Her efforts create a real garden spot

There's an old saying: If you need something done, ask a busy person. But you don't even have to ask Charlotte Ewer. She has just taken it upon herself to create or rejuvenate five gardens at Normandy Farms Estates in Blue Bell, where she has lived for the last six years.

Everybody knows Ewer by her trademark bandanna, by her wagons filled with watering cans and tools, and by her industrious presence in the flower beds and courtyards of this luxurious life-care community set on 100 acres.

"She's the girl who does our gardens, which we all enjoy very much," says George S. Peck, a resident since 1984. He's 95, retired from IBM, and his use of the term "girl" is, relatively speaking, right on the money.

Ewer is a mere 71, with a youthful presence and energy. "I wake up in the morning thinking garden," she says, though that isn't the whole story.

She's a volunteer in the Normandy Farms medical unit, hospice and library. She coordinates trips to concerts at North Penn High School. She crochets for Project Linus, which provides blankets to seriously ill or traumatized children. And she's a master practitioner of the hands-on healing technique known as Reiki.

But it is the gardens that Ewer loves best, and that - happily - fill most of her time even now, as summer gives way to fall.

"I'm playing," she says. "I'm having fun. I'm grateful."

Her neighbors are grateful, too, that three years ago she took charge of the flower beds at Normandy Farms, where almost 600 seniors live independently in apartments or "carriage homes," in assisted-living residences, and in a nursing home. She also fills and maintains the many hanging baskets and troughs that decorate the walkways and patios.

(Normandy Farms, which is owned by the nonprofit ACTS Retirement-Life Comunities Inc., has a landscaping contract for the lawns, trees and shrubs.)

"She's a treasure in this community," says Jeremy Neely, Normandy Farms' executive director, who jokes that when he sees Ewer coming, "I check the balance in my checkbook."

True, she begs, borrows and once in a while lobbies Neely or the bazaar committee for funds for pavers, trellises, troughs and plants. Mostly, she collects seeds and takes cuttings from her own garden, which is behind the one-story carriage home she shared with her husband, Ron, until his death in 2004.

In fact, if you look closely at Normandy Farms' entrance garden, "angel garden," herb garden, rose garden and the communal area officially dedicated last year as "Charlotte's Garden," you'll see a lot of the same plants, just arranged and paired differently.

"Whatever strikes me as a good combo, I do. Nothing formal," says Ewer, who subscribes to the popular gardening philosophy known as "seat of the pants."

There are no "shoulds" in her green bible. The experts may tout waves of one color or plant, odd-numbered groupings, and botanically correct Latin plant names. But the no-nonsense Ewer has her own ideas.

"I just plunk it in, see if it grows, and that's it," she says. "And just give me the common name."

So these gardens aren't for textbook types. They're for the folks at Normandy Farms, who run the gamut from hyperactive retirees to the very ill. All have paid a premium to be here, knowing that their every medical need will be taken care of for the rest of their lives.

Entrance fees for one person range from $98,900 for a studio apartment to $386,900 for a carriage home; add $25,000 for a second person. Monthly maintenance ranges from $1,708 to $2,595 for one person, more for a second. And there's a waiting list.

Many residents, like Peck, had gardens all their adult lives, and everyone's welcome to help weed. For all else, Ewer's the boss.

"I do a little bit here, a little bit there, and then you're maintaining," she explains with coy understatement.

Ewer likes the old-fashioned flowers her grandmothers favored: phlox, daisy, snapdragon and hollyhock, along with Johnny-jump-up, cleome, sweet pea, mum, clematis, zinnia, cosmos and ageratum. She favors bright colors; not everyone here can see so well.

As we inspect the gardens, Ewer cradles some huge orange zinnias and points proudly to some nascent wisteria. Residents shout hellos from down the hall and across the courtyard. "Hi, Frank!" she replies jauntily. "Hello, Laura!"

Six-year resident Agnew Derbyshire remembers when the gardens here were either nonexistent or neglected.

"Charlotte's a workaholic, just a great neighbor," he says, sitting on a porch with his wife, Marge, "and I keep thinking I'm so glad I don't have to weed all this."

Several years ago, when a lobby in the assisted-living unit was redone, the interior designer had the sofas facing the middle of the room. "Charlotte's Garden" was behind them, visible through a large window, but you had to turn around to see it.

"The residents, over time, have turned the sofas and chairs around to face the garden. They just love it," says executive director Neely.

Residents and their families can sit outside in the other gardens, which Ewer describes as "great communicators. Gardens are always sharing with people."

And so is she. "You're touching all kinds of people with a garden," Ewer explains. "You're teaching a little, and you're making a pleasant place for people to come to work and be."

As the gardens have blossomed, Regina Marie Ewer says, so has her mother.

"When I go over there, the residents have this look in their eye, and it says, 'Thank you.' That's the payoff for Mom, just to appreciate it," says Regina, a jewelry designer and sculptor from Schwenksville.

But knowing Charlotte Ewer, she won't be content to sit back and be appreciated. Over the winter, this onetime art student - she left Moore College of Art to get married - is threatening to add yet another activity to her long list: painting watercolors.