Easton Native Creates Natural Beauty In Middleboro

Lisa (Looney) Erickson first developed her affection for flowers and plants when she was a young girl growing up in North Easton Village in the 1970s. 

“It was when my family was living on Andrews Street that I started being attracted to flowers,” said Lisa, 39, a long-time friend of mine.  “There were wild violets along the street.  And I remember one of my favorite places; it was behind the Grammar School; it was what I called a ‘secret room’ – which was really a small area bordered by three big stones, and the ‘room’ was shrouded by beautiful lilacs.

"There was Solomon Seal and celandine poppy and foxwood along Shovel Shop Pond and in the woods nearby."

Lisa (, Class of ’89) is one of five children of Dave and Jane (McMenamy) Looney, high school sweethearts and both Easton natives and OA grads.  

Early on, Lisa, became, as she says, “enamored” with “secret gardens.”  There were spots in Easton where she found these gardens, some out in the woods, some close to roads and on house lots, some cultivated, some overgrown and unkempt, that she enjoyed and which intrigued her.

“I am also influenced a bit by [Frederick Law] Olmsted, and his landscape design in Easton,” said Lisa.  “He tried to tie nature into his landscapes – and there were so many beautiful flowers and plants in the areas he designed in town.  Take a look at , which he designed, and all the plants and flowers he incorporated, including the noxiously beautiful loosestrife and Canadian mayflower."

Lisa credits as an inspiration, Blanche Ames (1876-1969), the leading suffragette, painter, writer, and all around "Renaissance Woman – who took the lead in designing the magnificent Borderland Mansion and its sunken Italian garden and surrounding landscapes.   Ames's husband, Oakes Ames, was an eminent botanist and teacher of botany at Harvard University; he specialized in orchids.

"Blanche Ames introduced woodland plants into the gardens and the landcapes around the mansion," said Lisa. 

Lisa loved flowers and plants, yet for years, after high school, and after graduating from George Washington University in 1993, she did little gardening.  After college, Lisa lived in Boston for a while, and then she moved back to Easton.

“When I moved back to Easton, I did rent a plot of land at Sheep Pasture to do some vegetable gardening.  My father’s brother, Michael, who knows gardening, helped me prepare the soil and do the planting.  I had a decent crop of vegetables; nothing spectacular, but not bad for a first time out.”

So, okay, we will do the proverbial fast forward here.  It is now 2005, and Lisa is recently married, and has a child, and is living with her husband, Jeff Erickson, a fourth-generation cranberry farmer, in a farm house on huge lot of land in Middleboro connected to his family’s cranberry bogs.

“There was a lot of land behind the house, and I didn’t know much about gardening, but I figured I would use the land, and give it a shot,” said Lisa.  “I was a novice; I knew nothing, and I just grabbed books and magazines, and went out on the Internet, and studied and tried to learn all that I could.”

Soon gardens got planted – and came to life. 

Lisa seems not to be overly planned in her gardening; she seems to “go with it.”

“I can't tell you what my favorite plants or flowers or types of gardens are; I don’t discriminate, and I love them all,” says Lisa.  “I guess I have a bit of a leaning toward roses, and Tasha Tudor and old English gardens.  And I like parterre gardens as well. 

“I’m also a fan of Gertrude Jeckyll, an English garden designer.  I’m now trying to create and grow the type of white garden that she is famous for.”

Lisa says that in her gardening she has spent most of her money and time on roses. 

Lisa’s husband, Jeff, built in the backyard a pergola – a sort of gazebo with open cross beams at the top – which is the foundation for her “Rose Room” that is bounded with other vines and flowers. 

"My Rose Room has 60 varieties of blue/gray roses – and lying over the top of the pergola is Wisteria.  The room is outlined in hosta, boxwood, and lavender, with pink daffodils for early color.”

Lisa’s favorite rose is Climbing Eden.

Lisa has a vegetable garden and flower beds – and a rock encased area of perennials, including delphinium and creeping phlox.

“As for when I start to prepare my gardens – well, it is when the weather permits,” says Lisa.  “If it is a mild March, I will be out there, pruning rose bushes, weeding, and taking inventory of what I have.   I almost certainly will be in the garden by April 1.

“I don’t believe in babying my plants, unless of course they are not zoned for this area.  I do believe that weeding is important.  To mulch or not to mulch?  I mulch, and I use cranberry vine leaves and only because it looks neater.

Lisa gives these tips:  "If you grow roses, make sure there are no leaves under the plant and cut all cross branches even if it kills you.  Roses need air, and dead leaves breed bacteria that can take many forms harmful to roses especially the infamous black spot."

"If you want to increase your perenial bed with nice and bushy mounding foliage plants, get yourself a sedum and dont' cut the seed heads off, and in two to three years you will have eight times the amount of plants you started with. 

"And weed, weed, weed."

As Lisa created and grew her gardens, she and Jeff grew their family.  They now have four children:  David, 9, Anna Jane, 5, Jeffrey 4, and Jack, 2. 

"All the kids join me in the garden; it is bonding experience; they have fun, and it is good for them to be out in fresh air and among flowers and plants," says Lisa.

Curiously, it seems that Lisa's horticultural instincts and gifts do not extend to the indoors.

Lisa admits, "I'm not very good with houseplants."