08/28/2026
A Secret Garden
36” x 36” Oil on Canvas
There was a book in our house growing up called The Secret Garden, and it stuck with me. A robin, a hidden key, a walled off garden, and a sick kid who gets well just by being allowed to dig in the dirt. I didn’t know it at the time, but that book set the mold for what I go looking for whenever I travel. Some cosy, half hidden green corner you can disappear into. Somewhere romantic, almost secret, like it’s waiting for you to find it.
That’s the scene in this painting. A little bistro table tucked against a stone wall, two chairs pulled up close, roses climbing right up beside the window like they’re trying to get a look inside. The photo taken in daylight, but when I painted it I imagined the sun going down instead. That’s where the jewel tones come from, the deep greens gone almost blue, the gold catching in the leaves and along the wall.
Somebody had put a jar of roses right in the middle of the table too, just a mason jar, like they’d been cut minutes before and stuck there without much fuss.
And the lights. Strung back and forth overhead in no particular pattern, catching the last of the blue sky before it went dark, little warm bulbs doing all the work of turning an ordinary patio into somewhere you’d want to sit for hours.
A garden always feels a little magical to me. Part friendship, part stubbornness, part positive thinking, honestly. My mother was a real gardener. She didn’t just plant flowers, she built rooms. One bordered all around in Annabelle hydrangea. Another was a flagstone path that wandered around the birch trees in the back left corner, with a few little focal points along the way. And on the far side, a cedar hedge closed off a little spot just big enough for a table, somewhere to sit and eat with the garden all around you. Each one felt like its own little world, private and a bit dreamy.
Gardening is a lot of work, nobody warns you about that part. But it’s good for the soul.
