Restoration of gardens underway

The grounds at the Conrad Mansion Museum in Kalispell are in a state of upheaval.

The hedges that lined the walkway have all been pulled out, the flower gardens are now only swaths of turned up soil, most of the juniper trees have been cut down, and on Monday morning lines of bright yellow caution tape went up as one more visual reminder that big changes are coming to the historic home.

Conrad Mansion Executive Director William Chippich explained the work is just part one of a multi-year, multi-phase plan to completely rehabilitate the gardens. The initial plan included five phases, which were expected to cost $12,000 for each phase. However, phase one and two have both been fully funded, in part with a donation from the Sam Bibler Foundation, and so phases one and two were combined and now the whole project will be completed in only four phases.

The first phase is happening this year. The entire eastern side of the property will be carefully tended and groomed and replanted. Soil will need to be added in some places. Flowerbeds will be raised. Some of the original rocks have been dug up, and will be raised so they don’t get lost in the process. The juniper trees were diseased and dying from the ground up; those all have to be removed. Even two of the large pine trees on the mansion’s south lawn are going to have to come down.

“They weren’t properly trimmed and now if we attempted to trim them back to what they should be, it would be too much and would kill them anyway,” Chippich explained.

The pines are dangerously tilted and with the weight of the winter snows they have the potential to fall and cover Fourth Street East and could even strike a nearby home. Chippich is not happy about losing the pines, but acknowledges it has to be done.

Flowers have been ordered and will be arriving this month. Trimming and sawing and digging are all underway. But the gardens remain open to the public and fundraising is ongoing because after this year there are three more sections to complete.

Phase two is slated for 2020. It will cover the south end of the grounds from the edge of the work area covered this year over to the western rock wall. The following year will focus on the grounds directly behind the mansion and around the carriage house. Finally, in 2022, phase four will tackle the shadiest part of the grounds, the northern section. One of the reasons that has been saved for last is that the wrap around porch on the north side of the house is going to need quite a bit of maintenance work and construction, and it was decided to have that completed before attempting to landscape in that area.

This massive update began with an idea from Tyler Hawk, manager of the Bibler Home and Gardens.

“We have no record of what the gardens looked like in 1895 when the Conrad family moved in, so we can’t restore them to that,” Chippich said. “But Tyler Hawk came to us with a plan to bring the Conrad gardens back to Sam Bibler’s original vision for them.”

Louis A. “Sam” Bibler is directly responsible for the continued existence of the Conrad Mansion. In 1975 Bibler became the first president of the Conrad Mansion Board of Directors. He was instrumental in saving the mansion from being demolished. In addition, Bibler personally tended the gardens at the Conrad Mansion until fall of 2001. Bibler died in June 2002.

Fundraising for the grounds is ongoing. The mansion grounds are thought of as a public park, but the Mansion receives no tax dollars or funding from the city. The Conrad Mansion Museum has set up an entirely separate fund. The Meet Me in the Garden Fund is up and running and will have a lot of work to do this year and in the years to come.

The first big fundraising event is a collaboration with the Glacier Symphony set for Thursday, July 18. The event, THE Garden Party, will be the first time the mansion has teamed up with the symphony and will feature musicians in at least three different areas, including the famed Musician’s Arch. The tickets are $150 each and will be limited to only 150 tickets sold. Tickets can be purchased by going to glaciersymphony.org.

Those interested in donating to the garden work should contact the Mansion directly by calling 755-2166.

Brenda Ahearn may be reached at 758-4435 or bahearn@dailyinterlake.com.