Tag: gardens

If you would have told Lisa Frank 40 years ago that the woodlands she inherited when she bought her 1950s ranch house in Buckhead would turn into a whimsical garden, she would not have believed you. Frank was a busy writer who launched public relations departments at the High Museum of Art and Atlanta Botanical Garden. In the 1990s, she started dating Terry May, the then-superintendent for grounds at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. The gardener had permission to take home rare plants that the garden could not accommodate, and he started planting in Frank’s garden on a whim.

Most high-rise homeowners covet top floors for city views, but this couple chose the ground level in order to create a lush courtyard surrounded by Buckhead’s skyline. Interior designer Bill Musso and his husband, Bryan Cooke, saw a concrete slab sometimes littered with debris and imagined possibilities. With the help of garden designer Alex Smith, they now enjoy an extra 3,200 square feet of outdoor living space, including nine trees.

The amaryllis plant has a superpower: In just a few weeks in a tiny pot of dirt, this giant onion-looking thing sprouts a giant trumpet-shaped flower—in winter.

Gardens can get a bad rap in late summer—with wilting flowers and fewer blooms than in spring—but interior designer and author James Farmer added architecture and heat-tolerant plants so that his backyard excels even in August.

Winter has driven most plants to death or dormancy, but no Deep South freeze is bad enough to kill mint, the kudzu of herbs—and the gardening slack season is as good a time as any to start growing.

Landscape designer Brandy Hall is an advocate of permaculture, a science that integrates human activities into natural surroundings to establish ecosystems that are self-sustaining. In other words, she believes your yard should take care of itself.

"The truth is that I’m more of a fantasy gardener—in much the same way that I clip complicated, multistep recipes I have no intention of ever actually cooking." Atlanta playwright and poet Pearl Cleage pens this essay on gardening dreams.

Days after COVID-19 began canceling Atlanta, I dealt with my own anxiety by spending a full Saturday digging in the dirt: planting shrubs, weeding, top-dressing the soil, potting herbs.

Violet implies “originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking.” Want to add a little of that spunk to your garden? Try these.

From Virginia-Highland, Brookhaven, and West Paces Ferry, these three garden styles are bound to give you some inspiration for your backyard.