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

Gardening, design, and seasonal living learned 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.

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The Seasonal Edit: May

Late Spring Garden Checklist

This checklist is designed for May in the Northeast, where the garden may be ready, but the weather may not always cooperate.

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.

Popular in 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.

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.

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 Actually Leave Alone (Real Garden Results)

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

From the Garden

Featured

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 Actually Leave Alone (Real Garden Results)

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

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.

From the Journal

Featured

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.

Early March in the Garden

Today is noticeably warmer, and early daffodils are beginning to emerge in the beds, the first real sign of spring.

A Note from 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 me

Parsley & Petal 4/8/26 Parsley & Petal 4/8/26

The Seasonal Edit: May — Late Spring Garden Checklist

This checklist is designed for May in the Northeast, where the garden may be ready, but the weather may not always cooperate.

Parsley & Petal 2/28/26 Parsley & Petal 2/28/26

The Seasonal Edit: March/April — Early Spring Garden Checklist

Early spring is the time to address garden cleanup and minor lawn repair, before growth accelerates.

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 2/18/26 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.