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Martha Friend is loaded with personality and so is her Somerville garden

The whimsical yard on a bustling street contains not just lovely flowers but a spectacle in green glass.

On busy Highland Avenue in Somerville, a quirky, colorful garden has become a local landmark.  It’s even been a Pokemon Go “Pokestop.”
Georgia Lee
On busy Highland Avenue in Somerville, a quirky, colorful garden has become a local landmark. It’s even been a Pokemon Go “Pokestop.”
Georgia Lee
Giant dahlias are mingled in with do-it-yourself garden art at Martha Friend’s Somerville home.

The quirky, colorful garden in Martha Friend’s front yard, on busy Highland Avenue in Somerville, is such a local landmark that strangers stop and thank her for creating it. It has been a Pokemon Go “Pokestop,” and it’s even interactive. When she was gifted with an eroded stone statue that looks vaguely like some mythological figure, Friend put a box near the street inviting guesses about whom it depicted. Some 20 passersby left opinions.

The well-loved garden changes with the seasons. In early spring, flowering bulbs brighten the scene. In summer, the palette of orange, fuchsia, gold, and purple matches the vibrant sculptures Friend assembles from old chandeliers and lamps, which hang from the porch ceiling. A small blue plastic tyrannosaurus peers like a gargoyle from the roof of the shed onto bright phlox and gloriosa daisies below. The creator of this fantasyland is a retired Revere High School teacher who loves to spray-paint her garden’s collection of found objects with bright shades of weatherproof Rust-Oleum. “I think it’s funny!” says the outgoing Friend.

Though the overall effect is one of cheerful spontaneity, there’s no sloppiness here. Friend’s plants are living the good life. She spends up to 15 hours a week planting, weeding, and deadheading to give an underpinning of order. The growing conditions are near optimal. The previous owners of the 1896 Victorian house surrounded it with a low wall of white marble and then filled the space with good soil. In effect, they turned the entire front and side yard into a very large raised bed, with perfect drainage and almost full sun. Two years ago, Friend even installed in-ground irrigation. “It only cost me $1,500. It’s the best thing I’ve done,” she says. “Dragging hoses around was making me crazy. Now everything’s watered electronically by 5:30 a.m.”

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The tiny backyard is another world entirely. Heavily shaded by neighboring buildings and an old Concord grape arbor, it’s home to “The Emerald City,” a wall of green glass bottles and ceramic Christmas trees clustered on tiered metal plant stands bought online. The wall is positioned so it is backlit by the sole sliver of direct light that pierces the backyard’s gloom, projecting a kaleidoscope of fractured green across the yard. A many-headed green vase on the apex of the glass wall serves as the Wizard of this Oz, says Friend playfully.

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In 20 years of gardening on Highland Avenue, Friend has had many compliments and never a single criticism from users of the heavily traveled thoroughfare. But she also notes that none of these fans has ever asked her for help or advice on how to decorate their own gardens. “People love it in my yard, but they don’t want it in their own yards,” she says. “Most people are very conservative about their homes.”

Most people — but, thankfully, not all.

Carol Stocker is an award-winning garden writer for the Globe. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter @BostonGlobeMag.

MORE PHOTOGRAPHS:

“The Emerald City” , a wall of green glass collectibles behind the house, glows iridescent when backlit by the morning sun.
Georgia Lee

“The Emerald City,” a wall of green glass collectibles behind the house, glows iridescent when backlit by the morning sun.

Georgia Lee

Martha Friend has created a Somerville landmark on her corner lot.