We started redoing the gardens at Chiles House starting in the winter of 2017. We took advantage of the unusually warm winter days to start removing banana trees and shrubs. Our gardening philosophy is generally to add as much fragrance as possible. So, in came lilacs, fragrant tea olives, carefully chosen roses, jasmine, gardenias, fragrant irises, peonies and lilies. We reused as much planting material from the property as possible, dividing and then transplanting hostas, day lilies and irises to other places in the yard. We decided to make the back walled garden a formal hedge rose garden. The side yard was bordered by three large sugar maples. After consultation with a local arborist, we reluctantly took down one of the large sugar maples for safety reasons as it was near the end of its life. That opened up a new sunny spot that we used to add roses and a custom made rose arbor. The garden shine best in May when the first blush of roses meets the irises and peonies. Once the gardens were complete, we started a tradition of opening the gardens to the public in May. Please see our gallery of the re-invented Chiles House gardens below:
Front garden
Walled Rose Garden
Potagerie
Side Yard
Dining Courtyard
Shade garden
Kitchen Courtyard
Winter in the Garden
January 2017: We took this series of photos on Facebook of the exterior of the house in winter.
Here are photos of the gardens before we moved in.
Chiles House 