Happy Friday GPODers!
Fine Gardening editors take a lot of photos. During the growing season our editors travel across North America to visit gardens that will be featured in our print magazine. During these visits hundreds of photos are taken and only a fraction of them ever make it into the glossy pages. Some of these bonus photos are occasionally shared on our social media channels or on our website, but others slip through the cracks and end up in computer folders never to be enjoyed by the public. The photos I’m sharing today could have found that same fate.
Our Editorial Director, Danielle Sherry, made a trip to the midwest this past summer, specifically Chicago and Milwaukee, to visit and photograph a handful of gardens. One garden she has long wanted to visit, but could never fit into her schedule, was the colorful garden of Dorothy Danforth in the suburbs of Milwaukee. Determined to finally get a glimpse of this local legend, Danielle went out of her way to make a visit to Dorothy’s garden happen during her summer trip, despite no magazine feature being planned. Danielle ended up spending hours exploring and photographing Dorothy’s space.
As 2025 comes to an end, and with an already packed print schedule for 2026, Danielle sent me some of her photos to ensure this gorgeous garden can get some appreciation sooner rather than later.
In this first photo we see some wonderful plants, but we also get a taste of the art that Dorothy has sprinkled across her garden. While color is never in short supply with an incredible mix of flowers and lots of vibrant foliage, there are always opportunities to add more personality and interest with ornaments and adornments.
More than four decades of plant collecting and designing has cultivated a space with tons of diversity and little room for new additions. A narrow grass path allows Dorothy and her visitors to still enjoy these dense plantings.
As you might have already noticed, Dorothy has an incredible collection of conifers. Perennials and flowering shrubs provide tons of vibrant color, but it’s the conifers that make her landscape interesting year-round. A weeping Norway spruce (Picea abies ‘Pendula’, Zone 4–9) in this vignette is a cascade of incredible texture.
Conifers provide the backbone to Dorothy’s garden, but she is clearly a collector of all types of plants. As much as Dorothy understands the important of woodies, she also adores a large assortment of perennials that have interesting flower and foliage forms.
Dorothy has a mix of light conditions in her garden, from deep shade to full sun. This also attributes to the diversity Dorothy has achieved in her plantings, allowing her to utilize plants that thrive in lush shady borders and bright flower beds. This bed is vibrant with both sun and a lovely assortment of hot-colored flowers.
One of the most iconic non-plant features Dorothy’s garden is her colorful garden gazebo. As with the rest of her art, it adds even more color and personality to her landscape while melding beautifully with the plants that surround.
Lastly, we can’t share Dorothy’s garden without touching on her impressive hosta collection. In this bed alone I spot six different varieties that are creating a sea of greens and blues for two playful cranes.
I hope you enjoyed this selection of photos from a popular private garden! The Fine Gardening editors visit many spectacular gardens every year and I love being able to lift the curtain a bit to give the GPOD community a look behind the scenes.
If you participated in or attended a private garden tour this year, we would love to see your photos. Follow the NEW directions below to submit your photos to Garden Photo of the Day!
We want to see YOUR garden!
Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!
To submit, fill out the Garden Photo of the Day Submission Form.
You can also send 5–10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.
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