Inside an Incredible Landscape Designer's Home Garden in Raleigh, NC

Hi, I'm Margo DeBarmore. I'm a local landscape designer in Raleigh, North Carolina, but really I just love plants, and that's why I love to design, and welcome to my garden. So tell us about your home garden here. I know you trial some plants that you like to use in design and that kind of thing, but if it's just your garden, you know, and you weren't trialing things, what would your garden be? It changes every year. I get a new, I don't know, flavor of the month or flavor of the year, you know. I'm really into cut flowers right now. I love growing tomatoes. I love shrubs because they require so little of me. I get really bored in January, so I like to start seeds. Right. That's the biggest problem is the starting of the seeds. Right. You mean struggling to do it, or you end up with so many things? No, I end up with so many things. Yeah, well, I think we had 800 or something this year. I don't even know where you put them all. Yeah, we were just, I mean, literally, they haven't all gone in. There's still a couple of trays on the back. Oh, that makes me feel better. Yeah, there's still a couple of trays on the back porch. We've given some away. But I will be looking at the garden tour in June. Okay. There's your plug. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. So you have deer pressure in the front. Yes. And so that has to be part of your equation. Okay. And I would imagine that all things have kind of helped you in your design because you know the folks that you're doing work with. And some things, you know, the label says deer resistant, so not deer resistant. And some things are deer resistant and not rabbit resistant, which is another whole conversation. And sometimes, you know, people really want a lot, a lot of color. And really what my front yard talks about is texture and leaf color and consistency that way, because I can't give someone an English garden if they don't garden. And a lot of people, unfortunately, don't have my obsession. Yeah. And I think you have to match the person with the amount of maintenance that they're willing to do. I think, Steph, if you'll actually, I know you just came forward. I know you just came forward. Well, you showed the damage from the black-eyed Susans there. They love black-eyed Susans, but not every year. Usually. We get rabbits on our black-eyed Susans when they're short. Once they get up to about a foot, you know, we don't get any. One other thing we'll point out in the front before we move to this very welcoming sign behind us is that you've actually gotten all your water piped out here to one spot. And then you put the dry creek bed in. Yes, it's actually really deep channels, so it carries my drainage from the back, from the walls in the back, from the drainage areas in the back, from all our downspouts. And the goal is to slow the water down enough so that it absorbs as much as possible into the water table. That's the goal throughout. Right. The gravel path we'll be walking on has French drains through it. Same goal, same excavation, trying to keep what falls on the property here. On the property, yeah, yeah. And then whatever's left over, if we have overflow, does go into the storm system and Falls Lake is right at the end. You have Falls Lake here too. So anything that you're dumping, any chemicals that might go on a lawn in this neighborhood or any runs into the sprays, everything. So if we can get everybody slowing the water down, you know, before we get to it. So tell us about this inspiration for your entryway into the back garden. My husband loves Wisteria. We grew up in California and it was just beautiful there. And we've traveled a lot in into England. And of course it's just monumental there. The joke is this does not bloom. So I threatened to cut it down every year. I'm picturing a pumpkin arch or growing tomatoes, or I don't know, anything, roses, but this monster. But I will say it welcomes in and I have a pool in the back. And at the angle, when the construction was new, it really blocked the view in as a screening. You know, everybody thinks of screening as a big green wall. Right. Yeah. It doesn't have to be. Right. So that's why the arch is here, but he did order it from England and he did put it in himself. Yeah. So we were at, we were in Rotterdam at Trompenburg and they had all the different species of Wisteria on separate posts going in this one little cool place. And I was like, that's the coolest idea. Plus they had them isolated so they couldn't run everywhere. You know, which you've kind of got as well. You've got it locked in here. It is invasive. So don't do this. Choose something else. There's non-invasive ones as well. Yes. I have those in the back. You have a lot of fragrance in the garden. We didn't point out the confetti, the jasmine, the star jasmine is in bloom. I like to put fragrant things where you walk by them. Yes. Yeah. And that's why I got about here and it hit me, the smell hit me. And then I was like, well, I should have talked about the fragrance at the beginning. I actually like to work where it's fragrant. That, that makes me really, really happy. And I love, you know, I love trialing a couple of years ago, I was trialing everything that was red, Laura Petlin's ornamental peaches or another ornamental peach smoke bush. It looked really weird. I did a gym. I reset, cut it to the ground. You don't like it. Whack it down. Yeah. That's, that's kind of funny. Do you have clients come here as part? So when you're designing stuff, they can actually come here, see what they're, they can see the individual plant and see what it looks like. One of the biggest problems I have with clients is they see a picture of a flower and they think it's always going to look like that in their garden or six months out of the year. And it doesn't. So sometimes it's better. They see my Encore Azalea like this, rather than covered in hot pink blooms. Like I wish Jim saw it last week or two weeks ago. Well, you know, that's the funny thing. When we filmed with Dr. We filmed with Dr. Armitage in Athens and he goes, you should have seen it last week. That's what every gardener says. We literally walked up here and I got, you should have seen it last week, you know, but that's the, but to me, this is, this week looks great. Uh, you know, this week's version, all the purple foliage you have and that foliage is kind of taken over, but it's also hydrangea season. The hydrangeas are just starting. And so, you know, I think these things are called, you know, I call them seasons where the, you know, we had azalea season earlier, viburnum season earlier. And, uh, can the deer get into this spot? I mean, technically they can jump over, but what I've found is if they can't find a safe place to jump and land, then they stay out. And also I have a 90 pound shepherd. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah. That's probably. That would really piss him off. You get, so if you plant close to the fence that prevents that, you know, from, and it's right at six foot. Yep. Well, no, this is a five foot fence. It's only, it's a five foot fence. And I even have it in the back and they've just never come in. Oh, that's pretty good. I mean, he does mark, he does patrol. And in the back, I don't have my second layer, but I discovered that at my last house, I had a four foot high around my vegetable garden. And if I did my vegetable high cages for my tomatoes all the way around, they couldn't see where to land. And they stayed out. Nice. So that's a good, that's a good call though. If you don't have a fence that's tall enough, you can plant back in a little bit and make sure that there's some sort of thing where they just can't feel like they can get past that. Your cut flower area. Yes. Is this new or is this? Well, this is about my second year. I got really into cool flowers because all the things that I could grow in California, I couldn't grow here. I've been trying for 30 years and I read that cool flowers. And, um, I started playing around with growing in the fall and my fall vegetable garden is the best. I have greens all, all winter. I love it. Summer for me is just tomatoes and basil. I give up on everything else. Yeah. It's kind of tough. Yeah. And again, the temperature can, you know, kind of knock stuff back. Do your dahlias come back from? They do. This is the third year. And, um, I started more, my girlfriend down the street is a dentist and she gets her loops out and she does all our divisions. So she brought me a bunch of extra dahlias. So it's kind of a bonding thing, but the cool flowers are really fun. I like to, um, I like to bring flowers inside and I read something like all these imported flowers are treated with all kinds of things. And you know, the first thing you do is you take a big sniff. I don't want to be sniffing those chemicals. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All those greenhouse grown ones, they have to be treated. I'm sure they're being sprayed. So you can smell mine. We're growing straw flowers for the Christmas tree. Yeah. Um, stuff like that. We haven't done them in a couple of years now. You'll have to go into the garden to see in there from the back. Yeah. The poppies were really fun. I didn't know what was going to happen with them and kind of the challenge, you know, they say you have to grow them in place and you, you have to sew them. Well, they never come up. I don't know if it's my bugs, my birds, I don't know what it is. So I started them from seed under lights and I have poppies finally. Oh, you did them as transplants? I did. Oh, okay. Wow. And you did them in the January, you started them in January. In January. And then when did you put them in the ground? February. February. So you still put them in the ground early and everything. Okay. As starts. I did self seed the California poppies. I do that every year. My husband misses them so much. This was supposed to be a mix that had white and you can kind of see it's cloudy out today. It's got a yellow and an orange. Right. And I'm desperately trying to hold on to everything so I can save seed. Yeah. And we save seed on our dahlias and, you know, lots of things that we, uh, that we'd like to save seed on, but that's an interesting approach thing. I just don't, you know, I don't want to turn something over and then be trying to figure out what's a poppy, what's a weed. I can't, I can't, I just, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to have it broken up like that. So, you know, because we have a mulch cap, I really just can't do that style of gardening. Uh, but that, that opens up a whole new world. If you can actually start them from seed. I did it in that back bed. That's such a mess. And dang, I was so excited because I had all these little things that came up and I was sure they were poppies. No oxalis. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So now I have a weed infestation because I let it go and I'm like, Oh, right. So, you know, I have in-ground beds in front of the raised beds. This used to be a rose garden and it was a little too wet. So I got these raised beds and more clients have copied them. They're four by fours and they're metal. And all you do is bolt the edges and they were 200 bucks. They're more now, but, um, they're open on the bottom. They last a long time. I could do it. So I've been kind of playing, playing in these areas, but the, around the edge is where I went over winter dahlias. So you have quite a bit of slope from the back of this property down to the road. Uh, and you've taken advantage of it here, uh, by being able to stand here and see all the layers. Uh, was that, that was obviously your strategy. It was the, the lot wasn't flat. We wanted to be able to come off the back deck with only two steps. And we had quite a bit of slope moving up and my studio is right here. And for years and years, I worked in a basement with no view. And I finally got a Southern exposure to paint and work. And I wanted to see the garden and what better way than to elevate it. Right. Yeah. And you can, you can see just all the layers back here. There's hydrangea arborescens. So beginning of hydrangea season, you have Oakleaf hydrangeas, hydrangea, paniculatas, limelight, quick fire, and probably about 13 others. I have some in pots because I'm getting ready to put them in. Yes. It's an obsession. So you use some formal elements out here. I did. Like, like boxwoods, um, with landscape design now in the, in Instagram, Pinterest world, I would have met, you know, like we were commenting off camera. It's folks have an explain what it's like designing now with, with people have a snapshot in their mind of what the garden should look like. And then wanting that to be like the 12 months of the garden. Yes. There's a disconnect. You see a really beautiful picture online and you can have long life, like from this annual, it will be beautiful for four months, but in general plants bloom and they die back. And I'm always, I try not to sound like condescending, but they have to sleep. They have to regenerate. And then the idea, at least in my design is to redirect the eye somewhere else. My azaleas aren't blooming anymore, but my hydrangeas have started. It is unrealistic to think you can have one garden that looks picture perfect, Pinterest, perfect Instagram, perfect all year round. Right. And it's really, really hard to deliver that as a designer. Overwhelmingly exhaustive, just mind numbing. I have to go in the garden. Right. So, and insects are going to come along and take advantage of it and other things are going to take advantage of it. And so then that's going to, that's going to dent the look a little bit when a leaf cutter bee comes along and does what leaf cutter bees do. And I love it. I get so excited. I get pictures sent to me. Something's eating my plant. And my reply always is fabulous. Wonderful. Because you want to encourage that. Right. It's part of the magic of the garden without the insects, the flowers don't come. You can't save the seeds. I don't know. It's just, it's just that whole thing that we're a part of. We're not the apex on where we're just a part of the whole thing. Right. We can direct it some, but still some, some part of it's out of control. Right. You were, you have two grandchildren and they've learned how to distribute seed around the garden. So you have, what do you call that? Guerrilla gardening, chaos gardening. Nicosiana over here. I have Nicosiana and they were collecting seed from that. So I have a mixture of foxglove and Nicosiana going in right along the bamboo stakes. Every time I have a new bed, I have to delineate the edge for the dog. Otherwise he'll go in and lay on it. Oh really? But they have, we discovered they put in, well, there's pumpkins back by the back arch. They put in zucchini last year. We were doing nasturtium this weekend because they found the seeds and those are really cool seeds. Really big. And last year I have a whole border. They did such a good job with the impatience. I see the impatience are a little bit perfect over there. They're perfect. Well, you pick the seed off and it like, I don't know, catapults. Yeah. And they were having the best time. They were checking those plants every day waiting for new seeds. Yeah. But they did a good job planting them. They did. They did. Well, I might've weeded around the edge just a little bit Jim, because you know, type A, but yeah, we have a really good time. I love having the boys in the garden. Yeah. And that's fun. And, and my, my son, well, he had no choice, but to grow up that way. And I had no choice, but to grow up that way. So I, you know, you reckon, you know, that forced, you know, that forced labor, you know, as a kid, it seems like it was terrible. Later is rewarding. You don't realize it. It took my daughter. She moved down the street and she's very into gardening now. It took a minute. It took a minute. You know, she was like, well, if you wouldn't have given me the chore of pulling weeds, I'm like, well, if you hadn't have wasted part of my Saturday, I would have been doing it. So then you had to help. That's true. That's true. That's true. They do owe you for the trips to baseball and the trips to softball and the trips to everything else. Right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much for inviting us up. Yeah. We, you had come to the open garden last year and then we saw you at an, at another event recently and really happy to come up here. And are you still, are you seeking clients as much as ever, or are you winding down? Are you, what are you, what what's life like now? I'm really, really blessed. I work for probably 15 clients that do a myriad of different things, some residential, some, some more commercial work. And I, and I am winding down a little bit thinking about it, but loving the garden and just kind of enjoying what comes my way that might be interesting, but also not afraid to say no. Well, that's it. And I will tell you boundaries. Yeah. That was, that was the, that's the key to when my landscape company, when I was really happiest is once I had gotten past the, I have to say yes to everything, you know, because I have no choice because I'm trying to work on my own and I'm so paranoid about it. You know, it's seven days a week until it's not. And then one day you go, I don't think I want to take that job. And I don't think I have to. Do I have to? And it, and it means you get to save space, creative space for the ones that just really tickle your fancy, which is really good fun. Right. And match what you like to do, or they match perfectly with your philosophy or whatever. Well, I don't really do this for any other design. You know, this would be a lot for someone. Right. And this is, you're, you're combining a design with being a plant collector. Yes. Right. And that your customer may not be that. And trying to figure out, you know, all these new plants keep coming out. They're so exciting and they're so enticing. I don't know what it's going to do. How can I use it in a design? Because normally in a design I'm using five, seven, nine, 12 large amounts. And if they all croak. Right. Yeah. It doesn't look good on you. That's not so good. So, you know, I buy three and plant them in different areas and I'm like, Oh, it's deer proof. Let's see. Right. Yeah. Let's throw it out there and find out. I will show you. Deer proof. Deer proof. So thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks guys.