Explore stunning gardens across the country, built from the ground up by their owners to celebrate family, friends, and community in unique and meaningful ways.
An Alice in Wonderland Escape: A Garden for the Whole Family
Holly Blain and husband Jamie Blain started their garden in Michigan during COVID for a place to be creative and grow. They first built a stunning pergola with a bed swing and now have three different structures with roofs! Blain states, “This garden has allowed me to be able to dive into gardening. I have areas of full sun and part sun. So, planting perennials each spring, it’s always so exciting to see how everything continues to grow and fill in.” Holly loves to host events for friends and family in the garden. Holly shares, “It’s always such a rewarding feeling to hear all the feedback when they walk down to the garden! I have a hidden ‘enchanted’ trail that leads to the garden. The kids love it and feel like they are in Alice and Wonderland.”
You can find more images and information about Holly’s Garden at her Instagram, @rusticwildarrow, or her website rusticwildarrow.com
A Place for Respite: Catherine Deeter’s Happy Garden
Located along the central coast of San Luis Obispo County in California, this wild, English garden thrives. We spoke to Sunday Hendrickson, the stylist of Catherine Deeter’s gorgeous garden. Situated 20 miles from the coast in a homespun town of about 7,000, called Templeton, Catherine tends to a space that has provides her respite while she navigated her son’s metabolic disorder. Catherine’s white shed seen here is a Dovecote, where two beautiful white doves live. Also on the property are tiny mosaic bird houses where many joyous birds reside. Sunday described the garden as “happy” and reflective of Catherine’s personality.
A Garden that Honors Town and Family: How a Grandmother Inspired a Greenhouse
This charming 1940s brick colonial revival in Brazil, IN provided the perfect space for owners Kemp Harper and Kevin Boling to build their dream garden. The garden pays homage to both their town’s history, as well as their families. Kemp shared that their garden is “thoughtfully divided into four quadrants arranged along an axis. The beds are bordered with antique ‘Brazil block,’ the very bricks that once paved our town’s roads. In the center of each quadrant stands a wooden obelisk I crafted myself that serve as tomato supports.” Kemp and Kevin have planted a vegetable garden, a peony garden, espaliered apple and cherry trees, and even built a chicken coop—which houses 20 hens and four turkeys! The chicken coop is built from Kemp’s grandmother’s hayloft floorboards from her 1800s barn that was unfortunately demolished. Kemp adds, “My late grandmother was Polish, and we keep Polish hens in our coop, keeping a piece of her spirit alive with us.” Kemp mentions that the chicken run overlooks the garden, and he enjoys watching them while he works.
If you want to see more of their creative gardens or learn from Kemp’s tutorials—you can build wooden obelisks like the ones mentioned—check out their Instagram, @thecolonial_on_park.
Built from the Ground Up: The Schilling’s Gorgeous Garden Beds and Houses
This 1940’s cottage located in Northern California is situated in a grove of 100-year-old Cedar trees. Ben and Matti Schilling took a garden floor in a mountain climate with nothing but dirt, pine needles, and a few wilted rhododendrons, and turned it into a flourishing outdoor space. From the ground-up, the Schillings built an antique window greenhouse, (or a Garden house as they like to call it), forged winding paths throughout the garden, placed calming fountains, and planted enchanting garden beds. Their garden is bursting with David Austin Roses, Hollyhocks, Peonies, Hydrangeas, and Daphne. They shared that their Garden House is a focal point guests are really drawn to, which is “built primarily to house and protect our tender plants from the mountain snow. We wanted to make it pretty to look at all year round. We built the front porch out of pallets and painted the garden house a rich dark brown to give it more of a Victorian, moody feel.”
Check out more photos of their stunning garden here: @a.schilling.home .
A Flea-Market Lover’s Dream: A Second-Hand Greenhouse
In southern Illinois, Navy veteran Shane Hileman and his wife Paula Hileman finished building their greenhouse in eight days! What’s even more amazing is that they used re-purposed materials; such as, stained-glass windows from their family’s home and doors from their parents’ old renovation projects. Paula further shared that the greenhouse benefits from lots of unique second-hand items that add charm and character. For example, Paula was given an old Montgomery Ward sink from her childhood church that she used as a potting bench. She added, “We were seeing an old bathtub in the front yard of a house we drove by all the time. One day, Shane said: ‘I’m stopping and asking is we can buy it for the greenhouse.’ He did, and now it sits in the front windows. Perfect for early lettuce patch and later filled with petunias planted from seed.” Shane also built shelving for seed trays and clay pots for all of Paula’s flea market gardening supplies. Paula also repurposes items like enamelware buckets, pans, teapots, and cups for pots; she says, “If it holds dirt I can plant in it,” and shares that the greenhouse is the perfect place to work on these projects.
