Beyond the garden gate: where the souls of gardeners commune with Mother Nature and we all may benefit from the results. Those results might come in the form of tasty tomatoes, fresh-picked on an early summer morn, or backyard gardens of tender peppers, corn, strawberries, cabbages with round unfurling heads, or breathtaking flower beds, sweeping just so around the porch, or that provocative container filled with sensory-pleasing herbs and cutting flowers to greet us as we come home. Beyond the garden gate, we may be lucky enough to learn the gardener's secret tricks—what kind of mulch he uses with such success, how often and with what does she fertilize, just what makes those gorgeous blooms pop here in Baldwin County.

Barb Comstock, a Daphne gardening wizard, who combines her love of nurturing both plants and animals, shares her garden and her special affinities for roses and exotic tropicals. The coastal climate here is far more encouraging of her endeavors than her native Minnesota.

Barb has been quite active in the gardening community since moving to Lake Forest three years ago. She is a Baldwin County master gardener and first vice president of the Lake Forest Garden Club. She is the new editor of "Grassroots," the newsletter of the Master Gardeners.

She was born into gardening, she says, as her father was a U.S. Department of Agriculture plant geneticist, her mother worked for a florist, and, uncommonly, all of her siblings have green thumbs. Barb has a degree in Animal Husbandry and has an aviary in which her cockatoo, Wilson, and several other birds share plants and perches.

Barb is no garden club elitist. She gets "down and dirty" and plans and maintains her own perennial beds that include her beloved roses and tropicals. She is particularly fond of the huge, fragrant pink blooms of her thriving "Belinda's Dream" rose. Barb advises that good root stock is crucial in growing roses successfully and orders "own roots" roses that are non-grafted.

In her mostly shady yard, Barb is blessed with a large sun-filled area where trees were removed after a hurricane. It is here that she has lovingly placed her tropicals, roses, and colorful perennials such as purple Verbena. In other areas of the yard, she has a ginger bed and grows some vegetables, such as onions, ornamental wheat and corn, and a few herbs. Barb uses no herbicides or pesticides in her garden, preferring more natural methods, such as mixing herbs in beds, to control pests. She is a big believer in using plenty of mulch, using 2 to 3 inches of bark chips and 1 or 2 inches of pine straw on top of the loamy sand.

This gardener is not above sharing her garden labors with two dens of armadillos that live there and work up the beds with their sharp claws. As this early spring progresses, Barb finds that she performs her garden chores earlier and earlier in the day—weeding and watering from rain barrels and soaker hoses and adding lime and cottonseed meal to her beds before the heat becomes too oppressive. She laughingly shares some valuable gardening advice gleaned from Felder Rushing's radio show. She and various family members can sometimes be seen in the wee morning hours creeping around the yard using a black light to locate what may be eating her roses.

Beyond Barb Comstock's garden gate, we discover a wise gardener who combines her knowledge of growing processes with the willingness to discover new ideas while on her knees in the dirt. Now, that can produce a soulful garden of pleasure!