My Folly

About

I purchased this property 14 years ago as my “retirement home.” The one-acre garden of the mid-century home was mostly lawn, trees, shrubs and foundation plants in the style of that era. It screamed makeover and a new landscape design. The landscape design began with a facelift to the front garden and a bold plunge of an installation of a water garden. The side and front property borders were expanded with evergreen trees for privacy along with rhododendron, azaela and hydrangea. Yew shrubs lining the front foundation were removed and replaced. Plantings along the front foundation with its warmer microclimate are now filled with a variety of colorful juniper and succulents, tropicals and perennials in beds and large planter pots. The lawn was removed below the two mature kousa dogwoods original to the property to create a shade garden with perennials and shrubs and boulders. The backyard landscape redesign features a large “room” enclosed by a fence flanked by a variety of flowing shrubs, vines and perennials on both sides. Honeysuckle covers an arbor over a gate. Additional features include a large pollinator island bed, smaller island bed with a newly planted Heptacodium tree, pavilion, and pergola over a patio. Mature spruces, pines, rhododendron, pieris, holly, dogwood and Japanese maple line the back and east border of this property. The front of the backyard borders have been newly replanted due to the removal of fallen trees from recent storm damage. The lawn in the large backyard is slowly being removed and now includes an island pollinator plant bed with plans to expand in the future. If you are wondering about the name of my garden, my original plan for my retirement home was to downsize to a home with a small garden, patio or porch. However, I was drawn to this property and not quite ready to hang up my shovel. My desire to create a new garden on this blank canvas derailed my plan. I am well dug in and here to stay for the foreseeable future.

This garden’s estimated size is 1 acre.

2025 Open Day:  Saturday, June 28 

Hours:10-12, 12-2