Discover the hidden gems within Mary and Richard Callahan’s garden.

Once upon a time, the driveway leading to the last house on Cannondale Road resembled more a wild forest than a quaint residential.

“You couldn’t see the house until you got to the house; it was all woods,” Mary Callahan says.

That all changed when Mary and Richard Callahan purchased the property after getting married 12 years ago. They thinned the thicket and installed a curving paved driveway bisected by a roughly diamond-shaped plot, the perfect spot for Mary to design and build a garden.

Mary’s vision quickly expanded beyond just the garden. She began laying down stones and bricks to create a DIY garden path along the edge of the yard and into the woods surrounding their property.
“At first, my son was teasing and called it my ‘path to nowhere,’” she says. “It basically was. I was using it as an edging, and from there came all the other paths.”

Now, a charming network of paths winds through the garden, inviting guests to wander through the flowers. Along the paths, multitudes of birdhouses and whimsical decor items hide around every corner. Each holds its own origin story. For instance, a solid, bright green pot in the garden came from the old Furniture Factory Outlet on Missouri Boulevard.

“I thought it would be cute in the garden, and my son said something like, ‘You’re crazy,’ and asked, ‘Do I have to carry it?’ The answer to both was ‘yes,’” Mary says.

Many of her treasures come from thrift stores and antique shops, like a pair of stone bunnies Mary fondly refers to as her “ugly rabbit statues.”

“When I told [the owner of the antique shop] I was going to put them in my garden, she looked at me like she wanted to kill me,” she says, laughing. “From then on, I didn’t tell.”

Everything in the garden seems to fit exactly where it’s supposed to, including two lofts, custom-built by Richard and his friends, where 36 pigeons reside. Formerly an elected federal judge, Richard had pigeons as a child, and he rekindled his hobby of raising homing pigeons through his friendship with Alex Mastrogiannis, the owner of Alexandro’s Restaurant.

“He used to have pigeons over in Greece, and his bartender got tired of hearing us talk about pigeons,” Richard says. “On my 40th birthday, I walked into Alexandro’s to have a drink, and the bartender put two pigeons on the bar and said it was a birthday present.”

Now, he plans to breed 100 youngsters between January and June this year. The birds will eventually travel to Miami, Dallas, Thailand, and beyond to race other homing pigeons.

Pigeons aren’t the only creatures that call the property home. A sparky Schnauzer-Poodle mix named Molly often greets guests upon arrival, and two outdoor cats named Walter and Samantha roam the woods. Pileated woodpeckers, indigo buntings, and goldfinches also frequent the garden, and wild turkeys can be seen crossing the driveway in numbers up to 15. Butterflies can even be seen flitting to the monarch garden to visit the butterfly weed, asters, and other wildflowers.

The rest of the garden is made up of more than 50 types of flowers, shrubs, and trees. Mary intentionally curates striking color combinations, with bold magenta and orange blooms being her personal favorite.

“I like to look out my windows and see what looks like a painting or a picture to me,” Mary says. “I also like walking through. I have a lot of different places to sit in the garden to view it from different perspectives. It makes the garden look different depending on where you’re sitting and the time of the year.”

In springtime, daffodils, tulips, and forsythia poke their way out of the ground. Summer brings three varieties of lilies, irises, allium, and viburnum. In the fall, mums and goldenrod come into bloom.
From helping her dad with his rose bushes to becoming the lead florist at Schnucks grocery store, Mary has always used flowers and plants as a creative medium.

“My wife’s a little modest,” Richard says. “She won a national award [in 2009] and was flown to Atlanta to receive it from Super Floral Retailing.”

Longtime Jefferson City residents might remember Mary’s winning display at Schnucks’ floral department, complete with a giant turkey arch, fall leaves hung from the ceiling, and piles of vibrant yellow and orange flowers amid pumpkins and other fall decor. Everything was made from cardboard and painted by hand.

“I did it all myself,” Mary says.

She brings the same can-do energy to her own home garden, which earned a spot on the Bittersweet Garden Tour in 2016.

It’s easy to imagine Mary’s aforementioned “path to nowhere” winding through the woods indefinitely, but she insists that she’s done adding onto the garden’s walkways. However, there’s no such thing as too many plants, so guests can bet on finding Mary in the local garden shop aisles this March and April.

“Every year I say I’m going to plant less, and I don’t…We gardeners, we’re all sitting around and waiting for spring. It’s what we love to do.”