It’s finally Spring! I keep reliving the feeling of the dramatic transformation of our garden at the last house while I jump up and down inside in anticipation of creating our new garden! Yes MaryAnne White, the landscape designer who designed the garden in my last house has been very busy working on this new one!
So today I’m sharing a recap of how it all came together as well as a progress report of our new country garden!
So grab a warm cuppa something and let’s get some spring garden inspiration!
1. Maria Killam’s White Garden Transformation: Before & After
First up, take a walk through the garden transformation that brought me so much joy. For anyone worried that their exterior might be less than beautiful, I highly recommend investing in a beautiful garden as a top priority! It just keeps giving, year after year as a nurturing extension of your living space. Click here to see the post.
2. Easter Time and my 500 Tulips are Blooming!
Oh my cuteness! Look at my nephews then! Time flies, yet a garden is a magical way to slow things down and check in with a more natural sense of time as things slowly grow and last year’s efforts sow this year’s rewards. Here’s when I planted 500 tulips that came up as a gift to myself the following spring! Click here to see the post.
3. First Rule of Design: Boring Now Equals Timeless Later
Don’t you love going to the greenhouse in Spring? I totally get how everyone’s garden ends up looking more like a “collection” of plants rather than a coherent garden design. How can all those beauties be resisted? I was shopping for hostas, and my lovely garden designer Maryanne White had to rein my in with my very own advice. Click here to read the post. 
4. My New Spring Boxwood Garden Beds: Before & After
Speaking of gardens that look like plant collections, one of the best ways to add a sense of visual order to any planting is to include plants that give it structure. Boxwoods are a brilliant way to add definition to a garden. Click here to read the post.
5. My New Decorative Gate: Before & After
The garden gate is a passage to a magical garden world. Here’s the before and after of my garden entrance from drab to fab! Click here to read the post.
6. Do’s and Don’ts for Choosing the Right Fence Colour
The humble wood fence is the backdrop for the garden oasis. But don’t just reach for that can of “natural cedar” orange stain. Here are the important points to consider when choosing a fence colour. Click here to read the post.
7. Spring Forward: My Landscaping Project (and a Favourite New Garden)
And here’s the plan for our new country garden! This post is packed with gorgeous inspiration images that Maryanne White helped me translate into the perfect plan for our new garden. I can’t wait to see it all come together. See how far it has come already! Click here to read the post.
We just had the footing installed for the new greenhouse that is coming soon!
Here’s the back of the house after it was painted with all the rocks in the beds. It took us a year to plan the hardscape and find a landscaper to do it. We had so many of them come by and they were all concerned that the rocks were holding up the house, well it turns out they were not.
We installed Boxwood clouds on both sides of the patio along with a hot tub right beside our primary bedroom. This was the 3D plan.
I’m so excited for Spring when we get all the beds planted!
And in other exciting news, this Friday we’re launching my updated Exterior Colour Selection Masterclass! It’s everything you need to know to get your exterior colour right and so much more including a brand new module on the exact step by step on how I chose the colour for my own exterior! Click here to be notified!
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Boring now equals timeless later? So all the black and white houses are going to be timeless? Boring beige or grey is timeless? Better make a mistake with a colour you like than living in a boring house.
You must be new here! Maria has a ton of posts on this topic. (spoiler alert: many of the black and white houses are indeed, trendy. Not necessarily timeless at all)
No, I follow her for two years and learnt a lot. I followed her advice in my new house. But I question this rule. Boring beige today can be boring beige tomorrow like boring beige from the 90ies. I am from Europe and we have white houses and white kitchens for decades. To me they were and are boring. People thought, the tuscan kitchen is timeless like the modern organic today. I think, there is no timeless, even a temple or a cathedral belongs to its time.
Play it too safe and white walls are not the solution.
Hey, if you read the post, you’ll find out what you’re suggesting is not what I’m saying at all 🙂 My advice is for the person who doesn’t want to be filled with regret because they’ve made a bunch of creative choices that now leave them with an overdose of the trendy neutral of the decade, like brown (2000s), grey (2010s), or black (2020s) finishes in their home. Thanks for your comment, Maria
Good Morning Maria! Gardening is my place of peace and calm; so restorative. There’s so much excitement watching what is in your mind and then on paper come to fruition. And while boxwoods are a great plant to create the bones of a garden, they are being decimated by the boxwood blight; there is no cure. The blight arrived in my area of southern Ontario last summer and very quickly it spread through the neighbourhood. In England they’ve tragically lost 300 and 400 year old box at some historical homes. Please be careful in their further use and source alternatives so you won’t be faced with a ruined garden. Cathy.
thanks Cathy! Maria
Same in Germany.