We have a decent crop of gardeners on our street, from ingenious T. up at the top, with his backyard pond surrounded in ferns and flowers, all the way down to G. & W. at the corner, making something lovely from a virgin plot.

Last weekend at a garage sale, neighbours S. & B. said, “C’mon back, you have to see what we’ve done.” So, today when conditions were better for photos, I went back to capture their little secret.

B. is a landscape architect by training, and S. has her own sense of design, and ways of making small investments go a long way. Since their boys have grown past a need for the climbing thing, the parents have created a quiet little Zenlike space back there, complete with fountain.

Above the gentle cascade of water is a visually enhancing mirror and a bed of cool ferns. They’ve done a fantastic job of making a small space seem larger and more interesting.

But wait! There’s something else going on here. Let’s look a little closer.

Okay, there are twinkle lights to further brighten the dark corner. Hmmm. What have they cleverly done to make this garden feature look more refreshing?

By gosh, they’ve padded the real ferns growing in the bed with plastic greenery!

And why not? From standard viewing distance up on the deck, and to tell you the truth even up close, the fakes are almost undetectable. In theatrical terms, it doesn’t read from the critics row.

A great understudy at work till the real stuff fills in. And we’ll never tell.