Page 33 - The Hunt - Spring 2020

Spring, however, is the showstopper. It’s also Guymon’s busiest time of the year, as he does most of the weeding, mulching and edging himself. “Everything is blooming, and I’m pressed to keep it looking its best because people want to visit and tours start,” he says. “It’s a very beautiful but stressful time for me.”
One corner of the property takes its inspiration from the Far East. There, Guymon constructed a wooden zigzag bridge (avoiding straight paths wards off evil spirits, he says) with bamboo railings, which straddles a
koi pond filled with clusters of exotic water iris. The pond is edged with a dense bed of Japanese primroses and sheltered by a large grove of bamboo. Guymon keeps the bamboo from spreading with an open ditch he re-digs every year with the help of three part-time assistants. Dry-stone walls, a Thai Buddha and carved granite lanterns complete the scene.
Growing up in Provo, Utah,
Wayne Guymon wasn’t exposed to much flora. A Provo spring lasts about two weeks. “Then the sun comes out, burns everything, and that’s it,” he says with a chuckle.
Guymon’s only early experience with landscaping was mowing lawns on the nearby National Guard base in the summer. But he realized that he did like working outside.
The self-proclaimed workaholic got his master’s and doctorate degrees at Columbia University, where he applied linguistics and semiotics to the study of French medieval literature. He also began growing plants in his apartment—over 100 of them in bottles and jars on every windowsill. Morning glories trailed up his TV antenna.
Guymon’s work ethic served him well throughout a successful computing career for large companies. In the 1980s, he transformed the grounds surrounding the New Jersey lakeside cottage getaway he and Doris purchased. As Doris puttered in the flowerbeds, her husband looked over her shoulder and micromanaged every move.
Doris soon realized that if they were to stay together, she’d have to leave the gardening
to him. Back in their New York City apartment, he pored over his handful of gardening books, planning the cottage’s flowerbeds. In 1993, the couple moved to California, where Guymon immersed
himself in the study of desert plants. By the end of their five years there, he’d created a sprawling xeriscape garden filled with a variety of plantings.
At WynEden, Guymon records and manages his vast inventory of plants on
a computer spreadsheet. He orders most everything online, but he also enjoys sharing
with fellow gardeners. “My most unique plants are from people who gave them to me,” he says. “I always think of the person who gave me the plant when I look at it.”
Doris died in 2017 following a three-year battle with cancer. In her final days, she visited with friends and enjoyed looking out over WynEden as she sat under the pergola Wayne built for her near the house. “She was my biggest supporter,” says Wayne. “She never objected to using family funds for my garden projects, and she loved serving as WynEden’s social director.”
These days, Guymon’s poodles, Nico and Alexi, continue to chase each other through the gardens and the five acres of edited woodland, thanks to fencing around the perimeter of the property. The manmade barrier also keeps out deer and other animals, though Guymon swears off chemicals. “I’m a keeper of nature,” he says. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to kill anything.”
When his days of caring for WynEden are over, Guymon hopes to leave it to the Garden Conservancy to live on. “I treat it as a public garden now,” he says.
To all but Guymon, WynEden seems perfect. “I have a rolling 20-year plan—the garden still isn’t what I want it to be,” he says. “One day, I’ll have a real garden.”
Visit www.wyneden.com.
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