By JOHN EBY

Dowagiac Daily News

Gregg Greenwood survived 14 months of Vietnam combat unscathed, only to have his life irretrievably altered 27 years ago in a motorcycle accident in front of McDonald’s during his commute to work.

“That’s how it happens. A half-mile from home,” Greenwood said Tuesday, accepting Town and County Garden Club’s $75 first prize in the annual city beautification contest.
Greenwood has had 28 surgeries repairing damage a hit-and-run driver delivered to him, so gardening is his “peaceful” solace and his way of “finding the goodness in a bad situation.”
Others will always be worse off, so he doesn’t want to waste time feeling sorry for himself.

He’s lived at 125 Lyle Ave. for 16 years, but only seriously unleashed his green thumbs seven years ago.

Who knew there were three Lyle arteries in greater Dowagiac? Greenwood’s, one by Hale’s Hardware and another in the Henry Heights subdivision off Pokagon Street.

It’s hard to describe where Greenwood grows because when you say he’s on the corner of Bishop, Lester and Lyle, suffice to say he doesn’t order a lot of delivery pizza.

His house is situated on a pie-shaped parcel with a door facing two of the streets.

Thanks to the broad, blank expanse formerly occupied by Jessup Door, from his back yard can be seen the colorful flower terrace in front of Elaina Grady’s, separated from the rest of E. Telegraph by the crossing closed in anticipation of high-speed rail.

Gregg’s bright backyard lost a big shade tree he took down because part of the silver maple dangled perilously close to his roof.

For a time, the stump remained.

This spring the stump went, too, and has already been filled with a fresh bed of plantings.
Even the part of the yard damaged by a gas leak flourishes today.

“I don’t like to see anything die,” Greenwood said, “so someone will give me a start of something. That’s where this row of rose of Sharons came from. They were all little starts. I just couldn’t throw them away, so I do have to get it under control.

“My brother owns the old Marhanka farm and his wife gardens. She got me started on iris, which I’ve always liked. I’ve got orange-peach, so many shades of purple and white-purple. It’s really pretty in the spring. That line there of iris bulbs is probably a couple hundred years old, the old-fashioned purple. They’re not real tall, like the bearded iris.”

“I couldn’t get anything to grow when I bought this house 16 years ago,” Greenwood said.

A lush explosion of Oriental grass hid where previous residents burned.

“It was charred and there were tin cans. Probably if I had a metal detector, I could have found all kinds of stuff.

“I was driving around in Baroda one day and ran across the Root Cellar nursery. The lady said you couldn’t kill this grass and it would grow there” near hydrangea trees which bloom light green, then turn mauve in October.

It’s hard to tell anymore that his game plan consisted of “trying to cover bare, ugly spots where I couldn’t even get myrtle to grow.”

Living on Social Security disability, Greenwood shops for plant bargains and utilizes the city compost site.

He has plants from Pamida and pots he scooped up in Imperial Furniture’s clearance corner.

“I had one dahlia up to 5 1/2 feet,” he said. “Had it staked. Blooms were so dark I called it the Black Dahlia, like that murder. That storm that came through Friday night snapped that sucker right off. Me, not wanting to see anything die, I cut off all the buds and put them in a glass, where they’re blooming.”

“The City of Dowagiac inspired me to get these pear trees,” he said, passing a row of hydrangeas in different colors.

Dragonsblood, a perennial he got at Shelton’s in Niles, puts out clusters of dainty white flowers.

“My son lives in Hudsonville and teaches in Jenison and built a new home. He had me on the Internet looking for nursery stock. He paid $250 for trees I got for $19 by getting in my car and taking Sunday rides to these little mom-and-pop places out in the country.”