Hard work turns a vision into a real garden

With advice from the owners of the nursery that has supplied the majority of the plants he's used, Phillips created the pond by capturing water from numerous small springs on the property, and then hired master landscaper Harold Inouye to place boulders along its edge.

Finally, he stocked it with rainbow trout and further enhanced its charm with plantings of water iris, waterlilies, and arrowhead plants.

Bordering the pond and providing a visual link throughout the garden and picnic area are elaborate rock walls created by a local craftsman.

The pond is surrounded by a seven-acre core garden of lawn and hardy perennial flowers. It includes a sizable fenced vegetable patch that provides food for Phillips in season and, often, salads for his guests.

It has taken about 15 years for Phillips to dramatically transform the property from the way it looked when he first visited.

Like any truly great garden, it can best be appreciated by visitors who stop at random points along the nearly three miles of graveled walkways and examine their surroundings.

They can admire 23 acres of painstakingly maintained "wild gardens" featuring Indian rhubarb, marsh marigolds, native azaleas, and ferns blending artistically with old-growth pine, cedar, and fir trees.

Further enhancing the landscape are plantings of aspen, mountain ash, sweet gum, dogwood, and maple trees, which create an arboretum atmosphere.

How long it takes to view everything depends on the walking speed of individual visitors, but few leave without having spent most of a day there.

Last summer, as Phillips led a group of about 80 guests along the pathway bordering the 1,000-gallon-per-minute spring that gives the property its name, one woman in the group sighed and said in a voice loud enough for her companions to hear, "If heaven is as beautiful as this, I want to go there."

That sentiment is likely to be echoed time and again now that Big Springs is open to the public. Reservations are required for lunch or dinner Wednesday through Saturday from May through September.

Like any other garden, Big Springs is "not quite finished" in Phillips's estimation. Despite the way the garden seems to swallow up truckloads of plants, he's always making mental notes on where to add more, or what to use to replace plants that succumbed during the winter. Recently he helped complete a landscaping project around a waterfall.

He's also dreaming of the future. There are portions of the property that might lend themselves to further expansion, he has decided.

"I think you could say it's 90 percent finished," he says. "I just hope people like what they see."

• For a brochure and further information, contact Don Phillips at 32613 Highway 49, PO Box 192, Sierra City, CA 96125. Phone (530) 862-1333.

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