop of the pond is accented by canna, elephant ears, irises, and lilies; cat tail and rush rise out of the water.
“I need to walk outdoors and have it as a natural extension of my living space. It has to meld completely with our lifestyle,” she says, sitting down in one of the wooden chairs. “It can’t be high maintenance. We live outdoors so much that when I’m out here, I need to be able to relax.”
And listening now to the soothing water trickle over stones in the pond, lily pads bobbing with gentle plops, relaxation seems attainable. It’s moments like these—simply being present with the deep peace of the varied textures and colors of her surroundings—when Jasin reaps the rewards of the work she’s put into her dynamic project.
“I don't think I ever simply said it because its so inherent, but I want to create and be in beauty,” she says. And creating something beautiful takes constant care. “We want to make the roof on the garage a green roof. My husband is working on a trellis. To me, I feel like it’s never done.”