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The History of Winter Wheat
In 1997 I was on my way to Port Stanley when I spotted the “for sale sign”. Mike and I had been looking for some time for a home to purchase but this particular property sparked our interest.
This property was familiar to me. I had visited this property many years before and had met Fred Sheppard, the former owner.
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Fred Sheppard – Hermit and former owner of what we now call
Winter Wheat
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I loved the house and property back then. It was an 1840 Ontario style, two storey farmhouse surrounded by massive pine trees and hydrangeas.
It was beautiful.
Fred Sheppard purchased the house in 1947 and planted all of the pine trees himself. His plan was to sell the trees at Christmas, but as he aged the trees became too big for him to cut down. He also liked the peaceful environment that he had created with the trees.
Fred was a true hermit living alone in the woods, in a house with no furnace, hydro or plumbing. During the winter months he used a coal stove to heat his food, his home and an outhouse he used as his bathroom. I still find coal in my gardens where Fred dumped the ashes.
The outhouse still stands on our property and his words “protect trees from fire” are still painted on the inside and outside of the building.
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Fred’s outhouse still stands in our gardens with a gentle reminder to
protect his trees
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In 1991 Fred passed away and the property was sold to an architectural antique dealer who removed the doors, windows and floors to sell as antique items.
Then the property was sold once again to a couple who renovated the house and did a bit of landscaping on the grounds.
They owned it for a few years and once again it was put up for sale. That’s when Mike and I spotted the sign.
I had looked at many places in the Sparta area but none gave me the feeling of peace and tranquility that this property did.
I knew this was it!!!
So in 1997 Mike and I bought our home.
The first thing we did was clean up the driveway. When we purchased the property the driveway was very closed in and over grown with vines, trees, tree stumps and weeds. It felt like a long dark tunnel.
This cleaning up process took weeks of hard work and several bouts of poison ivy.
Mike then removed over one hundred, 50 to 75 foot tall pine trees behind the house so we could build our barn.
It took several years to clean up the woods so we could even walk through them.
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Our barn which later became the Winter Wheat store |
We then set about creating our gardens. We started around the house and then continued to add more as we cleaned up the woods.
Each year we spend hours with spring clean up. Pine trees are beautiful but they do drop a lot of needles, branches and pine cones.
I'm an amateur gardener and have learned a lot about what plants will work in this environment through trial and error.
The Annabelle hydrangeas were already here when we bought the property, so a lot of gardens have been established around them. There are three different wild ferns that grow here naturally so I have added them to my landscaping as well.
Each year we plant about 5000, annuals mainly impatiens, cosmos, marigolds, and petunias.
Over the years I have added many varieties of hostas, lilies, and a number of other perennials.
Lilies are still my very favorite flower in our gardens.
As I mentioned I am an amateur gardener and I really have no interest in learning the names of all of the plants in my gardens. I buy them because I love them.
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Our Lilies – One of my favorite flowers in our gardens
Our gardens are also filled with visitors and guests of all sorts. Baltimore oriels, blue jays, cardinals, robins, yellow and red finches, wrens, sparrows, crows, owls, hawks, turkey buzzards plus many other varieties of birds have made Winter Wheat their home.
There are also many varieties of butterflies that play amongst my flowers.
Red and black squirrels spend all summer hiding peanuts, sunflowers seeds and black walnuts in my flower beds.
From time to time we also see deer, raccoons, possums and chipmunks on our property.
Many people looked at this 5 acre property when it was for sale in 1997. What they saw was a huge amount of work but what Mike and I saw was a diamond in the rough, a blank canvas waiting to have color added to it to bring it to life.
Each year hundreds of visitors enjoy our gardens and we are thrilled and honored to be able to share our home with so many folks from all over the world.
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Each year we plant 5000 annuals in the gardens at Winter Wheat
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“The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden,
Than anywhere else on earth.”
Dorathy Frances Gurney - “Garden Thoughts”
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For those who are curious, we have several newspaper articles on the history of the Winter Wheat property and former owner, Fred Sheppard on our website. You can read these articles by clicking on this link:
www.winter-wheat.com/site/reviews.html
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