What Kind of Gardener Are You? Discover Your Garden Archetype

Throughout my career, I've entered many large, professionally decorated homes — more house than home, few personal items suggesting inhabitants. Outdoor spaces often mirror this: more yards than gardens or personal retreats. As a garden designer, I'm on a mission to change that.

Enter The Inward Garden: Creating a Place of Beauty and Meaning by Julie Moir Messervy — a life-changing book I read twice yearly. Messervy opens with Alfred Austin: "Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are." The premise: you hold an ideal garden image in your mind, culmination of collective thoughts and memories. You can create this in your backyard — walk through it, sit in it, savor aromas. Your garden becomes self-extension, telling a highly personal story.

What does your garden say about you? What story does it tell? Let's inject meaning and personality into your space.

Jay Sifford Garden Design

Name Your Garden

Name it, and it takes on personality. Time in your space — sun warming skin, breeze rustling trees — draws memories of special places, events, people. Your garden is a partnership with the earth.

Where do you feel most comfortable? Hidden spaces, open fields, overlooks seeing all? Answers dictate your space's evolution.

Ron Herman Landscape Architect

Find Your Archetype

The Traveler

Adventure-filled, enjoys journey as much as destination, storyteller, loves mystery/intrigue, delights in shadows and off-beaten paths. Satisfied by gardens celebrating journey: winding paths, secret rooms in tall hedges, bubbling water/wind chimes, aromas conjuring forgotten memories, artifact displays. Rhythm (similar objects at measured intervals) draws visitors deeper. Small urban garden with hidden reading nook and mementos also works.

More about garden "travelers"

Elaine M. Johnson

The Artist

Constant flux — rarely satisfied. Spaces for small vignettes illustrating balance (symmetrical/asymmetrical) with attention to texture, shape, color. Delights senses, emphasizes tactile. Sculpture prominent. Story in garden's palette. Content in small urban or sprawling country spaces.

More about garden "artists"

Jay Sifford Garden Design

The Collector

Passion for "one of each" or the best of all. Farmers' markets Saturday mornings, botanical sales. Weeping conifers, Japanese maples, daylilies — garden tells owner's passions. Challenge: unity in mismatched collection. Answer: repetition and mass plantings of secondary plants. Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna' (zones 4–9), moss, tassel ferns (Polystichum polyblepharum, zones 6–8) tame unorganized collections. Juxtaposition technique: pair plants sharing two of shape/color/texture/size — logical order emerges, unique qualities preserved.

More about garden "collectors"

Wagner Hodgson

The Philosopher

Sparse compared to traveler/artist/collector gardens. Prominent items carefully chosen for intrinsic value, shape, texture, relationships. Never crowded; emphasis on display promoting thought/introspection. Background monochromatic. Substrates: crushed stone, aged pavers, sand over turf/ground covers. Encourages thought. May prefer smaller spaces or high overlooks surveying countryside.

More about garden "philosophers"

Shannon Malone

The Whimsical Gardener

Simply fun, eccentricity as art form. Found objects unorthodox. Thrift stores, flea markets. Color abounds. Each item reflects owner personality. Challenge: continuity. Dark green hedge/ground cover mediates colors/shapes/textures, gives eye rest.

More about "whimsical" gardeners

Pedersen Associates

The Extrovert

Celebrates friendships, gathering people. Plants = supporting actors. Hardscape = stage. Set: colorful furniture, cushions, grill/outdoor kitchen. Story lies in people gathering.

More about "extroverted" gardeners

Aiken House & Gardens

The Romantic

Embraces sentimentality, thoughtful surprises, knows simple fragrances/sounds conjure sensual memories. Private garden, serpentine paths partially obscuring two-person seating. White flowers, fragrant roses, candles. Sees world through rose-colored glasses.

More about "romantic" gardeners

Jay Sifford Garden Design

One of the most personal gardens: Winghaven, Charlotte, NC. Home to Elizabeth and Eddie Clarkson, developed over three decades from 1930s. Part formal, part woodland. Barren lot when newlyweds moved in.

I visited frequently as a child. Elizabeth devoutly loved husband, faith, birds, plants. Taught wild birds to eat from her hand — impressed this 10-year-old boy.

Winghaven tells the couple's story.

Jay Sifford Garden Design — Rarely bought usual gifts. Collected meaningful poems/scriptures, wrote on index cards, filed in kitchen box. Special occasions: secretly open box, find verse, make plaque for garden. Dozens embedded in hardscape.

Jay Sifford Garden Design — So what kind of gardener are you? You may combine several archetypes. Self-discovery is what matters. Your garden, like Marcia Donahue's Berkeley garden, will tell its own story of who you are.

Part 2: What Kind of Garden Are You? The Traveler