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05/23/2018 08:30 AMHere’s some good advice for visitors to Dee Dee Charnok’s house. That pile of rocks, moss, lichen, and old seed pods tucked in a corner is not forgotten junk. All of them may become elements in Dee Dee’s floral arrangement, along with fresh flowers and colorful fruits and vegetables.
“You have to be an observer. If something on the ground catches your eye, take it home—if that’s legal,” she says.
Dee Dee will be demonstrating how she produces her designs as part of the upcoming Garden Tour sponsored by the Friends of the Essex Library on Saturday, June 9 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. She will hold two demonstrations, the first at 1 p.m. and the second at 1:30 p.m. at the library. Her creations will become part of the Take a Chance drawing at the end of the tour.
Her advice to whose making arrangements is simple: “Be bold; be brave; leave a statement,” she says.
Dee likes using large blossoms and with simple embellishments.
“Let big speak. I do love the wow factor,” she advises.
She also has some guidance for novice flower arrangers.
“Stay at it; do it often,” she says.
The Friends of the Essex Library Garden Tour features seven properties showing very different aspects of garden creation and maintenance: one is a Bonsai garden, another illustrates the how a garden can be created on a hillside; one garden demonstrates a distinctly European approach to landscaping and several feature classic new England design and plantings. A number of the gardens sit on what had once been uncultivated and uncared for land.
“Our objective was to show a variety of landscape and gardens in Essex and offer visitors an opportunity to learn from garden owners,” noted Linda Levene of the Friends of the Library.
Most of the gardeners themselves will be present to answer questions about their grounds.
Dee Dee hasn’t yet had a chance to work on the garden of the house in Essex she moved into last winter from Lyme.
“On the coldest day of the winter,” she adds.
But she is not a stranger to Essex, having previously lived in a number of homes in town, on River Road, New City Street, and Pratt street.
“We’re into adventures, reconstructions, additions,” she says, including her husband Jeff.
The latest move, she says, was done in the spirit of downsizing.
“You get to a certain age and a place can be too large,” she says.
The downsizing has included going from an eight-burner stove to one with four burners. Dee, who describes herself as an enthusiastic cook, says her particular interest at the moment is Indian food.
The rainy weather has prevented Dee Dee from making a start on the garden of her Essex house, but she is no stranger to garden design. For nearly two decades when she lived in Westport before moving to this area, she worked as a designer for a company that installed swimming pools, and landscaped the area as well.
The clients, she says, were extremely affluent.
“It opened a world to me of houses beyond the scope of imagination, with incredibly good taste. I learned so much from the experience,” she says. “It shaped part of me.”
More recently, Dee Dee designed the pebble garden in the front of the Essex Library, a community resource she describes as a jewel.
“I support the library; I am enthusiastic about it. I feel cosseted there. Sometimes in a moment of despair, I go there, take a magazine, and enjoy recuperating,” she says.
Despair, nonetheless, has hardly been the hallmark of Dee Dee’s professional life. Rather, it is characterized by action and a willingness to take risks. She once owned a successful store in Redding called Threadbare, that designed needlepoint and hooked rugs for people who brought pictures of everything from pets to houses they wanted to turned into craft projects. Dee Dee recalls it was the time that Erica Wilson, sometimes called the Julia Child of needlework, had made stitchery popular.
“We had a good location; there wasn’t anything like it, it was a nice business and we had some success,” Dee Dee says.
While living in Redding, Dee Dee recalls the confusion caused when a home-design and decorating magazine decided to use not only her house but her family as models for its Christmas dinner feature.
“It was absolute chaos,” she remembers, with animals creating part of the confusion. “The goat jumped on the Volvo; there were horses on the highway; they dressed my children in atrocious clothes.”
The final touch was that the huge Christmas dinner that the magazine designers created was inedible; it had all been slathered in oil so it would photograph better.
In addition to garden design for the pool company, Dee Dee created design projects, both exterior and interior, on her own. In the mid-1980s, she undertook an enormous project as party planner for a multi-day event to kick off the fundraising for the renovation and repair of the Statue of Liberty. Her work included everything from the major decisions, like arranging the entertainment, to the most minute of details: She had to make sure the floors of the ferry taking guests out to Ellis Island were carpeted for the event. That meant having carpet installed for five days and then having it all ripped out.
At the last minute, she got a call asking if there were sewing kits in the ladies’ rooms. There were not. She called some friends whose daughters had time to go out and buy them.
When asked how her drive and ambition would have shaped her life if she had been a man, Dee Dee paused for reflection.
“I enjoyed the things I have. I think I worked with people who looked to my skills, not my sex, and I had to opportunity to do things on my own terms,” she says. “It can be frustrating if your accomplishments haven’t been recognized that would have if it had been the opposite sex, but I think the world is evolving and there are many opportunities now for successful women.”
For those at any stage of a career of or life, Dee Dee has some advice based on her own experience.
“If you get knocked down, get back up,” she says. “Never stop learning; always be curious and be undaunted.”
Tickets for the Saturday, June 9 Friends of the Essex Library Garden Tour are available by calling the library at 860-767-1560. Tickets are $30 prior to the tour and $35 the day of the tour. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visitors should park at the Town Hall parking lot opposite the library and then go to the library, 33 West Avenue, for the description book and directions.