Backyard Garden Project

 When I purchased this small acreage in the fall of 2019, I embarked on the ultimate gardener’s journey of trying to landscape the entire property using plants I grew myself from seed. My motivation was to allow the landscape to evolve slowly over time and to find its own rhythms and patterns in response to each season. I started with small seedlings, focusing on the plants and the slow transformation of the land before me. This will never be a finished product, as the garden will continue to adapt and evolve to keep up with a changing world.

I have worked in horticulture, agriculture, and conservation for over 20 years, but I am not a garden designer. However, I am an avid gardener. I pay attention to and play with colors, textures, and form, but I don’t force my ideas on the landscape. I start with a plan, then watch and take cues from the plants, editing as needed when nature shows me the error of my ways. Growing thousands of plants was the initial inspiration for starting Tiny Meadow Farm, but the garden journey continues. This garden has become my studio; a place to experiment and watch a diversity of native plants growing in different conditions and soils. With wetlands, rocky woodlands, and a winter creek cutting across the shallow sandy ridgetop soils, it’s a place to not just see plants in the ground, it’s a place to see plants growing in community. You are welcome to visit, by appointment.

Living Seed Bank

The Gardens at Tiny Meadow Farm are maintained as a living seed bank and wildflower sanctuary. Thanks to the help of a local nonprofit, the gardens are being planted with robust populations of local-origin native plants, propagated from ethically collected wild seed from nearby natural lands. These populations form the basis of an in-situ wildflower sanctuary, creating habitat for wildlife and a living source of seeds for the nursery. Each year we expand the number of species being stewarded at this farm.