Celebrating a Southern Garden: Ben Page at Brookside Farm

Ben Page shares with us the full-blown beauty of his southern garden in its peak blooming period midsummer before the heat became relentless and we transition into the shorter days the accompany fall.

As summertime nears its end, Ben looks back and talks wistfully of the sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, and marigolds that bloomed in his own garden outside a three-bedroom Greek Revival cottage in Pulaski, Tennessee that provides weekends of pleasure in the countryside this summer. It is here that Ben and Libby Page spend long, sunlit summer afternoons and delight in tending to and enjoying the cutting and vegetable garden.

“Now that the garden is ten years old, it has reached a maturity of structure that is really fun,” Ben says with pride. “It brings us incredible pleasure to get into the garden rhythm and celebrate the summer season, which brings birds, butterflies, honey bees, and rabbits.”

The bones of this Tennessee garden are laid out in a traditional boxwood parterre pattern common in the Antebellum South and mimic a very old garden that was in Libby’s family from the early nineteenth century.

According to Ben, it is between mid-June and mid-August that southern gardens reach their height of beauty, and he continues, telling us that “this is when the annuals reach their peak size and are saturated with color, and hummingbirds and butterflies call the gardens home.”

The flower and vegetable portion of the garden imitates Thomas Jefferson’s vegetable garden at Monticello. And while the layout of the garden remains constant from year to year, the plants in each area change annually. Tailoring the plant communities to plants that can withstand hot days and introducing a diverse cross-section of fruits and vegetables, Ben was thrilled by the beauty and brilliance of growth that was endemic to this summer.

In hopes of capturing the flavors and memories of the season, Libby pickled okra and squash from the garden and turned tomatoes in a jam that is delicious on hamburgers (says, Ben).

The couple spent many summer evenings strolling and surveying the gardens — sometimes alone and many weekends with company (both human and animal). Despite their dedication to the garden, they only claim about 80% of it as their own. The rest? It is reserved for the fauna that finds as much pleasure in it as Ben and Libby do.

Designer Profiles: Interview with Ben Page (NFocus Magazine May 2023)

Ben Page in his home garden.

The landscape architect shares some of the perks of his job, where he shops locally and the best advice he ever received. (Featured in NFocus magazine September, 2022)

From his earliest days playing on the farms owned by his grandparents and great-grandparents, Ben Page has been one with the land. So, his family must have been surprised when he first pursued medicine as a career. Fortunately, he changed paths and went on to receive a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of Georgia. For more than 40 years, Ben has been creating award-winning designs — primarily residential landscapes — that are thoughtful, intentional and timeless. A history buff, he often combines historical references with modern sensibilities. His projects have spanned the country, and his work has appeared in VERANDA, House Beautiful, Traditional Home, Architectural Digest, Flower and more.

This year, Ben launched his new eponymous firm, Page Landscape, and he continues to specialize in landscape architecture, land planning and urban design for residential, community and institutional clients. He says the only other career that would have given him as much pleasure would be to be an organic farmer. In fact, on many weekends, he and his wife, Libby, can be found at their historic farm in Giles County, where he has vegetable and cutting gardens, as well as a boxwood parterre. Ben shared some of the perks of his job, where he shops locally and the best advice he ever received.

On his CAREER PATH…

I thought I was going to be a doctor until I encountered Statistics 101 at the University of Tennessee. I had no idea what I was doing and realized that if I had to have statistics to be a doctor, I was going to have to abandon that career. Luckily, I found the field of landscape architecture, which combined my love of the outdoors and an almost unlimited opportunity to learn so many aspects of design.

On his HUMBLE BEGINNINGS…

I started work right out of school for Robert Marvin & Associates in Walterboro, South Carolina. I was lucky to start my career with some of the best designers in the field at the time and jumped into some amazing projects up and down the coast, particularly, a lot of projects on Hilton Head Island and Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia.

What are some of the best JOB PERKS of your job?

I love all aspects of landscape history. Working with clients who are stewards of historic properties is particularly satisfying to me. Working on the renovation and restoration of the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion here in Tennessee was enormously meaningful, primarily because [Crissy and Bill] Haslam were so deeply involved in every aspect of the project, and they are both amazing people on every level.

What are some of your JOB CHALLENGES?

The most challenging part of my career at the moment is to try to align the expectations of our clients with the construction costs today. It is amazing how fast construction costs have escalated in our field recently.

What is the BIGGEST INFLUENCE on your work?

Travel and access to our comprehensive design library here in our office is a constant source of inspiration. Libby and I love to travel to new destinations, and the clients and people that I have been fortunate enough to meet through the years are constantly an inspiration. I love learning about diverse cultural and art institutions.

Where do you like to SHOP LOCAL?

My favorite local resources are the amazing nurseries here — Moore & Moore Garden Center, Bates Nursery & Garden Center, GroWild, and Samara Farms, all of which continue to inspire me with their diversity and super-helpful and knowledgeable staff. I have learned so much, horticulturally, from all the people at these businesses. The other inspiration is the artisans who actually bring our designs to life: bricklayers, stone masons, iron artisans, lighting designers, engineers [and] contractors. They are all vital to the realization of the dreams our clients ask us to bring together.

What is the BEST ADVICE you ever received?

GET INSPIREDThe best advice I ever got from a mentor about design issues with clients was 40 years ago, when our dear friend Albert Hadley told me, after several drinks at Mortimer’s in New York City, “Give them something that they never knew they wanted.” It took me a while to figure out what he meant, but I think when you are passionate about learning and you continue to dream, good things will usually come to fruition. The other piece of sage advice was from my amazing grandmother, consummate gardener and a 19th-century matriarch, who said, “Always put a 50-cent plant in a $5 hole.” Enough said!

What INSPIRES you?

My daily source of inspiration is the vast complexity of mother nature. We need to listen more carefully and become better stewards of all aspects of her realm.

Will you share a PROUD MOMENT with our readers?

It would be impossible to describe a favorite project; there have been so many through the years. My hugely meaningful experience unique to this career is to return to a project and see a child playing under the shade of a tree which we planted as part of a project 30 years ago. Heaven!

What do you have IN THE WORKS?

Right now, I am working on the master plan for a 4,000-acre farm, which is focused on equine therapy for young people; a gorgeous new Tennessee farmhouse with an amazing vegetable garden and greenhouse; and several residential projects with super-interesting clients here in Nashville and in Charlotte, Louisville and Memphis.

Share some of your FUTURE PLANS with our readers.

My hope for the future is that I can continue to learn and be inspired by new experiences every day, meet new and interesting people, continue to travel in this wonderful country and abroad, and be integral to the lives of our two amazing grandchildren.

HOMEPLACE - A Country Retreat (Garden & Gun Magazine August 2013

A Tennessee couple finds a home amid their past By JULIA REED

Ben and Libby Page’s introduction to Giles County, Tennessee, came in the spring of 2004, when Libby’s mother decided it was time to educate the family about its roots and created a “Family History Day.” The Nashville-based clan piled onto a bus and headed south toward Pulaski, where they toured nearby farms and family homesteads, accompanied by a historian. By the end of the day, Libby, an event planner, and Ben, one of the South’s leading landscape architects, had become so smitten with the terrain—leafy rolling hills dotted with picturesque barns and nineteenth-century farmhouses—that they asked the fellow leading the tour to let them know if any property ever became available. Two weeks later, the call came. Two years later, the couple, along with their daughter, Florence, spent their first night at Brookside.

They named the house, a three-bedroom Greek Revival built around 1845, after an Italianate Revival manse a mile away, rebuilt after the Civil War by Libby’s great-grandmother. Libby describes the “new” Brookside as having been generally “buggered up” by various twentieth-century owners, the most glamorous of them a New York couple who held polo tournaments on the property during the fifties and sixties. During the Pages’ two-year renovation, the house was taken down to its studs, with the exception of the living room, the only space that retained the original plaster walls. Builders restored a back staircase, as well as a now-enclosed breezeway that joins the house to the spacious kitchen. A side porch that had been walled in was returned to its original state (albeit with a screen), and a utility area was added with an enormous soapstone sink, the first repository for vegetable and flower cuttings from the gorgeous garden. Below, the cellar was restored and converted to a game room with a custom banquette and an 1880s maple pool table the Pages found in Wiscasset, Maine.

Whenever possible, the couple enlisted Tennessee talent. James Dunn, a Nashville carpenter, did the millwork, from door and window frames to mantels and the cherry handrails on the stairs. Furniture maker Jim Horne made porch side tables (painted with lovely, chalky milk paint); a magnificent round dining table (with Tennessee cherry inlaid around the rim depicting things grown on the farm in the nineteenth century, including cotton, corn, hollyhocks, and roses); and a kitchen island/table decorated with carved symbols denoting the Pages’ combined French, English, Scottish, and Irish heritage. Nashville-based photographer Jack Spencer took the stunning open and closed magnolia images that flank the living room fireplace, near a Victorian sofa from the original Brookside. Ben’s family’s roots in Glasgow, Kentucky, get a shout-out too—the whimsical carved chickens in the kitchen came from Kentucky folk artists Lonnie and Twyla Money (he’s the carver, she’s the painter), and the graphic red-and-white quilt in a guest bedroom was made by Ben’s grandmother, who won second place for it at the Kentucky State Fair.

The couple spends almost every weekend at the farm, less than two hours away from Nashville, and Ben spends all day Saturday on one of his two mowers or working in the gardens he designed. The cutting garden contains a dramatic “Seven Sisters” rose dug up at the original Brookside, along with peonies from Ben’s grandmother’s garden. The prolific vegetable garden includes at least ten heirloom tomato varieties and three kinds of sweet corn, in addition to carrots, beets, Kentucky Wonder beans, pattypan squash, and all manner of other goodies that end up in jars put up by Libby, a prodigious cook, or on the table at Saturday suppers with houseguests. The suppers often include more Giles County bounty: grass-fed beef from Angus cattle raised by neighbors Mike and Susan Mayfield.

First, though, comes one of the Pages’ favorite rituals, the “sunset cruise.” Gin and tonics are mixed, whiskey or wine is poured, and everyone hops onto the John Deere Gator for a trip to the high meadow at the back of the property just as the sun starts sliding down. It is moments such as these—rides up the meadow, early morning breakfasts on the porch, putting the season’s first peas and okra and beans in the ground—that Ben says constantly “refill” his spirit. “It’s the turkey walking over the hill every Saturday morning because he knows he’s home,” he says. “It’s plunging your hands in the dirt. That’s a huge deal for me. You can’t be anything but humble in a garden.”