Get This Look: 5 Garden Ideas From 'Life In The Garden' By Bunny Williams

Considered one of the most talented names in design, Bunny Williams is an accomplished entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist. Her new book, Life In The Garden, is a testament to Bunny’s love for the garden and woodlands surrounding her Connecticut home. American Meadows is proud to be featured in the book. as a trusted resource for plants, bulbs, and seeds.

Take inspiration from Bunny's spectacular gardens for your own planting projects! Here are just a few of the snapshots from her book with tips for how to make them your own.

The Vegetable Garden gets special attention – because everything is planned and planted fresh each year. Annual wildflowers are lovely additions to vegetable gardens, because they grow quickly, add color to the space, and attract pollinators to help boost your garden harvest. Plus, they provide buckets of flowers for arrangements all season.

Tips To Get This Look

• Alternate beds of vegetables with beds of flowers to invite pollinators into your garden.
• Look for medium-height flowers for the center of the garden, so you don’t block light. Taller flowers like Sunflowers can be grown along the edges.

This garden showcases the beautiful effect of planting a border with tall, mid-range, and low-growing plants. Taller plants, like Joe Pye Weed and Culver’s Root, create a grand backdrop. Bee Balms fill out the middle and add lovely fragrance, along with cheerful Purple Coneflowers. Along the front of the border, low-growing Lady’s Mantle spills over the edge of the low stone border.

The result is a gorgeous layering of flowers and foliage for a beautiful garden border along a stone pathway, so visitors can easily take in the sights and scents of the garden.

Tips To Get This Look

• Even in narrow spaces, such as a border or side yard, you can grow a wide variety of perennials. Always plant tallest perennials in the back.
• Edging your garden with low-growing perennials is a beautiful way to add layers of flowers and foliage for year-round interest. Plus, they’ll crowd out weeds.

Once just an open expanse of lawn, Bunny’s Sunken Garden is now a showcase of more than 40 perennial varieties. With plenty of naturalizing plants, including many native plants, this garden creates a lush oasis. 

They selected plants with a wide range of bloom times, so colors emerge in the early spring and continue through until late fall for continuous flowering. Annuals are also seeded among the perennial plants to increase variety. 

Tips To Get This Look

• Walkways, stone walls, and flower pots add structure to help balance the wild nature of the mature spreading perennials.
• Know your color theory - this garden features a strong palette of pink and purple blooms, paired with yellow flowers for a complementary pop of color. 

Woodlands come alive in the early spring, with Daffodils, Ferns, and ephemeral Woodland Wildflowers in dappled light beneath the trees. Plus, in the summer, it’s a great place to cool off.

Daffodils are naturally deer and rabbit resistant, and they'll naturalize and spread over time, filling your woodland with the most cheerful spring blooms.

Tips To Get This Look

• When undertaking a woodland garden planting, the first thing to do is eradicate any invasive plants like poison ivy, burning bush, and garlic mustard.
• Woodland plants and ferns - look for native species - provide leafy green groundcover on the forest floor.

In her book, Bunny provides plenty of creative ideas for how to bring natural elements into your home. Is there anything better than enjoying bouquets from your own garden? This colorful bouquet features a wide range of textures, including foliage from grasses and trees, as well as bright Zinnias and Delphinium.

Tips To Get This Look

• Incorporate a mix of annual wildflowers, perennial plants, flower bulbs, and ornamental grasses into your cutting gardens for maximum texture.
• Mix flower forms in the same color palette for a beautiful display.

Primary Photography by Annie Schlechter

Life in the Garden
by Bunny Williams

Bring home a copy of 'Life in the Garden,' featuring a gorgeous harvest of Red Clover on the cover! Enjoy endless inspiration in this beautiful book for your own garden planning.