Garden Moxie
For those who believe gardens deserve serious attention. Learn the design principles behind extraordinary gardens and how to apply them to create spaces that are creative and timeless.
The Perspective
Great gardens are not accidents. They’re built from a series of deliberate decisions about enclosure, movement, and structure. Garden Moxie studies those decisions. Learning from the historic gardens that still teach us important design principles, and from Sugar Hill, the twenty-acre garden I’m building from Kentucky farmland.
I’m Sue Libertiny. A mechanical engineer who traded a career solving other people’s problems for a slower life building a garden that will take many years to become what I see in my mind. Before Kentucky, I gardened on a half-acre in Michigan. That garden had history that money can’t buy. Mature beds, established hedges and fertile soil. I left it behind to build my dream garden.
Sugar Hill starts as a blank slate. Nothing but clay soil and ancient oak trees. Rabbit Run, a temporary house nearby, is where I trial what will thrive in the Kentucky clay before committing those decisions to the permanent garden.
Garden Moxie Field Notes
Garden Moxie Field Notes is a record of my Kentucky garden as it unfolds. Each issue explores the principles behind my design choices, the plants being trialed, and whatever else the season brings. Field Notes arrives every other week.
Latest from the Garden
The Rabbit Run plant trials have started. In this week’s video, I share some of the plants that are thriving and a couple that are not doing well. I have purposely not amended the soil so I can learn what thrives in this Kentucky clay soil.
Start with the foundations of great garden design
If you’re new to Garden Moxie, I suggest you begin with the design principles that help us create beautiful spaces.
Start with the Bones
Why structure matters more than plants
Timeless Design Principles
The elements that make a garden feel complete
What Great Gardens Teach Us
Lessons from the designers who built them
These aren’t quick tips. They are the design principles that help us build extraordinary spaces.