JEFFERSON CITY -- Take two novice gardeners, plant them at 5,000 feet, give them a growing season with fewer than 65 consecutive frost-free days. Oh yes, and throw in a lot of hungry deer and elk.

What looks like a recipe for failure grew into a surprising success story.

From an accidental beginning grew an enchanting series of gardens, the Tizer Botanic Gardens and Arboretum, where more than 2,000 varieties of plants flourish.

It's not uncommon for visitors to point to a plant -- such as the holly, rhododendrons or larch -- and say, "but those don't grow here."

But oh yes, they do ... under the care of wife and husband team Belva Lotzer and Richard Krott.

And each year, an appreciative audience continues to grow. Last year the gardens drew 15,000 visitors.

Over the past year, their gardens became an official botanical garden affiliated with the Denver Botanic Gardens. It's now the sole botanical garden in Montana, said Lotzer.

And Tizer Gardens is now a testing ground for the Plant Select program, a partnership between Denver Botanic Gardens and Colorado State University, which develops plants for the Rocky Mountain and Plains states.

"Our absolute focus is plants that will grow in this area," said Lotzer.

This means they must be able to thrive at high altitudes, be cold tolerant and drought resistant.

The Tizer greenhouse sells Plant Select varieties appropriate to local growing conditions, as well as perennials, trees and shrubs that Krott and Lotzer have tested in their gardens for several years.

"A botanic garden is a place of education," said Lotzer. As part of this endeavor, she and Krott will be placing plant-identification signs throughout the gardens and developing a catalog of the plants. They already have compiled a database of 2,000 plants, she said.

But for many visitors, it's a place of peace where they can relax, surrounded by beauty and the happy bubbling sounds of Prickly Pear Creek.

There's also the ever-changing musical and visual accompaniment from such winged guests as western tanagers, hummingbirds, yellow finches, evening grossbeaks, redpolls, Steller's jays, juncos and pine siskins.

And as the season warms, the gardens will be aflutter with bees and butterflies.

A few steps into the garden and over the first of six hand-built bridges over Prickly Pear Creek lies the vegetable garden, still awaiting planting after the last frost date.

To the right is a large bed of chives and blooming violas. The array of teapots, cooking pots, and yes -- even a bedpan abloom -- announces your arrival to the herb garden.

A few steps away is the strawberry patch. A slight breeze stirs, and a sweet, arresting fragrance from a young plum tree stops a visitor in their tracks to breathe in the heady scent.

It is just one of approximately 30 varieties of pear, apple, plum, cherry and apricot trees that Krott is testing.

Down the winding path and over a bridge decorated with Tonka trucks packed with blooms, lies the fairy and children's garden.

Here, a complete miniature landscape of minute flowers, shrubs and trees surrounds a moss-covered stone house -- home to a family of fairies.

Children from Boulder's 21st Century Community Learning Center helped to grow the plants, build the house and move in the fairies.

"Kids absolutely love it here," Lotzer said.

Across the way, sits a child-sized bench, a sandbox, play equipment, a fort and a stand of whimsical, animated tree creatures -- created from upside down trees.

Soon their tree-root headdresses will be abloom with profusions of flowers.

Surrounding them and up the slope stretches Gnome Village. A staircase leading up the slope was created and planted by teenagers at Alternative Youth Adventures in Boulder.

Plans are afoot to build a 500-square-foot, wheelchair-accessible treehouse in the future.

Approximately 90 percent of the gardens are already wheelchair accessible, said Lotzer.

From above the children's garden, a path leads through chokecherries and a hillside of native balsamroot, prairie smoke, wild geraniums and purple sugarbowl.

Like other parts of the gardens, this area will be posted with plant-identification signs.

The path winds and carries visitors back down to the creek, where they walk through a screen door, entering the Secret Garden.

An ornate carved bench provides a resting place and inviting view of the rushing, tumbling creek.

Surrounding the visitor are pink bleeding hearts, unfurling fern fiddleheads and Himalayan poppies that soon will bear blue blossoms.

Visitors even receive a journal to jot down passing thoughts as they relax and soak in the "living room" of light, plants and bird song all around.

"People just need a place to come and sit and be quiet," said Lotzer of the refuge.

Outside the screen door and down the path, visitors pass the living tool shed, a whimsical collection of trees that grow a collection of garden tools -- from shovel and axe heads to faucets.

The discerning eye will also catch some living chairs Krott is creating by weaving together and training the growth of young trees.

The path spills out into the lawn, where a gazebo stands surrounded by perennial gardens and lawn and a shade garden a few steps away.

These expansive gardens were not what Lotzer and Krott set out to do.

"We started this 12 years ago as a hobby," she said, "and it's gotten so out of control."

"We found this place when we were looking for a garage sale," she said. "It was one acre and now it's seven."

They turned to books, and then master gardener and horticulture classes. Over the years, they and their gardens transformed.

In 2007, the couple earned the Gardener of the Year Award by the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

And the more they gardened, the more people wanted to see what they were growing.

And sometimes the gardens have a transforming effect on visitors, as well.

Krott shared the story of a blind man who visited several years ago. They offered him a chair on their deck and handed him a hummingbird feeder. He sat there for hours surrounded by hummingbirds.

A few years later, he returned after having surgery that helped him regain some of his sight. He asked to sit on the deck and hold the hummingbird feeder, so he could see what before he had only been able to imagine.

Children also capture the magic.

During one of the garden's annual fairy festivals, a child pulled on Fairy Belva's skirt and said, "This was the best day of my whole life."

Click here to go to the Tizer Gardens Web site.

Reporter Marga Lincoln: 447-4074 or marga.lincoln@helenair.com