Tucked into a moist thicket behind the guest cottage, Mary Stambaugh’s primrose garden combines Japanese primroses with celandine poppies, corydalis and other shade-loving goodies corralled within a rustic stump edging.
A native Dutchman’s pipe vine clambers on a pergola to create a covered bridge.
Early on the garden agenda was a wildflower/bulb meadow that now spreads in front of an open lattice fence.
Mary Stambaugh is invariably toting a rucksack of garden tools.
A recycled pool area is the one nod to formality in residence.
An ancient French watering can is poised beside the arch dividing the rock garden and patio.
The golden rain vine (Laburnum anagyroides) drips from a pergola.
Allium neapolitanum is too rambunctious for the garden proper, but is perfect in a meadow.
The driveway to the house cuts through a rhododendron dell carpeted in ostrich ferns.
In maturity, the rock garden path winds between massive boulders and statuesque shrubs.
A French lilac is intoxicatingly fragrant.
Ostrich ferns commandeer a collapsed Adirondack chair.
Pink Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) accent the bulb meadow.
Hellebores start the show in earliest spring.