Evernest

Evernest is my home, my garden, my design studio, and my wilderness playground. It is where I live, work, recreate, and become perpetually inspired by the day to day beauty of its being. With nearly 50 acres of wooded landscape in which to play, acres, and acres of borrowed vista upon which to gaze, and at least two cleared and fertile acres of soil in which to plant, it really is paradise found. My husband and I bought the property about seven years ago and have proceeded to give it a complete overhaul. We are in the ever-long process of rebuilding the house and get closer to completion every year. When we bought the place it was a one-story bungalo with an add-on bathroom wing. We added some width, breadth, and a couple of stories to say the least. Of course, it's the finish work that will take you to your grave. Anyone who has designed, built, and simultaneously lived in their own creation, knows what an enduring and awesome process this is. With the exception of the foundation pour, the main electrical box hook-up, and the shingles on the upper-most roof, this house has been built by the hands of my family and friends. Garden workshop visitors are welcome to come and see its yearly progress. One dream is to provide mature-level garden teachings at Evernest. Each year we expand the gardens with the goal of ultimately providing a destination campus for those who want to become a gardener. Like the house, we have a long way to go to realize that dream. So each year we build upon it, incrementally, and "inch by inch, row by row..." you know the rest. One thing in the making, is a Master Plan. This will help garden visitors, workshop participants, and students alike to see and appreciate the complexity of the work in progress. This is important, because those who participate in the garden workshops will be a part of the process. They will leave their enduring mark on the land. When students come to participate in gardening workshops at Evernest, they will work in the actual gardens. They will haul mulch, pull weeds, dead head plants, desod, double dig, sweat, get bitten by insects, get dirt under their nails, and become a better gardener for it. In addition to the "ornamentals" as an old friend once slanderously called my perennials (hee hee), my husband and I have a substantial vegetable garden in which we grow a significant portion of our family's food. We sell the excess at the Jamaica Farmers' Market on Sundays. In addition to the annuals, every year we attempt to install more perennial food crops; apple trees, pear trees, peach trees, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and of course, my husband's specialty, asparagus! We are happy to provide consultation for those interested in growing their own "edibles."