A coastal cottage garden, edited with a city girl’s eye
Gardening, design, and the stories that grow alongside them.
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 a publication of essays, observations, and practical gardening from one botanical corner lot.
A new story blooms every week.
What Ten Years Taught Me About Life, Chihuahuas, Moms, and Gardening a Corner Lot
The story of how a coastal Rhode Island corner lot became a garden, a publication, and an ongoing experiment in how to Just Observe.
Read More —> 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.
Plant Spotlight
Closely observed plant profiles, growing notes, and seasonal favorites.
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.
Editor’s Picks
From the Garden
Practical guidance, garden lessons and seasonal decisions from life in the garden.
From the Journal
Observations, stories, and rituals that make the garden a home. A collection of family traditions, unexpected connections, and the stories that grow alongside the garden.
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A Summer Visit to Lavender Waves Farm
A visit to Rhode Island's only lavender farm became a lesson in observation, landscape design, and the ways gardens continue to teach us.
Garden Design Lesson: Borrowed Views
A borrowed view is one of the simplest ways to make a garden feel larger without adding a single plant. Discover how framing distant trees, neighboring gardens, and natural scenery can transform the way you experience your own landscape.
The Places We Return To
I went to the Museum of Fine Arts to see an exhibit about gardens. Instead, I found myself returning to a painting I'd loved since childhood and reflecting on why certain places continue to shape us long after we've left them.
How the Rose Garden Room Was Born
What began as a way to protect roses from deer slowly evolved into one of our favorite garden spaces. A story about English roses, dogs, neighbors, and the garden room I never planned to create.
My Botanical Corner Lot
I remember someone visiting shortly after we purchased the property and remarking, rather dismissively, “This yard isn't that great.” Perhaps they were right.
The Shower Coleus
I thought my mom wanted me to babysit a plant. It turned out to be a story.
Peonies and Roses: A Love Story
My love affair with peonies isn't over. It's just on hold while I get this growing devotion to roses under control.
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
Some gardens begin with a planting plan. This one began with my mother.
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
Spring hadn't arrived outside yet. Inside, it already had.
The Spring Reset: Lawn and Garden
Mid-March in the Northeast. While the stylist in me wants to edge the beds immediately, the gardener in me says, “Wait. It’s still too wet.”
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.
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.