Gardening had been on our minds for ages at Holly Hill Inn, but it took a pandemic to get the idea out of our heads and into the ground. Over the last four years the dream has came to life with the vision and guidance of our longtime farming partner, David Wagoner. It’s been a process of reuse, rehabilitation, and rebirth as we’ve watched our gardens expand from a tiny kitchen herb plot to nearly two acres under cultivation.
Chef Ouita once wrote that “gardens are a true way of coping with frightening change by reminding us of the simple beauty found quite literally in our front yard. The herb garden is especially meaningful: I love how herbs are medicinal, beautiful, and flavorful all at the same time. The small blooms of the marigold tarragon, little lavender stems topped with purple buds – they make moments in the herb garden, and then the kitchen, feel special.”
David and the DirtWorks crew of Ian Feeback and Lauren Paget have planted flower beds and vegetable patches and now our garden is starting to produce enough to sustain our kitchen and fill flower vases for our dining rooms. You’re invited to join us on our garden journey; the gate is always open!
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We’d always had a scruffy kitchen herb garden outside the back door, where the chefs tossed discarded oyster shells after marathon shucking sessions. David enlarged the beds and replaced muddy mulch pathways with old bricks salvaged from a chimney sent tumbling down by a lightning strike. New herbs and edible flowers were added – anise hyssop (a sleeper hit), pansies, lovage and fennel.
David brought our flower beds to life, turning a shade garden into one suited for full sun when its sheltering trees were felled by a summer storm. He tilled up land for a vegetable garden in Chris and Ouita’s backyard and the chefs picked out new and heirloom varieties of seeds to plant. A tea garden was filled with chamomile, mint, lemon balm, scented geranium, yarrow and calendula.
For David, a landscape architect turned family farmer, his work at Holly Hill Inn “has become foundational to my life as a farmer. For the last 20 years, I’ve found it so satisfying to have the fruits and vegetables of my labor find their way into the kitchen, season after season.”
“And now, gardening on the grounds at the restaurant itself has brought me deeper into knowing the place, its history, its people, and has challenged me to step up my horticultural game to do justice to the place.”
Chef Ouita responds that “for chefs, the connection to beauty and to agriculture is deeply inspiring. It alleviates the stress of a professional kitchen and reconnects us all to the love of what we do.”
For the rest of us, it’s revelatory to walk the grounds of Holly Hill Inn and see how David’s work recalls the restaurant’s early days as Hermosa, a family homeplace capable of sustaining a small community. It’s our living connection to those who came before us, whose care of the land and toil upon it made it possible for us to continue their legacy.
