He built a wooden gazebo in one corner, reached by a small, wooden walk that bridges a 4,000-gallon koi pond. He started by taking out numerous trees to give him a cleaner palette to landscape. Ketelsen’s own garden has been just two years in the making, but he’s done a lot in that time.

He invited Rose Garden area residents with “unique private gardens” to contact him and picked the six, including his, featured on this tour. Their smaller scale gives hope to those with dreams of transforming their own back yards into places of beauty, serenity and retreat. There is the larger-than-life sculptured hand that rises alongside a path in Suzanne Proctor Comarato’s garden vintage Asian gates standing 9 feet, 6 inches at the back of Grace Vatus’ garden and a whimsical but usable garden house built around a living redwood tree in the back corner of Ron Ketelsen’s garden.Īll of these gardens and the three others on the tour are similar in size to most back yards in San Jose.Īll reflect their owners’ agreement with Francis Bacon that, “Gardening is the purest of human pleasures,” in that they maintain themselves, with occasional help.

Six Rose Garden area gardeners are opening their gates on June 8 and inviting the public to visit their private gardens for the Roses in Bloom Tour.Ī few of the homes have gardens in the front yard that are eye pleasing, but it is in the hidden gardens behind their homes that the real treasures are found.

A Fitting Place by Mary Gottschalk