Magical Times I Had a Public Garden (Practically) to Myself

Connie Cottingham • September 9, 2026

There is something slightly thrilling about standing in a world-famous garden and realizing that, for the moment, nobody else seems to be there.


Public gardens are meant to be public. I love seeing people enjoying them, especially children encountering a garden for the first time. The more people who experience gardens and nature, the better.


But every once in a while, through luck, timing or a little audacity, I have found myself practically alone in one.


Those quiet hours remain among my most magical travel memories

Èze, France — 2011

My first experience happened almost accidentally.


Shortly after I was widowed, I joined a mastermind group that would meet by phone for a year, with gatherings in Aspen, Middleton Place and Monaco.


Monaco! I never would have guessed that would be my first European destination.


Then Kris, my best friend, decided to gather a few girlfriends in Provence at the same time. She would rent a car in Nice, we would all stop for a few days in Èze, and then she would deliver me to my hotel in Monaco before continuing to their country house.


Kris was exactly the confident—Drive into Monaco? Of course we can!—friend I needed.


Èze is a medieval village clinging to a cliff between Nice and Monaco. Its narrow stone streets climb toward the Jardin Exotique d'Èze, where cacti and succulents grow among sculptures high above the Mediterranean.


We had explored the garden the day before. The next morning, Kris and I carried coffee and croissants onto a balcony at Château Eza, a hotel within a centuries-old castle, and pulled out our sketchbooks.


It was the first trip on which I had ever kept a travel sketchbook.


Kris faced the Mediterranean far below us. I faced one of Jean-Philippe Richard's serene female sculptures rising from the garden well above our balcony.


Technically, I wasn't inside the garden. But from our balcony I could see no one else in it. There was only the rugged hillside, the sea, my coffee and this strong, graceful stone woman watching over the coast.


I kept sketching after that trip.


Staying overnight gave us another gift. Early in the morning, before the tour buses arrived, Èze itself was nearly empty. We could wander its medieval passageways, notice the old stones and, for a little while, pretend we lived there.


That was probably when I first learned the travel trick I have used ever since:


Stay close. Get up early. See the place before the crowd arrives.

Middleton Place, South Carolina — 2011

Middleton Place is one of America's great historic landscapes, with sweeping terraces, geometric vistas and a remarkable collection of camellias.


Its beauty also carries a complicated history. Generations of enslaved Africans and African Americans created and maintained the landscape visitors admire today. The garden was also connected to the international world of plant exploration. French botanist André Michaux was a friend of the Middleton family and brought camellias there in 1786. President James Monroe was hosted at Middleton Place during his Southern tour in 1819.


I happened to visit during camellia season.


Even better, I was staying at the Inn at Middleton Place and discovered that guests could walk from the inn into the gardens.


I set my alarm for sunrise, pulled on a jacket, grabbed my camera and went.


For years I had seen photographs of Middleton Place in landscape-history books. Suddenly those long vistas, clipped forms and sweeping greens were real.


And that morning they seemed to belong entirely to me.


The camellias were blooming.


I saw only one staff member in the distance before eventually heading back to the inn for breakfast.


Later I returned during normal visiting hours and took a tour. That gave me history and context.


But the early walk gave me something else.


It allowed me to encounter the landscape quietly, before anyone told me where to look.

Sissinghurst Castle Garden, England — 2012

Then came the phone call.


“The National Trust has just opened the Priest's House at Sissinghurst for rentals, and we're going. Sissinghurst! You don't have time to think about it. Just say yes.”


Kris had added the detail guaranteed to weaken my resistance:


Late June. The longest days of the year. Peak rose season.


If ever there were a Mastercard moment, this was it.


Say yes now. Figure out how to make it work later.


The three-bedroom Priest's House sits within Sissinghurst Castle Garden, the celebrated garden created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.


We each brought our guys and made the cottage our home for a week.


During the day we explored other English gardens, stopping at roadside stands for cherries. But the real luxury came when Sissinghurst's visitors went home.


Then we stepped outside.


No tour bus. No schedule. No need to hurry.


Late-June daylight seemed almost endless. In the morning I could walk out with coffee. In the evening we wandered through the garden rooms long after the public had departed.


One evening I danced beneath the rose-covered arbor in the White Garden, just Mike and me.


Another day we deliberately stayed “home” to watch visitors experience our garden. We mingled with the crowds and listened to conversations while curious faces peered through the windows of our cottage.


I was traveling with two horticulturists, so I invited the head gardener over for a drink.


She said yes.


We spent the evening talking about gardens.


Mastercard promises priceless moments.


That week it delivered.

Miller House and Garden, Indiana — 2025

Years later, another garden surprised me in an entirely different way.


A 2025 New York Times Style Magazine feature listed 25 gardens its panel believed travelers should see.


Sissinghurst was number one.


Number ten was in Indiana.


Indiana?


One day's drive from home?


I needed to see this.


The Miller House and Garden is in Columbus, Indiana, an extraordinary small city filled with architecture by Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Kevin Roche, Robert Venturi and others.


At the Miller House, landscape architect Dan Kiley created a garden to complement Saarinen's architecture and Alexander Girard's interiors.


I packed several architectural tours into a very short visit. The Columbus Area Visitors Center called the Miller House staff, who let me join a second bus group—but instead of touring the house again, I was allowed to spend that time outside.


So everyone disappeared indoors.


And I wandered off alone.


I walked beneath the allées, studied Saarinen's house from different angles and moved through a landscape of mature trees, geometry, rhythm and intense green to the river.


There were no great floral borders demanding attention.


That wasn't the point.


The quiet made the structure of the garden more apparent. I could see how Kiley's landscape responded to the architecture.


Again, being alone changed what I noticed.

State Botanical Garden of Georgia, Athens — 2004–2020

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Dad and the Scientist: a botanical garden visit that changed the way I saw expertise.

By Connie Cottingham • August 24, 2026
The photo is from the 2024 exhibit "Exquisite Creatures" at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR.

Discovering George Washington Carver, garden history, and a white passionflower in Southern Missouri

By Connie Cottingham • August 17, 2026
George Washington Carver National Monument in Diamond, Missouri

Don’t wait until June to visit Crystal Bridges – Visit Now.

By Connie Cottingham • February 26, 2026
Everyone is talking about the grand reopening in June. More space. More galleries. More excitement. But waiting means missing something special. Here are eight reasons why I think now is one of the best times to visit Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. It’s free – which expands your freedom. Yes, parking and admission here are always free. That’s easy to take for granted since most Bentonville area museums do not charge admission. But that free admission means you don’t have to think about your budget and time in the same way as if you were paying a $20-40 entry fee. You can stop in to join a tour or fill time between appointments by visiting one gallery.
Greeting card: Pineapple art print and portrait of woman with text.

Maria Sibylla Merian at Philbrook Museum: A Botanical Illustrator Worth the Trip to Tulsa

By Connie Cottingham • February 22, 2026
An exhibit on Maria Sibylla Merian is currently on display at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Drawn from a private collection, the works are well worth seeing. So is Philbrook itself—a 1920s historic estate built during Tulsa’s oil boom and now home to a museum surrounded by beautiful gardens. Art, architecture, and gardens together in one place? Definitely my jam. Who is Maria Sibylla Merian? Well, if anyone asks me who my favorite artist is, who is one of my sheroes, it’s Merian. She was a botanical illustrator, scientist, explorer. She was also fearless, curious, groundbreaking, and well-traveled. She was a single mother. She was open to other cultures and deduced her own opinions. She sold everything and brought her daughter with her to another continent at age 52. Oh, and she lived from 1647 to 1717.
Bay laurel plant in a black pot, with green leaves, and a plant tag.

A Bay Tree on the Windowsill

By Connie Cottingham • February 22, 2026
“Add a couple bay leaves,” suggested a friend. I had been moaning that I had looked everywhere I could think and could not find Bruce’s pinto bean recipe. Soak the beans overnight, add onions, ham, cumin, salt, and pepper into the Crock Pot. I found a similar, delicious recipe, but it was not the recipe. And Bruce’s recipe did not include bay leaves. But Kris said every bean recipe should have a bay leaf. And there is a bay tree on my windowsill. OK—at about 14 inches tall, tree may be a bit of an exaggeration. Bay leaves are commonly used in Mediterranean, French, and Spanish cooking, adding a subtle, savory flavor. Bay is also traditionally recommended to help with upset tummies, flatulence, and digestion. Ah—so that is why you toss bay into pots of beans. I hadn’t heard that before. Nor did I know bay leaves are sometimes boiled into custards.  During my snowed-in week, I made two pots of soup and a pot of beans, snapping off a leaf or two of bay and harvesting from the vase of sage and rosemary for the soups. My bay has adjusted well to indoor life and has plenty of leaves to share. Fresh bay leaves are a bit stronger than dried—one book describes the fresh flavor as “more eucalyptus-y.” I’ve always thought of bay as very mild. Although they are evergreen trees in the Mediterranean, bay (Laurus nobilis) takes well to pruning and can be grown in a container. I plan to keep mine a manageable two feet tall and happily invite it into my kitchen every winter. If you see a bay plant, I recommend buying one. None of my books recommend growing them from seed, and it can take a year or more to grow one from a cutting.

6 reasons to start your vacation at the local visitor center

By Connie Cottingham • October 1, 2025
1. The locals know which destinations suit your interests The people who work and volunteer are proud of their town and happy to have you discover all it has to offer. Once you start talking, they will light up as they give suggestions on what would interest you. Yes, there may be an abundance of breweries in an area, but a visitor center singled out the one that was also a cut flower farm to me. 2. Free parking while you get your bearings It takes a moment to figure out what is what in a new town. Many visitor centers offer free parking while you plan your visit with helpful staff and volunteers. 3. Restrooms and coffee ... welcome finds on a road trip. 4. Warnings and options When I mentioned that I wanted to experience the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way home in the Hendersonville (NC) Welcome Center, they warned me that weather had shut a segment down. They suggested another route where I enjoyed an outdoor lunch, art galleries, and a scenic drive home. Visitor centerscan also point out festivals and events to either enjoy or navigate around. 5. Gift shop A visitor center gift shop often carries postcards, local products, shirts, books, and other keepsakes to remember your trip. I seek out stickers to label my travel journals with the destinations inside.Photo in text here 

Why I Sketch

By Connie Cottingham • September 24, 2025
Travel Sketching: A Secret Tool for Authentic Travel Writing Sketching is a way to experience and capture moments, emotions and a location.

On an equinox, the sun rises due east and sets due west. Learn how the sun's path influences your garden.

By Connie Cottingham • September 22, 2025
September 22 is the Autumn Equinox — a day when the sun rises due east and sets due west. For gardeners, this isn’t just trivia: it explains why our plants thrive (or struggle) as the seasons shift. This is a science, with a series of calculations and variables that explain everything. I don’t think that level of detail is important here, so I am going to explain this short, sweet, and simplistic. If you are super Type A or demand precision, you may want to stop reading now before I frustrate you. Honestly, my parents’ birthdays are within a day of the equinoxes (Happy Birthday Mom!), so that is how I remember them. I turn to a computer for a precise date when I need it. The date hovers a bit, because a year is 365.2422 days, with leap years that almost correct that. So the fall equinox is September 22-23 and the spring equinox is March 20-21. On an equinox, everyone on the planet enjoys 12 hours between sunrise, which is due east, and sunset, which is due west. The sun pretty much treats us all equally on an equinox. Because the Earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees, in summer the sunrise and sunset move further north. The amount of daylight changes, varying with how far you live from the equator. Is this true in both hemispheres? Yes, but keep in mind that December holiday parties in Australia happen on their long summer days, maybe on the beach. One year I was in England during the summer solstice in late June, when the sun seems to be as far north as it travels. The sun was up before 5 a.m. In summer, London has about 17 hours of daylight. Miami, closer to the equator, gets about 14 hours of sun in late June. Things change in winter, when Miami may have 10-1/2 hours of sunlight while London has less than 8 (sunset before 4 p.m. – yikes!) So what does all this mean to a gardener? If you are not certain where due east and west are in your garden, observe the sunrise and sunset on September 22. In the Northern Hemisphere, days are getting shorter at a rapid pace, until winter solstice on December 21, when the sun will rise furthest southeast and set furthest southwest. At this time, the midday sun will be lowest in the sky. This is why our homes’ eaves are designed as they are, to provide shade from a higher summer midday sun while letting warming winter light into our windows. In the winter, our north walls get no direct sun, so it is easy to think North=Cold. Wrong. In the summer the sunset is northwest, so the hottest part of the day has sun shining on my north walls. I have hydrangeas against my north wall, but July-August I need to make sure they are well watered to handle the baking sun. When you plant a tree, realize that shade patterns change with the seasons. One time I emerged from a camping tent after a morning frost. The tents under evergreen pines that created a warming effect had no frost, while more exposed tents had a layer of frost on them. Deciduous trees provide little protection in winter, but cooling shade in summer. And that is just how a tree canopy can create a microclimate. Now mix in winds and planting zones and architectural details and a million other things and you realize that getting to know your garden will take at least one full year. You can see that as challenge/delay or as discovery/wonder. This is one reason all gardeners kill plants. It is part of the discovery. I’m sorry if it feels like your head will explode. Having a garden means you will grow with it, always learning. Step 1 is easy: Take a few minutes to walk outside and figure out where N-S-E-W are tomorrow. According to studies, less than half the population can point north from their home.
A green vase filled with flowers is sitting on a table.

Sending you flowers – and a free flower growing and arranging class

By Connie Cottingham • May 22, 2025
Note: This post was originally written as a Love Note from the Garden. Sign up for these free, weekly emails at the bottom of this page.
A row of cherokee purple tomato plants in pots

Why I would not plant a tomato (or pepper) in March in my NW Arkansas garden.

By Connie Cottingham • March 28, 2025
It is late March in Northwest Arkansas, with temps in the 70s, sunny skies and spring fever hitting hard. Plants are in front of stores and garden centers are buzzing. Everyone wants to plant NOW. Although I have seen many peppers and tomato plants for sale, I would not buy one or plant it in March. As beautiful it is today, next week will have three mornings at 40 degrees or below. Yes, that is above freezing, but many tropical plants will die at higher temperatures. Tomatoes should be planted when evening temperatures reliably stay above 50 degrees. Studies say even if the tomato plant looks OK, growth can be stunted when planted before the soil warms up. Yes, it is hard to resist. Here are a few things to do instead. Watch for Blackberry Winter. It’s a thing – practically every year. When the blackberries bloom in early spring, a late cold snap or a frost hits. The average last frost date in Benton County, AR, is April 19 and my blackberries have not bloomed yet, so there is a good chance April will have some chilly nights. Be a rebel - buy the tomato anyway and plant it. You are not risking your children’s inheritance and getting your hands dirty is therapy, so if you want to do it, do it. The biggest commitment is the space in your garden, which could be producing greens and vegetables in April instead. Plant cooler season vegetables now and harvest those until you plant the tomatoes (and peppers) later. There are radish seeds that can be harvested in only 24 days, baby spinach that can be harvested in 28 days, and lettuce and spinach plants for sale, so you could get a crop in before planting your tomatoes. Win/win. I must admit, when spring fever hits hard I sometimes buy a six-pack of lettuce for instant gratification. Lettuce in greens, burgundies, and with speckles look so pretty in a freshly prepared garden bed. March is a good time to plant potatoes. onions, or fruit plants like strawberries and blueberries. There’s plenty of food crops you can be planting now. Are you upgrading your big pots on the front porch? Move the old containers to a sunny side yard and plant potatoes, strawberries, or herbs in them. Use this time to build raised planting beds and enrich your soil.