Botantical Paradise

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Terry Calek lives for spring. "Winter drives me nuts."

A voracious gardener, Calek turns euphoric when the calendar flips to May and plantings flourish.

Calek and her husband, Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov, live along Shadow Road in Bellevue. Their home sits on three acres of secluded natural habitat that boasts rock creeks, stately trees and a contoured terrain.

Once May hits, "Everything comes into its own," Calek says of the botanical paradise she's been nurturing for 16 years. "I started working on the garden before ground was broken for our home."

She took advantage of February's unseasonably warm temperatures to pick up sticks, contemplate rose beds and walking paths, and survey spikey ajuga reptans, silver-leaf lamium and waxy pachysandra peeking through patches of snow and mulch.

The delicate beauty of April's coral bells, lily of the valley and Virginia bluebells is trumped each year by a "sea of yellow daffodils" and tulips that roll across the emerald landscape.

May, however, brings the much-anticipated aroma and color of Asiatic lilies, poppies, penstemon, hydrangea and daylilies. Magnolia, red bud, lilac and other flowering trees and shrubs add to the spectacular array of emerging foliage.

By month's end, peonies -- with ruffled petals forming corsage-like flowers -- join cascading clusters of wisteria and viburnum.

"The fragrances drift throughout the yard," says Calek, who left the corporate world 10 years ago for a more relaxed lifestyle. (She currently works as a marketing communications consultant for Chip Davis and Mannheim Steamroller -- a job that allows her to get maximum enjoyment from her gardening hobby.)

June arrives with an explosion of color as garden spots are painted with Asiatic and Oriental lilies, bearded iris, poppies, lamb's ear, balloon flower, hollyhock, foxglove, delphinium and hydrangea.

Fresh-cut stems perfume the house throughout the growing season.

Autumn's display takes place under a richly textured golden canopy.

And "winter is a time when the bones of the garden shine," Calek says. Yews and evergreens stand like frosted green cakes while hydrangea and sedum stems glisten like sabers.

Crossing the first footbridge along a path from the house gives pause in any season. But in spring, "It's so nice to hear the water trickle," Calek says. Her favorite destination is a wooden bench in the lowest spot of the garden. "I can sit and see the expanse of the garden and the character of the plantings."

Decorative objects and sculptures are sprinkled throughout the landscape, but none gets too comfortable. "I change them out like pillows on a couch," says Calek. She rarely travels without picking up a garden treasure. A whimsical gnome with big blue eyes and red shoes found its way from Los Angeles to Bellevue just last winter. She confesses: "I'm a sucker for unusual gazing balls."

In May, Calek easily spends three to four hours daily in her garden -- grooming, planting and transplanting. Chores taper to 2.5 hours daily June through August. "I'm big on clipping dead blooms on perennials. Clipping gives plants nutrients." September through November, her focus is on planting, transplanting and trimming.

The perennial garden is an extension of the Calek-Polikov home. "Absolutely. The main house is mostly windows. We're enveloped in a sea of color."

Visitors share a common reaction: "Oh, my God."

Five or six years ago on a Saturday morning, the family's dog started to bark. Calek looked out the back windows and saw four elderly women on a footbridge. When Calek approached, one of the women exclaimed, "We've heard all about the new park. We just had to come and see it."

Calek invited them to look around. "They were so embarrassed."

Every now and then, a car will stop and its passengers will get out to peer down the slope. "I don't mind," Calek says. "I know they appreciate what they're seeing."