A coastal cottage garden, edited with a city girl’s eye

Gardening, design, and seasonal living in real time, mistakes and all

I grew up in coastal New England and spent years in the fashion closets of New York working in visual storytelling, learning how proportion, restraint, and seasonal rhythm shape everything we love.

Parsley & Petal is where that sensibility meets the garden.

Not sure where to start right now?

Start with The Seasonal Edit

a garden checklist

The Seasonal Edit is a recurring garden checklist of what’s emerging, what can wait, and what deserves attention now.
Practical tasks. Clear structure.
Timed to the season as it unfolds.

Read The May Edit

The Seasonal Edit: May — Late Spring Garden Checklist

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Plant Spotlight

Featured

Pinks (Dianthus)

Dianthus sit low at the front of my beds, softening the edges before the rest of the garden begins to fill in.

Catmint (Nepeta)

A long-blooming, deer-resistant perennial in Northeast gardens.

Hellebores (Helleborus orientalis)

One of the earliest and most reliable flowers in a Northeast garden.

Tools I Reach For

These aren’t pristine. They’re the ones I reach for.
A short list of what I actually use, with notes.
Some links may be affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Felco 6 Pruners

Atlas Nitrile Garden Gloves

A.M. Leonard Soil Knife

Popular in the Garden

Featured

What Rabbits Eat First in Spring (and Why)

Early spring is when you learn that “rabbit-resistant” does not mean immune.

Keukenhof Gardens: The Second Time

I know that color. I had been once before, years ago, with my younger sister, long before I ever thought of myself as a gardener.

The Easter Egg Bed: A Mother’s Day Reflection on Where a Garden Begins

It didn’t look like much then. Just a defined edge and a pair of evergreen anchors.

Test Garden — Week 2: What’s Coming Up (and What Isn’t Yet)

There’s a point, about a week in, when the trays stop making sense. Some seedlings are already reaching for the light. Others look the same as the day you planted them.

Test Garden — Week 1: Starting from Seed (Late March Notes)

A first look at the Test Garden — what I’m growing from seed, the setup, and what’s starting to take shape.

Do Deer Eat Hydrangeas? What to Expect (and What I’ve Learned)

Yes, deer will eat hydrangeas, especially certain types, but the damage isn’t always obvious at first glance.

From the Garden

Featured

The Test Garden: A Season of Growing from Seed

Follow a real-time Test Garden growing flowers and vegetables from seed in a coastal New England garden. See what germinates, what struggles, and what’s worth repeating.

When to Apply Pre-Emergent in Northeast Lawns (Timing Guide)

Pre-emergent works by preventing weed seeds, like crabgrass, from germinating. Timing is what matters.

How I Prune Hydrangeas in My Rhode Island Garden (Mophead & Panicle Guide)

In the next week or so, I’ll start pruning my hydrangeas, something that used to confuse me until I finally understood how to prune them properly.

What Deer and Rabbits Eat First (and What They Leave Alone)

These are the plants that have actually survived deer, and how I manage stubborn wildlife in my garden.

From the Journal

Featured

The Easter Egg Bed: A Mother’s Day Reflection on Where a Garden Begins

It didn’t look like much then. Just a defined edge and a pair of evergreen anchors.

Early Spring, Inside and Out

A quiet shift into early spring, with hellebore containers outdoors and kokedama arrangements inside, two ways of welcoming the season.

A Spring Visit to The Farmer’s Daughter Nursery in Rhode Island

The whole place had a fairytale feeling—artful, a little whimsical, and just loose enough not to feel overdone.

Early Spring Hellebores at Clark Farms

The farm was quiet, but inside was a magical surprise: tables filled with elegant flowers in bloom, in a wash of colors from pale green to whisper pink tipped in rose, to deep, saturated merlot.

About the Garden

Parsley & Petal follows the evolution of a coastal New England garden — sharing what works, what doesn’t, and what quietly takes root.

a little bit more about the garden

Parsley & Petal 2/23/26 Parsley & Petal 2/23/26

The Seasonal Edit: A Blizzard Garden Checklist

Heavy snow and blizzard conditions can cause snow damage to shrubs, boxwoods, arborvitae, and other evergreens, but knowing when to intervene can prevent long-term harm.

Parsley & Petal 2/20/26 Parsley & Petal 2/20/26

A Home Run with Color: Designing a Cohesive Garden Palette

I used to be drawn to everything at the nurseries. Whatever caught my eye came home with me. But a garden begins to feel cohesive when you choose a few colors and let them repeat.

Parsley & Petal 2/18/26 Parsley & Petal 2/18/26

The Seasonal Edit: February—Late Winter Garden Checklist

This is not a month for dramatic changes. It’s a month for structure, maintenance, and preparation. What you do now determines how smooth spring will feel.

Parsley & Petal 2/14/26 Parsley & Petal 2/14/26

My Essential Garden Tool Kit: The Tools I Actually Use

A good garden, like a good wardrobe, is built around a few pieces that do their job beautifully.

Parsley & Petal 2/14/26 Parsley & Petal 2/14/26

What I’m Learning by Not Overplanting: A Lesson in Garden Structure

When we first moved into our house, every bare patch of soil looked like a problem to solve. I was a city girl who knew nothing about growing grass, much less a garden.