One of Rye's Secret Gardens

Once the warm weather arrives, it's a treat to be invited into Jackie Norman's backyard. When she and her husband bought the Highland Place home 34 years ago, the landscaping was dated and colorless. “It was mostly ivy and pachysandra,” she recalled. No longer.

Setting simple goals — lots of perennials, continuous flowering somewhere, no annuals except in pots, nothing higher than 18 inches in the rock garden and the creation of a true woodland garden at the back where the property slopes up — she set to work.

By removing four trees that were planted smack in the middle of the lawn, she made the property look grander, bigger. In the rock garden, she planted Daphne, a sweet-smelling shrub, phlox, Candy Tuft and other low-growing plants. The borders are alive with Caryopteris, Alyssum, Akebia, Baptisia, hydrangeas and different varieties of roses, from White Dawn to America.

In the growing seasons, there is always something in bloom, starting with bulbs and Hellebores, then ever-blooming Bleeding Hearts, hostas, day lilies, and finally asters in the fall.

Norman, like most avid gardeners, is ready to get back to work. The first thing she plans to do, once the weather cooperates, is to move that juniper that's outgrown the rock garden.