Happy Friday, GPODers!
We’ve reached the end of our virtual edition of the 2025 Secret Garden Tour in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. What a treat is has been to visit these diverse gardens and experience landscapes from a region we would certainly love to see more from! It is also inspiring to see how five different gardeners create designs given very similar growing conditions. Despite all being cultivated in the same neighborhood, each garden has its own personality and unique selection of plants. If you missed any of the gardens featured this week, definitely circle back to check those out: Teresa’s Serene Space, Anne’s Abundant Kitchen Garden, Allison’s Cacti Courtyard, and Johanna’s Mediterranean Masterpiece. If you’re all up to date, scroll on to see Karen Hunt’s lush and vibrant landscape inspired by English garden design.
Karen Hunt’s love of English gardens is reflected in her choice of flowers. Her front yard features carpet roses, trellises with mandevillas and pink roses, agapanthus, blue daze (Evolvulus glomeratus, Zones 8–11), and Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia, Zones 4–9). Her back patio is perfect for entertaining, with star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides, Zones 8–10) espaliered against the wall on a diamond trellis, planters of rose topiary, mandevilla trellises, and eugenia topiaries.
A cottage garden, signature to the often cloudy English climate, is a challenging design to translate to the much harsher conditions on the Florida coast. However, Karen manages to execute this romantic style with the help of these gorgeous white containers that add lots of opportunity for floral color on her pool patio.
Topiaries, like these three globes of eugenia, add to the whimsy of the garden, and Karen utilizes every inch of planting space in these pots to mimic the dense look of English gardens while creating more pockets of bright color.
Training some plants into small trees, rather than the shrubs they might naturally form, also allows for much more planting space. This small container is a mini English garden of its own, with layers of flowers bursting from every corner.
An easy way to get an English garden feel in any climate is by adding some vining or climbing plants. No matter what plant you choose (as long as it isn’t invasive or troublesome), you’ll instantly soften harsh edges and create a more romantic, whimsical vibe. Bonus points if you train them into a gorgeous espalier like Karen did with this star jasmine.
And it’s not really an English garden until you’ve added some roses. These Flower Carpet® white roses (Rosa × ‘Noaschnee’, Zones 5–10) give the feeling of an old-fashioned variety, but with the disease resistance of modern introductions. A perfect pick for the hot, humid climate of Florida.
I absolutely adore that Karen doesn’t shy away from an ample use of pink! I think the color absolutely shines in really sunny locations, and there is so much pink crossover in classic English garden plants and tropical bloomers. This hearty mass of pink snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus, Zones 7–10 or as an annual) has stunning flowers and foliage.
Thank you so much again to Anne Eshelman and all of the gardeners featured on this tour for creating a marvelous garden event and sharing it with the GPOD community! It has been a pleasure to explore each garden’s designs and get a taste of what gardening is like in your corner of the world.
We will be back to our regular schedule next week, so keep an eye out for your garden on the blog if you have submitted photos recently. If you still haven’t shared your garden with GPOD, it’s never too late to contribute some photos to get your designs featured. Follow the directions below to submit photos via email, or send me a DM on Instagram: @agirlherdogandtheroad.
We want to see YOUR garden!
Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!
To submit, send 5–10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.
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