The Garden That Sarah Built
photography by Joe Keller, Keller & Keller
The entrance to Sarah’s secret garden offers just a glimpse inside
The answering machine at Sarah Sloane’s house says, “Hello, this is Sarah. If you are calling about Garden Design or Dance Lessons, please leave your name and number and I will get back to you as soon as possible.”
The garden has two ponds, the long, rectangular koi pond and a round raised fish pond in the back. The entire garden is 4000 sq ft. Sarah constructed the bamboo fences that outline one side of the garden and the gate entrance by using a fisherman’s needle with techniques she learned when repairing fish trawls in Oregon and Alaska.
That describes Sarah in a nutshell. Her down-to-earth creativity embodies every aspect of her life whether it is designing her postage stamp sized organic garden, teaching swing and salsa dance lessons in the evening, writing or illustrating books, or designing her own line of prints and t-shirts.
Sarah bought this Rhode Island cottage with a vision in mind. She put in french doors, a pergola and low deck to create an instant outdoor living space. The rest of the gardens she planned and implemented by herself
Sarah’s talents go further. She actually physically constructed this garden all by herself. When the four and a half tons of New England field stone she ordered was dumped in her driveway she used them to construct the ponds and paths, the foundation of her backyard garden design. The remainder of the 4,000 square foot organic garden was designed based on experience, education and memories. (See before shots below.)
Sarah loves to sit under the old oak tree where she reads with her cat, Zooey, and her Cairn Terrier, Posie, on balmy afternoons
“My love of winding garden paths came from my grandmother’s gardens,” she said, referring to the twisting pathways she created. “There were always new surprises around every turn.”
By using different materials on the paths which meander through the garden, Sarah has created the illusion of a hidden refuge that evolved over a long period of time rather than the three years of its existence. She used wood chips edged with field stone or logs; cragged stones set in beds of thyme; squared blue stone separated by wooly thyme, and brickcrete, an economical brick made of concrete Sarah found on sale and just had to have.
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“Walkways are the story tellers of the garden,” she states. She takes time to meander regularly through hers to sit on the stone bench built into the pond’s raised bed or to find her way to the bench under an old oak tree where she reads with her cat, Zooey, and her Cairn Terrier, Posie, on balmy afternoons.
Sarah created different pathways to create depth and age to the garden. Clockwise from left; a herringbone Brickcrete path with block of thyme in the center; stone and thyme; woodchips and logs, woodchips and slate squares, and woodchips with a stone border
The higher half moon pond, where Zooey and Posie compete with fish for the food sprinkled on the water, is connected by a waterfall over stone steps
Another creation from her memory are the ponds. As a little girl, she recalls visiting a round fish pond. “My sister and I were allowed to sit on the edge, trail our fingers in the water and feed the goldfish,” she says. She loved that memory enough to make it the focal point of the garden and a frog pond which serve as a natural biological filter that empties into the lower reflecting pond. She is a firm believer that built correctly, ponds are maintenance free once they are filled with water.
Sarah’s ‘bird forest’. She uses a combination of pruning and bonsai wiring to create them
To add humor to it all, Sarah has what she calls her ‘bird forest’, bird shaped boxwoods that she describes as a cross between topiaries and bonsais. The birds can be found on the deck, amongst the flower beds or near the garden shed. The response to her whimsical flock was so great, she began selling them to local nurseries.
Besides her belief in sustainable organic gardening and working in balance with the environment, this garden was created on a budget. Materials were bought on sale, flowers were cultivated from cuttings from friends, and she did almost all of the work herself including building the fence, the trellis, laying the brick paths and constructing the fish ponds.
The cottage before Sarah transformed it
Sarah Sloane believes that it is all in the details
Sarah’s garden has become a culmination of her principles, passions and dreams. The sanctuary and nurturing oasis has become her calling card for clients but more than that, it is where she escapes to design, write, illustrate or to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
Photography by Joe Keller of Keller & Keller Photography
Photos courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens
