In 2016 I began transforming my 9,000 sq ft lot by removing several loads of plant material, then gradually replacing sod with flower beds, raised beds, berms, and a dry-stone stream. It’s a garden of specimen plants (not massed beds or hedges)—no design awards, but it’s hard to resist a new plant! Something blooms nearly year-round, starting in winter with Hamamelis, Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn,’ Lonicera fragrantissima, and Edgeworthia (yellow and ‘Red Dragon’). Fragrance is a theme, with spring viburnums (juddii, burkwoodii, carlesii ‘Korean Spice’), Daphne, and a Clematis x montana that scents the garden like vanilla. Hundreds of crocus kick off bulb season, followed by tulips and fragrant daffodils. Shady areas feature woodland plantings like Erythronium ‘Pagoda,’ epimediums, and primulas. Spring brings 16+ peonies, iris, and Itoh hybrids; summer brings vegetables and dahlias, plus artichokes, asparagus, rhubarb, berries, pollinator perennials, and bold shrubs (including a beastly calycanthus). In 2023 I added drip irrigation, replaced the stream with a stone basin bubbler, and converted more lawn to gravel. Please come visit—I’d love to swap garden stories, and I often have plants and pots to share!