Before and After – composing a garden for wildlife

Posted on March 24, 2026 by composerinthegarden

I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. ~Wendell Berry

I have often likened the creation of a garden to the process of composing music. They both evolve over time, are filled with color, movement, and sound, and each performance is never quite the same. For the last few weeks, I have been toiling over a second Before and After video of my garden, the front of the garden that is open to all wild creatures.

After I completed the video, I realized how similar the creation experience was to composing a complicated piece of music. Putting together a video that shows what can be done over a period of years means gathering 25 years worth of materials and creating a story that makes sense out of them, one that will not only illustrate the journey but hopefully inspire others.

2001

2024

But a 25 year collection of photos and videos is massive – sorting and choosing material quickly led to overwhelm. This wasn’t just about designing a pretty garden, it also was a complicated tale about creating a habitat for wildlife that evolved over time to support the life within it. With so many possibilities that could tangle the story, I realized that I could streamline the process just as I do when composing a complex piece of music. Narrow the scope, figure out the true story line, and keep it limited to just a few themes. What worked for composing music also worked for creating garden videos – the same process, different materials. Apparently, creating a garden video is also akin to creating a garden and composing music!

Here’s the final video – I hope you enjoy it, it has become one of my favorites. Special kudos to my husband Bill for recording my voiceover- he’s the best.

Spring is here, the snow has melted, flowers are finally in bloom and the birds are singing. Enjoy the season of new awakenings.

A dream garden anniversary

Posted on February 26, 2026 by composerinthegarden

Twenty-five years ago we found the house and property of our dreams. We were looking for a contemporary cedar house in a woodland setting and we found it the very first day.

While it was the perfect place to expand our music studios and a blank slate for gardening, I was a bit overwhelmed by the size and scope of the property. As we worked on the house, I spent time in the upper deck planning a garden while surrounded by a forest of very tall trees. I couldn’t stop thinking about the view from that deck – the spiral staircase, the octagonal extension of the deck and the circular lawn below – a series of circles that led from the high upper deck to 35 feet down to the ground below.

I turned to one of my favorite books for inspiration and guidance – The Inward Garden by Julie Moir Messervy. In a unique garden book that explores archetypes common to mythology and fairytales as a source for garden design, she discussed the psychological power of caves, promontories, and liminal spaces such as paths and gates, all which intrigued me and seemed to be present or possible on the property. But her description of a sacred tree archetype was the key takeaway. I imagined a series of concentric circles anchored by a small tree that would become the epicenter of the garden, a circle within a circle. A big job for a little tree. Here’s the plan I eventually created.

I recently discovered that my garden’s design is actually visible from Google Earth!

There were problems to solve before the garden could be planted – solid clay instead of soil, decayed wooden steps into the lower garden, and deer living under our deck. It took the rest of the first year to solve those problems before I could actually begin the pretty part.

It has been a multi-year process of making my dream garden a reality yet 25 years later, it was worth the journey. The early view of the lower deck

became this colorful garden viewing spot.

The deck on stilts in an empty yard

was transformed into a multilevel outdoor living space surrounded by lush plantings connecting it to the earth.

The dangerous wooden steps

were replaced by stone and became a focal point of the garden pointing to the central tree.

To celebrate this 25th anniversary, I created a before-after garden video that shows the process of transformation of the property into what is my dream garden today. It was an important lesson in the process of making this project to realize that steady work over time is the key to transformation and lasting beauty. Enjoy!

It was a very good year

Posted on February 4, 2026 by composerinthegarden

Winter is always the best time to look back at last year’s garden. I love that I can suddenly forget the deep snow and bitter temperatures while immersing myself in photos and videos full of color and life. Now is the perfect time to look back at the garden in bloom, while ignoring the current view from my window. Window well filled with snow

It was an enormous relief to be able to take photos again after my shoulder healed from surgery in February. The April garden came alive with fresh green leaves and delicate spring flowers. view of April garden from above

May burst over the edges of the garden beds and it was hard to choose just one photo. The entrance to the circle garden is one of my favorite views, an arbor covered in roses and surrounded by other flowers in May. Arbor covered with pink roses and surrounded by pink flowers

Did you know that human eyes can detect more shades of green than any other color? The endless rains in June made for lush foliage in both garden and woods – this scene spoke to me, inviting me to enter the green green woods.

July became a riot of color from the daylilies and summer perennials, yet the foliage spoke almost as loudly on a misty day. View of the circle garden from the deck in July

August was prime pollinator season, with insects gathering as much food for winter as possible. Echinacea purpurea was especially attractive to both humans and bumblebees.

The rains returned after a dry July and August and the garden was often enveloped in fog and mist. The arbor into the circle garden once again became a favorite view, inviting me to linger under it and study the layers of the garden.

Circle garden entrance in September

Enveloped by the same fog, the woodland walk matured quickly in its second year thanks to the heavy rains of spring and fall. The was Pixie’s favorite spot to keep watch in the woods. Woodland walk in fog in September

The low brilliant light of October mornings made for drama in the front walk.

By November, bright color had moved from the flowers into the leaves, a riot of autumn hues. Autumn leaves in the garden

I gathered my favorite video clips in a similar fashion, portraying each part of the circle garden and woodland walk through the seasons.

With 2025 behind us, I wish you a new year of beauty, laughter, and great adventures as 2026 unfurls before you.

If there was no tree this year

Posted on December 12, 2025 by composerinthegarden

As we decorate, it occurs to me that a Christmas tree holds so much more than ornaments. Resting on all those boughs is a treasure trove of memories that remain long after the tree is gone and Christmas itself is over for another year. ~Nita Prose, The Mistletoe Mystery

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I love Christmas. I have since I was a child, and as an adult, it has become an entire season for making music, decking the halls and celebrating with friends and family. In the 1980’s my husband and I performed as a high tech musical duo for several overseas tours with the DOD/USO, entertaining the men and women who served in the armed forces far away from home.

Hand carved desk sign from the Philippines

One year, we did a seven week Asian tour that stretched over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve – honestly, I didn’t expect to miss the holidays. But when Christmas Eve arrived while we were in the Philippines, I shed a few tears of homesickness. After our concert that night, we were invited to a local Christmas Eve service in a newly completed mahogany cathedral. It was magnificent, this cathedral with no walls, open to the warm night air and dark skies filled with a million stars. We were humbled and grateful when we were treated as guests of honor. While singing Silent Night by candlelight accompanied by young girls playing guitars, I couldn’t help but think of that lovely song’s first performance in 1818 for a Christmas Eve service in Austria. It was written to be accompanied by guitar when the church organ broke.

That was a Christmas I will never forget – no trees, no presents, no decorations, but brimming over with unfamiliar but delicious food, bountiful good will, the kindness of strangers, and a midnight sky outlined by palm trees swaying in the breeze between mahogany columns. When we returned home from the tour, I promised, like Scrooge, that I would always “keep Christmas” and I have. I even wrote a song inspired by that special moment.

I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. ~Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

This year will be another memorable Christmas for me. Last week, I began the deep house cleaning that I do before decorations go up. In my enthusiasm, I slipped on a wet tile floor, thereby performing an impromptu cheerleader split. Ouch. An ambulance ride and several days in the hospital revealed that my hamstring was torn and that I had several months of bedrest and sofa lounging ahead of me. My first night at home, I went through all five stages of grief in a few hours and then resigned myself to a quiet winter of healing and restoration. No Christmas trees, no lights, no bows, no ribbons, no wreaths. No snow filled adventures in the garden with Pixie and worst of all, no sitting, at least for a while. The many guests who were coming here for Christmas dinner have been redirected to my niece’s house while Pixie, Bill and I will have a quiet feast at home.

Lest you pity me, I’ve already made the necessary mental and emotional adjustments and have come to see this is an opportunity to consider new avenues of creativity and to plan for the coming garden season. Since I can only stand for a short time or recline at this point, no holiday cards are going out and no new garden videos will be posted until I regain mobility and am able to sit at a computer. That said, I offer instead my Christmas video from last year that uses Christmas in my Heart as its soundtrack – the story of that beautiful Christmas Eve spent so far away from home. (my apologies for the repeat to those of you who have seen it before!)

And if you want to see and hear Bill and me as our duo Aergo in the 1980’s, watch this historical music video of us performing Free the same year we did that memorable tour.

Here’s wishing each and everyone of you a holiday season filled with joy, wonder and happy celebrations, no matter where you find yourself. Peace ❤️

Autumn – the beautiful denouement

Posted on November 23, 2025 by composerinthegarden

Denouement is a French word that literally means the action of untying, from a verb meaning to untie. Noun: the outcome of a complex sequence of events

The leaves have untied themselves from the trees, or perhaps they were gently let go. Generously covering the garden beds and the forest floor, they color the world in tones of gold, orange, rust, and brown while returning the nutrients to the earth in an ancient process of release, decay and regeneration.

Autumn was a long languorous process, with its first hesitant steps in September proceeding through stages of leaf color change and ultimate descent to the earth.

Every day, the stroll through the garden was different. The early morning sun could cast fiery color and deep shadows or it could be filtered through a gentle mist that saturated the leaves and enhanced the rich range of autumnal color.

At last the storms and winds prevailed and the fall of leaves over a few days and weeks was spectacular. I was able to capture some of the magical moments of this process in video.

You may be in the southern continents where spring is now emerging, or in a tropical zone where there is no autumn. The earth is a wide and wonderful place and I have been privileged to see much of it in person. Yet, there is something about autumn in the northern continents that tugs at my heart, the dramatic shift in color and the subtle earthy scents of a world renewed by the long arc of seasonal change. Wherever you are on this planet, I hope that you can savor the beauty and sweetness of denouement, the end of one season and the beginning of another.