Maclay Tour of Gardens Highlight: Kathryn Rost

Maclay Tour of Gardens Highlight: Kathryn Rost

Why attend the annual Maclay Tour of Gardens?

Once a year, Tallahassee’s most impressive home gardeners open their yards to the public for the Maclay Tour of Gardens. Participants are free to visit any or all of the featured homes throughout the day, enjoying the self-guided tour at their leisure. Each year reveals a new set of hidden backyard oases, resplendent with totally unique combinations of plants, outdoor living spaces, art, water features, and creative garden solutions that will inspire you to take your own garden to the next level. Since all tour proceeds support the Historic Gardens at Maclay Gardens State Park, each ticket holder does their part to preserve one of Tallahassee’s most beloved and iconic landscapes.

To learn more about The Friends of Maclay Tour of Gardens, you can visit their website HERE

The Garden of Kathryn Rost

The home of Kathryn Rost presents a unique challenge, with three distinct environments found across a relatively small garden space; a fully open and sunny area, an open but heavily shaded area, and a dense wood that surrounds the entire lot with an enormous green hug. Instead of lamenting the lack of uniformity and trying to force one set of conditions on the land, Kathryn has embraced the natural elements around her, expertly working with each one to celebrate the unique beauty found within. Where most gardeners would create distinct garden rooms in each environment, this garden has found the elusive balance many seek to find, blending formal, informal, suburban, and woodland design into a single, cohesive, one-of-a-kind landscape. Kathryn proves that traditionally opposing design styles need not be rigidly separated. Elements of each style can run through the entire landscape, morphing into one another, & finding new forms of expression along the way.

Even from the road, you can see both aspects of Kathryn’s garden. A perfectly manicured lawn wraps around a massive cluster of trees and shrubs, growing together like a natural thicket, but the composition of the great green mass includes flowering shrubs that add color throughout the year. A massive ginkgo tree rises out of the mixture, lighting up the area with golden-yellow foliage in the fall. The house is bordered by tightly trimmed evergreen shrubs, but the forest that surrounds the property is always nearby, huge limbs high overhead reaching toward the open sunny area. As you circle the property, formal plantings along the house reflect the traditional Tallahassee suburban landscape, executed perfectly, and plantings along the outer edge of the lot become ever more mixed & informal as they butt up against the forest wall.

Large-growing shrubs & small trees have been planted right where the forest ends, growing tall over the years, themselves stretching out toward the open space for sunlight. The trunks and branches of intentionally planted magnolias, cherries, fringe trees, Japanese maples, loropetalum, & ligustrum intermix with those of forest trees, creating a subcanopy that helps to make a subtle transition from wild to tame. Long, winding hedges of trimmed azaleas hem in the shadiest part of the yard, adding a touch of formality. Formal elements like statuary, fountains, yard art, arbors, & container plantings are dotted throughout the shadiest & most woodland-inspired part of the yard. A lush lawn of dwarf mondo grass carpets much of the woodland garden, while lawns are usually formal, this one flows like a stream down the hill it occupies. Stepping stones laid out in the dark green grass direct visitors on a loose, meandering path that takes them by informal plantings of blood lily, variegated ginger, liriope, fern, hydrangea, wildflowers, and annuals.

This garden packs so much within its relatively small footprint, curb appeal, respect for the surrounding forest, plants for every condition, garden art, wildlife-friendly practices, natives, & beautiful places to sit and take it all in. Kathryn’s artfully realized garden is an inspiration for all the gardeners who can’t pick just one style, or stick to just one color scheme. By carefully blending and mixing styles, you can create a beautiful space that works with your conditions, while perfectly reflecting your own beautiful individuality.

This article was written by Jonathan Burns (Tallahassee Nurseries Outdoor Manager, FNGLA Florida Certified Horticulture Professional) using information published by the University of Florida combined with years of personal observations growing in the Tallahassee area.

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