A house? Maybe. A garden? Forget it.

No sun, deer poop and going downhill is how Nellie Martin described the piece of land that she and her husband, Mike, bought in Litchfield in 2002.

“No gardening here,” is all Nellie could think about as Mike said, “We’ll take it.”

“I was not happy,” Nellie said. She told herself, “there will never be a garden here,” she said.

“Well, there is now,” she said with a big smile.

The Martins’ garden is not your average garden. It consumes their entire yard and then some.

“I am running out of land is the problem. My friends call me a plantaholic. I admit, I have a problem,” Nellie said with a laugh.

The Martins started digging a year after moving in and quickly realized the ground was nothing but rocks.

“Hey, people pay for rocks,” Nellie thought as she began using the stones to border each of her themed gardens.

There is a rusty bucket garden, a zen garden, a Victorian garden, a petroglyph garden and a rockery for plants that don’t need much water.

Numerous walking paths weave in and around the gardens. One particular walkway leads to Mother Earth and Father Thyme, who have heads of herbs rather than hair and are dressed according to their moods.

Mike built a seven-circuit labyrinth for meditation. It helps with making decisions or possibly a problem you are working on, Mike said about the 50-foot-wide labyrinth made with rocks from the yard.

“The legend is when you come to the center, you may find your answer or you may on your way out,” Mike said.

“That is the purpose of this garden — for healing,” he said.

The Martins host a group for spiritual gardeners once a month and hold a candle-lighting meditation once a year.

“Gardeners are very helpful people, and we all share and help build each other’s gardens,” Nellie said.

“Gardening is very addictive. I can’t stop,” said Nellie, who is always thinking ahead. “There is nothing better than next year’s garden.”

A ferry village is the next project, and a thyme garden is high on the list.

“Big imagination, small pocketbook, that is why the dump is so fun,” said Nellie.

“Gardens need art,” she said. But treasures for her garden are usually another man’s trash.

“I go to the dump and bring home more than I took,” said Nellie, who highlights her garden with such things as rusty shovels and old wood doors. “I just love the dump. You can really have a spectacular garden on a shoestring,” she said.

Nellie credits Mike for the design of their gardens. “He builds them and I make them pretty,” Nellie said. “The end result is I always love it. Everything I need is in my own backyard.”