Mike and Pat Crouse of 3300 Via Montana Way moved to Herons Glen 4 1/2 years ago. They are from Pennsylvania, with a blended family of two daughters, one son, two granddaughters and one grandson. Mike and Pat volunteer and spend a lot of their time at Next Level Church in Cape Coral and are highly active there in retirement.
But their true passion can be found in landscaping their yard on Via Montana Way. After purchasing their house, Mike began to use his Penn State Forestry/Horticulture college degree; and, the previous owners put him in touch with Deb Patton of DP Landscaping. Mike, Pat, and Deb began conversations around changing the looks of the front yard by adding a variety of bushes and plants with a slew of color.
The planning began when we decided to remove everything and start over. Since there is a major difference horticulturally between Florida and Pennsylvania trees and shrubs, Mike and Pat relied on Deb’s opinions about what should be planted. With the vision of what Mike could see in the front yard, he needed to pass that vision on to Deb and her company to plant the right plants. But before all of that came to fruition, Hurricane Ian decided to make its presence known.
After Ian, the Crouses purchased a whole-house generator to assure Mike’s health issues were not compromised when the next hurricane hit. After the 500-gallon tank was buried in the front yard, previous landscaping plans were scrapped. The Crouses and Deb started over and redesigned what is now the current design. There are over 15 different plantings that are utterly unique to our property – all very colorful. Our favorites are the fire & ice hibiscus that get red flowers in the summer. The 1 ½-inch brown rock stone added an impressive touch to bring out the features of all the plants and various ornaments in the yard – the blue herons and birdbath! We are blessed to have a landscape vision and then be able to work with someone who was willing to collaborate with us to conduct that vision.
Please stop by as we would love to share more about our experiences!
