Taylor Hill Gardens

My house sits in the center of the garden, at its heart. The garden is laid out as an extension of the house, with areas of the landscape designed to be like rooms that you can go to. Each of my ‘garden rooms’ has a different purpose or mood, depending on where it is located. These rooms provide mystery in the garden. I sometimes use them to frame a vista that directs the eye toward the distance, or I use overhanging shrubs to envelope, and bring the attention inward. Having tended this garden for over 20 years, my ‘garden rooms’ have been added one at a time, sometimes in response to an aspect of the property, but just as often, as a response to something in me, a need that I can only fulfill through the garden.

There is a certain amount of structure to the way I do things when I create my outdoor rooms. I use trees and shrubs to anchor the space and then I lay in my beds. I put the low plants in front and then build up to the higher ones in the back. It seems pretty simple and logical, but when you’re looking at a packet of seeds in the Spring you have to be able to imagine what they will do once they grow, and build the garden accordingly. There’s a constant back and forth between planning and then adjusting once you see the results. That starts with the shape and the size of the plants and continues with knowing when the plants bloom and which colors will come to life as they do.

Here is where the partnership with nature begins. You may lay out one garden, but as it begins to flower you find that the hollyhocks aren’t blooming at the same time as the foxgloves, the way you thought they would — or maybe some other plant comes in much taller than you expected — so you start adjusting. Then you start noticing effects. For instance, the morning light passing through the maple trees planted to the east casts a shadow over the garden that looks like open lace. Things like this are subtle, but the way light moves and the way it hits things at certain times in the day are all part of the symphony you’re conducting. Sometimes you notice that the blue flowers growing in the shade look more intense and electric than the ones you planted in the light, so you try to duplicate this effect somewhere else. Sometimes you plan everything and nature surprises you. More often than not, the wind and the birds have other plans for your seeds — and their serendipitous planting makes things much more spectacular than what you had in mind.

Although the visual element is perhaps the dominant one in the garden, for me, both sound and smell are important. I plant the most aromatic plants, the lilacs and the hastas, close to the house so I can smell them through the open windows. My birdhouses make it more enticing for the birds to come and sing all day long. Water from the small stream that flows through my garden provides an inviting sound that reminds me of laughter, and joy, and life.

I love what I do. This is my sacred work. I plan and nature corrects — and I have learned that the best gardens are made in partnership with nature.