The Secret Garden Edit
Growing pains, gardens gains and the slow build of something beautiful
My close friends know that my Godmother Fran is like my second mother. She hadn’t yet become a mom when I was born, and since she lived right next door to my parents, my mom would pass me over the fence to her ( I’ve heard this story a million times.).
When Lee & Fran moved two hours away, I would go visit them for a full week every summer. She gifted me The Secret Garden, but even more beautiful, that summer she read it to me chapter by chapter. And thus my obsession with England and gardens with high walls began…
I was 37 when we could finally afford to buy a townhouse in LA and we had the tiniest little patio—outdoor space! I was blogging quite a bit then and partnered with Decorist x Loews and Lonny magazine to makeover our patio and even brought a gardener in to give me a little English garden. It was dead in a matter of weeks (lol).
Cut to now in Raleigh, we have an actual yard with actual grass and trees and a lot more space to do something. I dream of hiring Deborah Nevins, Gil Shafer’s landscape designer to give me the garden of my dreams, but again, my taste outseeds (get it?) my budget.
I thought it would be fun to share some of the plans and things we have learned so far. If nothing else, gardening is teaching me patience. You cannot rush a garden.
And God knows, you cannot rush a landscaping company.
Our landscape company is mostly known for residential yards and commercial projects, so they brought in a wonderful gardener to help bring my vision to life. Angela Stonestreet of Odora Designs drew up the plans, choose the flowers based on what I said I wanted, and has basically been giving us a Masterclass on how to take care of everything. She gets it, and I feel so lucky to have her helping us! Dave also built me some flower beds (below), so I’m attempting to grow tomatoes! I have many on the vine, but let’s see if I can get them to ripen before a bird eats them all.
If you are a beginner like me, these are a few things I’ve learned about gardening:
You want to plant a mix of annuals and perennials and things that bloom at different times so that your garden always has something in bloom (This seems SO obvious, but I am a true beginner).
Unless you’re going to hire yourself a Ben Weatherstaff, you need to tend to your garden daily (even if it’s just to dead head something or pull a weed).
Too much mulch can suffocate your beds and hold in too much heat in the Southern Sun.
If you get any sort of mites, white flies, etc, you have to spray (I use Neem Oil) under the leaves every day! This feels like a full time job.
Topiaries (like we have) will not survive the shade. We just had to repot them and move them to the back of the house, and now we need something like a fern for the front. Boo hoo.
Plants on your patio should always be a little damp. Don’t let them dry out! Who knew??
I also really loved
tips on their first home garden—especially when he suggested that you just choose one area so you don’t get overwhelmed trying to do the entire yard at once.
The enviable vegetable garden from the movie “It’s Complicated”
While we wait for my garden to bloom, here are some really fun stories you can read for inspiration:
If you haven’t gone down the Amanda Brooks rabbit hole, here is one of the first stories from 2018 when she left Vogue for the Cotswolds.
Frederic Fekkai’s Vacation Home in the South of France surrounded by lavender is the absolute dream!
Before it was Downtown Abbey, Highclere Castle was Misselthwaite Manor from Hallmark Hall of Fame’s The Secret Garden—the absolute best rendition of that story. Here are the gardens.
My friend sent me this NYT story this morning “Our Favorite Gardens.”
Celebrating Rosemary Verey, who created the iconic gardens of Barnsley House (now the newly opened The Pig. I wrote about The Pig near Bath here.
Martha Stewart’s Tips for Creating a Garden You’ll Love.
A tour of Ina Garten’s garden in East Hamptons.
Botanical prints of pressed flowers—in case you don’t have a garden yet.
A gorgeous copy of The Secret Garden
Gardening Seat with Tools (on sale!)
You are certainly going to need sunglasses and I’m a big fan of this brand.
His and hers sun hats.
The fertilizer my gardener said we need for new plants!
Wishing you a beautiful Memorial Day weekend!
Molly
Molly, thank you so much for sharing about your garden. Can't wait to see the finished product.