The Shillingford Garden

About

Inspired by the English Arts and Crafts movement, where the garden is seen as an extension of the house, this garden was started from a completely blank canvas in 2013 by its owners, two English transplants who found themselves living in the NW corner “if not quite by mistake, then never by design.” The garden is first and foremost a family garden, home to children and a pack of dogs. The aim has always been to re-create the atmosphere of the owner’s grandmother’s garden, with perhaps different plantings but the same effect of exploding borders within a year-round formal framework of hedges, boxwood, and trees. Divided into a series of garden rooms leading out and away from the house, with areas gradually becoming less formal to blur with their boundaries, the garden now includes mass spring bulb plantings, late spring, summer, and fall perennial borders, and the use of trees to create extraordinary seasonal displays. There is also a large vegetable and flower garden, supporting a thriving cut-flower business. The design, the majority of the planting, and all subsequent maintenance have been undertaken by the owners. The garden is still very much a work in progress.

This garden’s estimated size is 3 acres. 

2025 Open Day: Saturday, June 14 

Hours: 10-1, 1-4