In the garden

The Flower Garden

Each evening, after the studio goes quiet and the last light settles over the pasture, Jen walks the garden. She’s the Midnight Gardener — deadheading, cutting, and gathering by the last of the daylight and the glow of the barn lamp. What grows here feeds the bouquets, the bees, and the kitchen alike. Walk the beds below, from the gate to the harvest she carries in for the night.

• 

  Marked at the edge of the beds

  The Farmstead Sign

  The Ridge Estate Farmstead Garden sign stands at the boundary, with sunflowers and deep purple foliage spilling from the planter beneath it. It marks where the tended garden meets the open pasture.

• 

  Up close in the jar

  The Bloom Table

  The arrangement comes together on the table — a fuchsia cosmos, a pale drumstick scabiosa seed head, statice, and a pink zinnia packed into a glass jar. Each bloom is its own small study.

• 

  Where the garden begins

  The Garden Gate

  Two chairs under the sky, hanging baskets of petunias along the fence, and a little sign letting everyone know the honeybees are hard at work. The gate is the first place to sit and watch the evening come in.

• 

  Choosing what grows next

  The Nursery Run

  Jen loads up the cart with hot-pink, red, and yellow zinnias, the dog riding along for the trip. Every season begins here — picking the colors and varieties that will fill the beds and feed the bouquets.

• 

  Flowers on the food, too

  The Edible Beds

  Even the vegetables bloom. Potato flowers open lavender and yellow above the raised beds — a reminder that the food garden is part of the flower garden, and beauty runs right through the kitchen beds.

• 

  Grown to be gathered

  The Cutting Garden

  Rows of zinnias, snapdragons, statice, and strawflowers grown just for cutting. This is where the evening rounds start — a basket, a pair of shears, and whatever is at its peak.

• 

  Carried in for the night

  The Harvest

  By the time the light goes, the basket is full. Strawflowers, daisies, and dried grasses come inside to dry or fill a jar on the table — the last thing done before the garden is left to the dark.