Outside Gasport, drivers may be surprised to discover a mini botanical garden next to the ruins of the well-known Mabee Mill with its waterfall. As tulip season peaks this week, the creekside location pops with colorful dots of tulips and sings with sunny daffodils, narcissus, and hyacinths.
Carrie Snediker, and her husband Dave, have been quietly adding gardens and structures to their property at the corner of Slayton Settlement and Quaker Roads for the past 40 years. This year’s festival of flowers is just beginning. The Snedikers’ gardens are filled with plants for every season.
“Their whole property is like a park,” said Beth Zopella, Carrie’s niece who lives a few doors up the road.
The center of the Snedikers’ sprawling side lawn features a copper-topped Victorian birdhouse and picket fence surrounded by circles of brick walks and flower beds of blooming tulips and daylilies that flower in mid-June. A cottage with a porch is located further back, with a view of the creek.
“It’s magical because if you go to that cottage, the stream fills a pond below,” Zopella said. “It sounds beautiful and you hear the birds.”
Last fall, Carrie planted a bed of more than 1,500 daffodils, narcissus, hyacinths, and tulips at the top of the creek bank.
“I just love the sound of that water flowing through the creek,” she said. The bulb bed is now ablaze, featuring her favorite pink and pastel colors.
The circle bed, now a tulip showcase, was created for another favorite flower.
“We started just buying daylilies at different places year after year,” Carrie said. “Then we put the tulips in. They work well together. This is the sixth or seventh year with the same bulbs.”
The Snedikers think big. In two afternoons in autumn, they planted the 1,500 tulips — 500 each of red, yellow, and white, with Dave choosing the colors.
“We had to plant around the daylilies, so it was individual holes for each of them,” Carrie said.
In 2018, they fell in love with a flagstone archway called a moongate at Sara’s Garden Center in Brockport.
“So we had a professional come in and do that,” Carrie said. “They built a round circle out of wood, put the stones in, and cut the wood out. They are not attached to each other.” The stones in the arch are held together by tension alone.
“We’ve got people stopping and asking to have their wedding pictures or their prom pictures there,” Carrie said. “We’ve had a couple of weddings here and my daughter got married here.”
As professional as the property looks, Carrie said it’s all for family gatherings.
“We own 19 family homes in our neighborhood,” Zopella said. “My home is an original homestead. Our ancestors came from Germany 200 years ago. When a house comes up for sale here, most of the time our family buys it.”
“A lot of times we buy them by the name, if it’s like somebody’s name in the family,” Carrie said. Her daylily collection includes solid and bicolor flowers in every color, including black.
“We’ve got one called Princess Diana that’s white.” Some are scented, others are ruffled, and some are supposed to bloom continuously, she said.
“Some of the better ones we break apart and put in a new garden,” Carrie said. “We’ve got them everywhere. But they’re easy and don’t take much care.”
Carrie is also partial to bearded irises, peonies, and alliums, which will start blooming at the end of May.
Soon Carrie will be planting her new dahlia order, shipped in five boxes of 1,200 bulbs each.
“I’ve also got a lot of single ones that are special that I’m starting inside. I’ve got some that I’ve paid $20 for a bulb. Then I keep those in a separate garden so I can pamper them.”
Carrie said she spends four to five hours a day gardening. She said the family’s golf cart has been a lifesaver for chores, and she has only had a back problem once. She starts selling cut flowers in her roadside stand starting the second week in July. Her bouquets include zinnias, snapdragons, and dahlias in every color.