ST. LANDRY PARISH — Ethel Park sits tucked in the middle of Washington, lined with walking paths, native plants, and seasonal blooms. Behind much of the garden’s upkeep and design is Dennis Anderson, a longtime resident who has spent years shaping the space one plant at a time. Volunteers help from time to time, yet Anderson leads as the primary landscape gardener—one plant, one project at a time.
“Well I’d always been a gardener, my mother was a great gardener, and I just picked up a lot of great things from her you know and I’ve always been interested in that,” Anderson said, but gardening, however, wasn’t always the plan. Before settling into the soil, Anderson’s hands were busy with something else entirely: aircraft.
“I was an aircraft maintenance officer, spent four years or three years in Illinois in the maintenance school and then went to Thailand for a year and three months, right when the Vietnam war was winding down,” he said.
Anderson graduated from college in 1967, when the military draft was a defining reality for many young men. “That was always hanging over our head, as soon as you got out of college. You were a number you know and if your number was up, going to college you still didn’t have a deferment,” he said.
Originally from Illinois, Anderson moved to California after leaving the service. He worked a series of day jobs before rediscovering his passion for landscaping.
“This whole area here, a lot of native plants here and that’ll be blooming soon and it’ll be interspursed with a lot of sages,” Anderson said, motioning to the rows of carefully selected flowers.
He and his partner, who met in 1972, retired to Washington three decades ago. Since then, Anderson has poured his creativity into the park’s green spaces, treating the gardens like a living canvas.
“Once you have the creativity spark, it doesn't die—you always have it with you, no matter what you’re trying to do,” he said.
“Creating things is very gratifying and when you can look and stand back, finish a garden. Do a project in a garden, stand back and look at it, it really gives you a good feeling,” he added.
Anderson continues to tend the garden with the same quiet focus and care that transformed it from a simple space into a park that invites the community to slow down and take it all in—one bloom at a time.
