Shady Backyard Retreat

How do you keep your zeal for new plants from creating a haphazard mess? A Virginia designer reveals her secrets

Shade Loving Plants
Photo by: Ralph Anderson

Shade Loving Plants

Great gardens are sometimes kind of like rainbows. You don’t look for them and don’t expect them, but suddenly they’re just there. Such is the story of this one located about an hour west of our Nation’s Capital. I’d been driving to see another garden when I passed through a charming village called The Plains, Virginia, and glanced to my right. There stood the home of Linda and Ralph Hostetler—a plant lover’s pot of gold.

A shade garden, terrace, and potting shed occupy the backyard. 


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