The house was still under construction when Louise and her husband, David, bought it in 199 3. The oddly shaped lot, 70 feet at its widest point and less than 100 feet deep, is at the end of a cul-de-sac. In the foreground is the sunny, formally styled garden area with brick paths and topiaries. In the informal garden beyond the gate, Louise removed the lower branches of the Leyland cypresses, a trick she learned in Italy, shaping them into multi-trunk trees and gaining more planting space in the process. She trims them at least once a month during the growing season, using scissors to remove any shoots that stray from the original form. “In spring and summer you can do some clipping almost every day. Even a little bit of new growth makes it look like the plants have cowlicks,” she says. A monthly trim with hedge shears keeps the lines of the boxwood hedges sharp. Despite the many hours of care Louise devotes to the garden, she also makes time to simply enjoy it. “Practically our entire house looks out on the garden, and we have a garden room that enables us to feel that we are sitting in the middle of the garden, where we can enjoy the flowers, a wide variety of birds, including a returning bluebird family, chipmunks, and occasionally a baby bunny. It is a place of beauty, tranquility, hard work, and nature’s renewal.”
