photo by Marcus Frazier

James Gwin plans to use his backyard shop to create wooden artwork for his backyard. He and his wife moved to Natchez from the New Orleans area.

Couple tackles landscaping

By Vershal Hogan (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Monday, January 5, 2009

NATCHEZ — When The Dart found James and Frances Gwin at their Eastwood Road residence, they were relaxing in the backyard — an area they’ve been working on since moving to Natchez three years ago.

As a couple, they are half-retired — she is, he isn’t — but his work as a hospital engineer at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans keeps them busy.

They spend part of their time in the River Ridge area near New Orleans and part in Natchez.

When they’re at their Natchez home, they like to work to make it more like home.

For Frances, that’s through gardening.

“I’ve been doing it for about 30 years,” she said. “I just like to have a pretty yard.”

Even though it’s only a few hours to the north, growing plants in Natchez is a different ball game, Frances said.

“Everything grows in New Orleans because it’s a tropical climate,” she said.

And while she doesn’t think she’ll be able to grow Satsumas in Natchez, she still has high hopes for her yard, and she’s planted apricots, cherries peaches and lemon trees, as well as the southern perennial favorite — camellias.

“They love the cold weather,” she said.

This year hasn’t been without a gardening loss, however — her African sun daisies.

“It bloomed beautifully,” Frances said. “It was beautiful until about three weeks ago when we had that first cold spell.”

James’ contribution to the backyard is his workshop, but he plans to take some time, learn some new skills and build some decorative pieces for the property.

“I am going to build a lathe like the old time people did,” he said. “I’m going to build one for myself and another one that I’m going to treat and put out in the yard for decoration.”

His ultimate goal is to learn how to build with wooden pegs and limbs and logs

And that’s where living in the area can come in handy.

“I want to eventually begin building with timber,” he said. “You notice whenever the wind blows, we get enough timber to build something.”