Humble Home Gardens

06/06/2026

Front yarden makeover y'all!!! Still tweaking and moving plants around slowly as my leg heals up more ...but so far I'm really happy with the layout.

Update: I will be putting seeds and planting guides in the little library with the books and I always put extra seedlings out on the shelf. They tend to dry up and die bc I can't water them enough but I always have more bc of the farm too. So PLEASE dm me for my address and come get some free stuff!

I also tend to put out good quality, lightly used kids toys before we goodwill them!

I had a mutual aid garden of sorts when I lived in berwyn and I hope to continue that out this way. I plan to donate whatever we have left to local food pantries.

05/25/2026

A lil at our install in Arlington Heights this past weekend!

Front is part sun to shade plants:
We have serviceberry, geums, prairie dropseeds, alliums, heucheras, & oak leaf hydrangeas

Back is a shade to part shade bed
Lungwort, brunnera, sensitive fern, hellebore, astilbe, Jacob's ladder, bleeding heart, hostas and replanted hydrangeas for foliage only

Hydrangea strip replaced with p*e wee oak leaf hydrangeas

And a part sun wet area with already existing stand of grasses ( I think miscanthus?)
I added variegated yellow dogwood, Palm sedges, swamp milkweed, dark towers penstemon, blue flag iris, and Willow leaf amsonia

Got to have cookies and iced coffee with a neighbor after too 😂🫶

Tomorrow, we mulch!! 💪

05/17/2026

Project Day 1 : replacing natives with what was once a bed of 70s style shaped yew bushes. They looked cool, but they darkened the house so much. And these amazing clients really wanted some color in front! They also wanted to attract pollinators. This planting does both AND has airyness, texture and movement; and I, personally, think it makes the brick pop!

A lot of the plants will fill in and get 3 times their height and width. There are dwarf hydrangeas called ruby slippers in the back by the windows that will fill in 3 to 4 feet and blend in so well with the hostas, bleeding hearts and ferns. Their flowers start our white and change throughout the season to a mauvey pink, then a deep rosey pink, and finally a beautiful dried flower.
The empty space in front is being saved for irises gifted to them by their mom.

Peachy Rose shrubs are planted toward the front alongside strawberry lemonade baptisia, lavender, allium, echinacea, black-eyed Susan and dwarf switchgrass and weaving into the Rhododendron, hydrangea, hosta and ferns.

Literally the best of both worlds here between the shade and the part sun to full sun spaces. I always love me a garden with multiple microclimates.

Tomorrow we work on the backyard veggie and herb garden. We got a great head start today with smaller containers and will be finishing the main raised bed 🙌🏼

Lucky to have good team members who have my back and I can rely on to replace me physically when I'm injured. I hurt my leg this week so I was mostly a foreman and helped as much as I could and was stressing about getting this install done. Without them the designs don't mean anything and they mean so much to me. Always treat your workers with the respect they and their bodies deserve 🫶🏼

04/28/2026

Yesterday we planted cucumbers and pruned and continued to trellis our greenhouse tomatoes at Mayneland Farm

I always end up with my gloves off 😂 my hands are black from tomato leaf residue not soil! I love the smell of tomato plants... 🫶🏼

Peep our annual plant sale plants?!

04/26/2026

This is what a native/perennial pruning looks like in spring

Trimming back grasses and herbaceous perennials.

Pruned hydrangea tree: dead headed spent flowers and pruned water suckers and dead or criss crossing limbs

04/26/2026

Beyond excited to be contracted to work with on a kitchen garden in the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright District!

04/23/2026