When he returns home from a day spent in the business of death, Irwin Goldman of Buffalo Grove sits inside the celebration of life he built in his backyard.
“Coming home gives me my solace,” he said. “Work can be somewhat stressful, dealing with families in their most stressful time.”
Goldman is a funeral director, operating a pair of locations in Skokie and Buffalo Grove. He said working with clients undergoing tragedy can throw weight on a man’s soul, so he stays buoyant by landscaping. And others are taking notice.
The Buffalo Grove Arts Commission recently named Goldman’s property on Crab Apple Terrace the winner of its first landscaping contest. Arts commission Chairman Elliott Hartstein made the announcement to the three finalists and a crowd on Sept. 5, during Buffalo Grove Days.
“To be recognized was very rewarding — it put an exclamation on what I do,” Goldman said. “But I don’t do this for the recognition. I do it for myself.”
What Goldman does is turn his corner lot, with frontage for both Crab Apple and Chestnut terraces, into a four-month-long, slow-motion fireworks show of color. In front of a dark background of well-fertilized Kentucky bluegrass, a space might burst with purples and reds in the cool early spring, but turn blue and yellow as the heat of August kills one set of life and activates the next.
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“The lawn provided me with an ability to express myself through nature,” he said.
When he bought a two-story colonial house in Buffalo Grove 23 years ago, the front, back and side yards were empty. He said he has since filled them with about 40 trees and innumerable bushes, water features in a hole he dug himself and several custom-made planting pots and artistic decorations.
For 14 years, he has owned Goldman Funeral Group. He said that he has seen probably every variation of mourning and every family dynamic possible. Some days, a relative who did not visit a dying person in the hospital shows up for the final service and other, more involved relatives might have an opinion to share. Other days, he works with adult children who may have had a wide spectrum of relationships with the lost parent, and each other. Every day, he has to dress and comport himself to show that day is of unique importance to him, too.
“You need that seventh sense going,” he said. “When I come home, I’ve given everything I have to my families.”
But he always has a little something left — and he puts it in his yard.
“I cut my lawn twice a week,” Goldman said. “Craziness, but I do it.”
Actually, he only mows himself every weekend. On Wednesdays, he pays a professional landscaper to trim and edge. He changes the angle of the mow lines throughout the summer, to constantly update his lawn’s look. He aerates annually, and the in-ground sprinkler system keeps it watered.
Goldman wants his lawn to be an art show. To that end, he frequents the Lincolnshire and Buffalo Grove art fairs, looking for things his plants can grow on, up or in. A wiry chair sits at the base of a pear tree in his yard, with black-eyed-Susans in the seat and blossoms extending up the trunk. Bird cages and bicycles become display cases. He said he works with Lincolnshire-based Didier Farms on his arrangements.
And the arrangements are meant to keep his property colorful throughout the growing season. He said he knows when his twisted-bark hibiscus are at their peak, and how to balance their effects with weeping cherry trees, dwarfed honeysuckle hedges, arborvitae and more. On the house’s western side, the lavender plants give off a great aroma in September.
“The plant is giving back to me,” he said, while breathing his blossoms’ work in.
Goldman didn’t know how much he has spent over the 23 years he has cared for his lawn — but that he estimates he spends $6,000 a year on fertilizer, art, water and new plants, plus another $2,000 on professional landscaping.
“I’m a little nutty about this,” he said.
He jokes that his wife, Felicia, “is not one to get her hands dirty,” but might sometimes take the credit for the Goldman family lawn.
When he won the landscaping contest, the arts commission gave him a first-place sign to place in his lawn. The sign is in the garage. He said his creation gives solace to him and, hopefully, others — his achievement will not.
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