Grounds Keeps is Best in Show

Even though they had a lovely pool, Christine and Bob Guido, owners of Rivers Edge Café in Red Bank, rarely spent much time in their backyard. They always wanted to grow herbs and lettuce for their café. So they filled in the pool and replaced it with a water garden, complete with a bubbling millstone, islands of bamboo and raised vegetable beds. For Christine, who says that her knees are not as good as they used to be, the raised beds allow her to garden to her heart's content. The Guidos' now grow lettuce, herbs, cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchinis for their restaurant and are thrilled to have a bounty of homegrown vegetables for their personal menus. The Guidos' garden was created by Grounds Keeper , an area landscape design firm.

Grounds Keeper was awarded "Best in Show" at the fifth annual New Jersey Flower and Garden Show, held in February at the New Jersey Convention Center in Edison. This was the third year in a row that Grounds Keeper president Jay Eriv and his design team of Lou Ann Buck and Craig Termono have taken home the top prize. The designers also won the People's Choice Award and Judges' Choice Award.

The theme of the 207 NJ Flower and Garden Show was "Once Upon A Garden," and the display gardens brought favorite stories, fairy tales, poems, plays and movies to life. Grounds Keeper recreated "The Secret Garden" based upon the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Visitors walked up stone steps into a pebble path and through an old wooden gate that served as an entrance to the formerly neglected garden, that according to the story, was turned into wonderful haven by a little girl and her friends.

Eriv creates landscapes that are four-season places of refuge for his clients ­ filled with fragrance, long-blooming perennial flowers, soothing sounds and peaceful movement.

Grounds Keeper begins its 34th year this season and in addition to landscape services offers water gardening education and plants, fish, kits and installation of water gardens.