How one self-taught gardener created her own dreamy, European-inspired garden

Filled with lush beds, clipped hedges, and happy surprises, this Washington garden shows how to put your own spin on formal design.

Key Takeaways

• Lacy Edwards has transformed her 3-acre Skagit Valley property into a lush garden featuring perennial beds, espaliered trees, and a European-inspired parterre.
• Her parterre blends formal design with a wild, natural feel, showcasing densely planted flowers in a riot of colors.
• Beyond the parterre, she grows fruits, vegetables, and pollinator-friendly plants, emphasizing scale and productivity.

Gardener Lacy Edwards admits to a bit of imposter syndrome. “Don’t ask me any Master Gardener questions!” she jokes. But one look around the flourishing landscape the self-taught gardener has created at her home in Skagit Valley, WA, and it’s clear she is very much underselling herself.

Since moving to the 3-acre property with her husband, Scott, 25 years ago, Edwards has planted multiple perennial beds , espaliered trees, and boxwood hedges. But the showpiece is the European-inspired parterre garden, a symmetrical arrangement of hedges that encloses a variety of plants. Learn how she’s married formal design elements with a more casual, Pacific Northwest sensibility.

Edwards’s own version of a European-style parterre is built around a fountain and a decorative wood structure known as a folly, built and installed by Spearhead. As the garden has grown in, it’s achieved a looser, wilder quality she loves: cucumbers rambling out of bounds, lady’s mantle peeking through boxwood, self-seeding violas popping up in unexpected places. “It feels like it has some age to it,” she says. “It’s taken on a life of its own.”

Within the framework, Edwards lets her green thumb run riot. Every bed holds a different, densely planted mix of vegetables and flowers like dahlias, roses, and lilies. Here, she used montbretias in two vivid shades—orange ‘Columbus’ and yellow ‘Sunglow’. The chicken coop just outside the parterre adds a rustic note.

Edwards bought her potting bench at a local lumberyard, painted and sealed the frame, and replaced the work surface with a slab of marble so it would hold up under the region’s frequent rain. She uses it regularly as a workstation, but it also has other talents: “When we entertain in the garden, I set it up as a wine bar,” she says.

Related: The 6 Best Potting Benches, Tested by BHG

Beyond the parterre, Edwards (shown with daughters Chloe and Lily) makes use of the sunny parts of her property for growing fruits and vegetables. This row of raspberry bushes—planted with early-, mid-, and late-fruiting varieties—provides a summerlong harvest.

The garden keeps wildlife happy too. Plants like coneflowers, red hot poker flowers, and Oriental lilies draw pollinators (who in turn help boost the productivity of the vegetables and fruits), while a birdbath offers a drink.

In front of a greenhouse from Hartley Botanic, tall flowers reach out to passersby: agapanthus, montbretias, delphiniums, salvias, and lilies. “The biggest lesson with a property this size has been about scale and quantity,” says Edwards. “You need to go big to make an impact.”

Espaliered pears and apples serve two purposes: creating a sense of enclosure around the garden and keeping the family swimming in fruit. “It’s shocking how much we get,” Edwards says.

Read the original article on Better Homes & Gardens