By Jim Newell
Review Staff Writer
Where some people saw a blank landscaping wall, Ron Birg saw a canvas. Or at least the opportunity to brighten up the view for himself and his neighbors.
Birg, who lives at Heritage Place Apartments senior living community, got tired of looking out his sliding glass doors at just the brick wall and the apartment building beyond, so he got to work planting a garden to beautify the area.
“I wasn’t even supposed to plant this garden,” said Birg, 75, a retired horse trainer. “But they left me alone, so it’s okay now. It was all originally weeds.”
Friend and neighbor Laurie Losiewicz, who shares the view with Birg, said a lot of toil went into creating the gardens.
“I get to reap all the fruits of his labors, as he’s planted flower across my area as well,” Losiewicz said.
“He deserves a pat on the back for his efforts to beautify the area. His gardens are truly a labor of love.”
While he still has to maintain the gardens, Birg also gets to enjoy the view, especially in the mornings over coffee.
“I sit here and look at it and turn on the Zen music station, and it’s very satisfying,” said Birg, who also walks every morning on the Paint Creek Trail.
Birg also has developed a fondness for classical literature, “All the things you were supposed to read when you were in school,” He said.
He likes to read Dickens in the winter “because it makes you feel warm.” Anna Karenina and Les Misérables are among his favorite novels.
Birg, a retired horse trainer, has worked at rodeos, race tracks, fox hunting clubs and horse farms throughout the Midwest. He even punched cows for two years in Colorado.
“My dad was a cowboy from Wyoming,” said Bird, who is originally from the Detroit area. “Horses are my passion, gardening is my hobby.”
While managing horse farms, Birg said he looked around at the green space, deciding the farms needed a little sprucing and that flower gardens would enhance the area. “And then I just started decorating.”
“My friend has a farm in Metamora. I have six gardens out there, too. A lot of canna lilies,” Birg said, adding that he still helps with the horses at the Interlaken Farm.
“I worked at Indianwood (golf course) for five seasons and learned a lot there,” Birg said. “But basically I’m self-taught.”
Losiewicz has found a way to show her appreciation while keeping Birg going: “I keep Ron supplied with fuel; I bake him cookies,” she said.
Birg said others in his family are artistic, either as sculptors or painters. “I guess this is my art,” he said. “People seem to appreciate it.”
“He’s so humble. He fits right into the makings of Orion. He’s an Orion guy through and through,” Losiewicz said.
Losiewicz, a former emergency room chaplain and reporter for the Auburn Argus, has a sign in her apartment that reads “Be your own kind of beautiful.”
“And that’s what Ron is,” she says.