Private Garden Tour, Part II

     The north end of the Virginia Beach oceanfront was once a place where families from elsewhere in the state had their summer homes. Come Labor Day, these cottages were closed up for the season and stayed unoccupied until the following May. Although some of that tradition still occurs, most of the homes are now lived in year round.

      The third stop on our tour, the MacKinlay garden, has been in the current owner's family for decades, in fact, she grew up in the house. She converted the garage in the back to a carriage house, where she now lives, and has left the main house, and all of its memories, available to her daughters as the family beach house. I found the landscaping around this home very appropriate to the smaller scale of this cottage-like home. Unlike so many other homes, this one does not have a green mustache of evergreen foundation shrubs planted across the front. Rather, it has a mix of annuals, perennials and groundcovers, with the occasional evergreen thrown in too. This mix carries around to the side garden and into the back, where the garden and carriage house have more of a courtyard feel. As much as I love a grand estate, there is nothing like a small garden done right.

     The petunia is 'Pretty Much Picasso' which came out several years ago. This is the first time I have seen it used where I liked it, and I think that's because it shares its space with Sedum 'Angelina'.

     The tree up against the fence is a large Persea borbonia, known as red bay here.  This coastal plain native is endangered, and it is at its northerly limit here in southeastern Virginia.

     Osteospermum and Lisianthus (Eustoma)

     My next post will take us to a home that is as bold and dramatic, as this one is quaint and charming. If you would like to see part I of our tour, you can click here.