Cieslak’s summer snowscape

Zionsville man’s yard is covered in millions of white blossoms

By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com

Jerry Cieslak has a yard that, at a glance, looks like it gets covered in snow every summer and fall. Cieslak’s unique landscape has been decades in the making, and he was kind enough to speak to The Reporter about how this fascinating floral field came to fruition.

The photos in today’s edition are sweet autumn clematis, which he calls “white lace,” but that’s only what you will see this season. Earlier each year, Cieslak’s yard is dotted with islands of daffodils and tulips.

“All these beds are full of tulips and daffodils,” Cieslak said. “What happens is they go ahead and bloom in the spring of the year and the white lace dies down. It really doesn’t die. It kind of hides when it goes below the tulips and daffodils, and then it can go ahead and the tulips and daffodils can die, and then the white lace takes over.”

 

This landscape grew out of an interest in roadside flowers Cieslak developed when he was driving around Indiana running his plumbing company, Cieslak Pump, Well and Water System Service.

“When I was in business, I would go down the interstate and I would see it blooming, and I didn’t know what it was, and I’d take a start of it,” Cieslak said. “I’ve had my company for a long time, and I thought it would look good in the yard, and anyway, I’ve got a lot.”

He estimates his annual blooms to be in the millions each year.

While there are multiple varieties of clematis, and they have different leaf shapes, the flowers bloom the same. Cieslak knew by the leaves what would eventually bloom, so he took cuttings from several varieties to grow his flowerbeds.

At the beginning of this article, we mentioned that Cieslak’s yard looks like it is covered in snow. That simile was intentional.

“When I bought the property in 1972, all it was was a barren field,” Cieslak told The Reporter. “I got the property in ‘72 and I paid for it in ‘77. I used that for collateral to build my house. Then I moved into my house the day before the blizzard of ‘78. The blizzard came out of the east, and the snow was up to my gutters in the front of the house.”

 

Cieslak spends time tending to his garden almost every day. He kneels in the clematis to pull weeds from the berm surrounding each bed, which he calls his therapy.

“After I had my stroke and my heart attacks, I couldn’t talk, walk, read, or write, and this is my therapy,” Cieslak said. “From the grass to the white lace, I’ve got a berm, maybe a foot, and I keep that clean. With the rain, my oh my, I’ve got hundreds and thousands of weeds come up. I mean, usually I don’t have a weed here and a weed there, but oh man, you know what? The weeds don’t come up and the white lace crowds around.”

If you’d like to see Jerry Cieslak’s sea of flowers, all you have to do is drive past 1815 S. County Road 1100 East, Zionsville. Photos do not do it justice.