My Houzz: Lush Landscaping Creates an Idyllic, Personalized Garden

Jeannette Fristoe and Larry Blake have personalized their classic New England landscape as not only a dreamy place to sit and relax with a book, but also an ideal spot for hosting outdoor gatherings. They repurposed the decking from an already-filled-in backyard pool, built a fieldstone fence to divide the yard and planted an array of beautiful plants. Their landscape is also one-size-fits-all-ages, with a playful treehouse for their nephews and grandchildren.

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Jeannette Fristoe and Larry Blake
Location: Bel Air, Maryland
Size: 2,300 square feet (214 square meters); four bedrooms, four bathrooms
Year built: 1923

When Jeannette Fristoe and Larry Blake moved into their home, the most dramatic change they made was cutting down several large trees to give the yard more sunshine and air circulation, which benefited both the lawn and the sun-loving plants. They also removed numerous overgrown cherry laurels and rhododendrons and replaced them with hydrangeas and English boxwood.


“This white-shingled house with lots of gables and angles emphasized by a deep roof overhang is the bungalow-style home we always admired,” Fristoe says. The home is built on a wooded lot, which gives it what she describes as “a cool and classical appearance. We both love the lawn and prefer the landscaping to be very casual and relaxed.” The home is on the National Register of Historic Places.


The couple kept the large mailbox near the front entrance, loving its charm.


Fristoe bought the metal birdbath in the backyard at Sandy Scott’s Antiques in Bel Air, Maryland. Her sister found the metal flowers at a shop in Rehoboth Beach in Delaware and gave them to her as a gift.


The back entrance provides a typical sampling of the plants around the home. It boasts a window box with a sweet potato vine and a pink impatiens. The vine traveling up the stair rail is English ivy. The large bush is an oak leaf hydrangea, and the large leaves of an elephant ear (Colocasia) can be seen by the porch, next to a tree peony.



Wooden shoes repurposed as planters hang at the back entrance. Fristoe found them at yard sales over the years. She planted small pots of ivy in each shoe, lining them up to resemble a window box.


“We use the small terrace for summer suppers and casual entertaining,” Fristoe says.


“Our favorite part of the backyard is the fieldstone fence my husband built to give a friendly divide to the open space,” Fristoe says. “It provides a beautiful backdrop to the spring bulbs and summer blooms.”


The front of the rock wall is full of daffodils in the springtime. Behind the wall are knockout roses and self-seeding cleome. The old iron kettle is home to a pink geranium.


The window box on the garage is filled with sweet potato vine, petunias and coleus. A grape vine travels over the door and around the top of the garage.


The grape vine wraps around to the front of the garage. Also on the garage in an old iron container is a white black-eyed Susan vine with a chartreuse sweet potato vine.

“I was inspired to plant the grapevine after a visit to the Bordeaux region in France, where old stone houses and barns are graced with grapevines that warm the cold facade of the stone,” Fristoe says.


Bamboo lines the property and creates a natural division between the couple’s yard and their neighbor’s. Blake built the pyramid-shaped trellises, the birdhouses and the dovecote that grace the yard.


This sewing machine stand has a large iron furnace grate on top, making it a perfect table for potting plants. It was a gift from the couple’s neighbor.

“My collections of miniature hosta — Mouse Ears, Teaspoon and Tiny Tears — and tiny geraniums are planted in old wine crates,” Fristoe says.


In this section of the yard, blue hydrangeas border the lawn. The tray table is a yard sale find from a trip to Vermont.

Chairs: Brommö, Ikea


The fence between the driveway and backyard is made of old wood from the deck of the swimming pool, which was filled in before the couple moved into the house. With the help of a friend, Blake designed and built the arbor and gate out of the redwood. A New Dawn rose climbs the fence and arbor, along with English ivy, which stays green year-round.

The stone wall that defines the flower beds was made from the remnants of old buildings on Fristoe’s family farm. The flower beds are filled with perennials, starting in spring with hellebores, Solomon’s seal and flowering bulbs. The tall plant in front of the fence is monkshood, which blooms in the autumn with regal blue spires.


In the backyard is a treehouse Blake built from bits and pieces left over from renovating the house. “Our backdoor neighbor, Rick, shipped the spiral staircase to us from his in-laws’ summer house in New England,” Fristoe says.


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