gardening is a serious creative discipline.
Garden Moxie is built on the belief that gardening is a serious creative discipline. Gardens unfold over time. Your site should direct your plant selection with the goal of creating a garden that doesn’t require excess irrigation, fertilizers, or human labor to survive and look beautiful.
The Garden Moxie philosophy begins with understanding the site, choosing plants that belong, designing with purpose, and allowing the garden to evolve over time.
My Work in Kentucky
I am Sue Libertiny, a mechanical engineer who left a career to build a garden on twenty acres of Kentucky land.
Sugar Hill is our long-term project. My husband and I are building a house and garden from the ground up. Rabbit Run is the temporary laboratory where I am learning what plants thrive in the Kentucky clay. I document everything. The plants that thrive, the ones that fail, and my design decisions.
My Love of Gardening
My love of gardening started with a handful of perennial divisions from a friend. The obsession deepened after my first visit to the great gardens of England like Hidcote, Sissinghurst Castle, Kiftsgate, and Gravetye Manor. Those places weren’t just beautiful. They were like walking into another world. Gardens shaped by people who wanted to create something extraordinary.
As I walked through those gardens, I kept thinking of one question: Why aren’t more American gardens made this way? That question continues to shape my work at Garden Moxie.
Inspired by Tradition
The gardeners who inspire me treated gardening as a serious creative craft:
Each approached garden design differently, but they created work that still has something to teach us. As you learn about the work of these historic gardeners, you realize that they championed principles we are still using today.
Garden Moxie Field Notes
If you’d like to follow the new garden as it unfolds, Garden Moxie Field Notes is a letter that arrives in your inbox every other week. Each issue records what is happening in the garden in real time as well as the ideas and traditions that shape my work.