HAYOCKS
A beautiful Birmingham Tudor-style house has been home for many years to clients whose intelligent and lively interaction with the natural world I greatly admire. Our landscape renovation work for them dates back about 20 years, and we continue to plant their containers and in-ground tropical plants. The stone walls enclosing the rear yard are beautiful and were built with old-world care. The geometry of this enclosure is key to the landscape design of the space, where water plays a prominent role. An austere but not absolute green and white flower palette contrasts with their driveway vegetable garden and a sunny patch of ground that is home to their dahlia garden. Urban modern meets English Tudor; see how this affair has turned out.
NORTHERN MICHIGAN EXPERIENCE
You are transported into a Northern Michigan experience the moment you enter the backyard gates. Backed by the Franklin River, the yard is enveloped by over 30 acres of inaccessible woods. Amid this natural seclusion lies a pond and a one-acre perennial garden featuring a continuous, winding bed that has been developing for the last 32 years. This unique garden is home to a 500-plus collection of hosta — no two alike. This expansive hosta collection originates from across the United States. It includes many rare, hard-to-find varieties as well as promising, but as yet unregistered, hosta that have been hybridized and grown from seed by the owner. The size, variety, and variegations present a massive combination of contrast, texture, and detail that all can appreciate. The hostas are interspersed with ferns, lilies, Japanese maple, dogwood, hydrangea, and flowering arches that give height, color, and substance to the ever-changing landscape.
JUDY AND JIM’S GARDEN
Although we were not involved in the design of the homeowner’s landscape and garden, we admire its scope and range. And we are most appreciative of the owner’s patronage of Detroit Garden Works – both for herself and for her clients. Sited on a three-quarter-acre lot, this garden has evolved over more than 40 years. This garden is so much more than the exotic trees, plants, shrubs, and flowers that surround the home. Walking along the pine-needle-covered paths, visitors will see eclectic birdhouses 20 feet in the air, a Zen garden made of bamboo and crushed granite, a funky treehouse buried among the pines that overlooks a waterfall bubbling into a pond, and sculptures collected from around the world. Like any piece of art, this garden is a living, breathing symbol of the artist, owner, and garden designer’s passion for nature and horticulture.
MY SECRET GARDEN
Small neighborhood properties can be a challenge and a delight to landscape. For this client, an utterly private place to sit and enjoy the garden was the first order of business. The secret garden in the back is entirely private. A generously sized blue stone terrace is a place for family and friends to congregate, featuring an old English lead fountain. A pair of crabapple espaliers and a large container, custom-made at the Branch Studio, placed in front of a classic white wooden trellis, softens the wall of the garage and provides a great deal of visual interest. The rear yard landscape features a sweeping curve of Venus dogwoods. On the south lot line, a collection of tricolor beech and katsura trees provides screening and dappled shade in a garden full of shade-loving perennials. Both the sun porch and pergola in the front of the house have been planted with the climbing Canadian explorer rose, John Davis. This property is a jewel of a secret garden you will not want to miss.
CORGI RUN
My landscape and garden have been on every Garden Cruise since its inception in 2008. It has remained remarkably stable over those years, except for the loss of a mature rose garden during the severe winters of 2014 and 2015. However, since 2019, there have been some significant changes in the fountain pool yard landscape. A collection of Princeton Gold maple trees, planted along the lot lines, was removed. In its place is a grove of compact growing tulip trees called “Emerald City.” The trunks of those tulip trees have been whitewashed, a practice that is found in gardens and orchards in many countries. The change is dramatic, as the tulip trees are young. What was once a shady garden is now drenched in sunlight. A new Ipe deck replaced an old pine deck overlooking the fountain, and new furniture was added. The substantial planting of Liriope spicata around the perimeter and tree trunks contrasts with the clipped lawn and the geometry of the fountain. A collection of Belgian-made stoneware “toadstools” permits sitting in the garden from nine distinctly different points of view. Feel free to try them all! As usual, container plantings are sprinkled throughout. A mix of new and old makes this garden interesting.
MYSTICAL GARDEN
Although we had no hand in creating this garden, we greatly admire the work of this professional garden designer and collector of unusual plants. He has been a good friend and supporter of Detroit Garden Works. We consider it an honor that he has agreed to put his striking garden on tour to benefit the Greening of Detroit. It is a small garden nestled in Beverly Hills that features a formal entry leading to a woodland garden, a flower garden, and a shade garden. With over 170 varieties of hosta and many unusual dwarf conifers, Japanese maples, and a large assortment of perennial and annual flowers, there’s bound to be something to appeal to just about anyone with a penchant for gardening. While the garden is small, the use of gravel paths connecting the various areas maximizes every inch of the property, providing an abundance of plants in a compact space.
LAFAYETTE GREENS
The Greening of Detroit’s Lafayette Greens is a green space and urban garden in the heart of downtown Detroit. Visitors, city workers, and neighborhood residents enjoy and relax in the space, watch veggies and flowers grow during the summer and enjoy seasonal programming. The award-winning garden was donated to The Greening of Detroit by Compuware in 2014. The Greening grows hundreds of pounds of chemical-free fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers every year. Everything harvested goes to food banks, church pantries or volunteers. Visit www.greeningofdetroit.com for a calendar of events. Lafayette Greens is open to the public from April to September, Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm.
Updated 6-24-25