The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage

Enter the mind of the creator of the gardens at Brandywine Cottage and find inspiration for your next gardening project with this guide that includes “breathtaking” photos of the Cottage (Library Journal).

Brandywine Cottage is David Culp's beloved two-acre Pennsylvania garden where he mastered the design technique of layering—interplanting many different species in the same area so that as one plant passes its peak, another takes over. The result is a nonstop parade of color that begins with a tapestry of heirloom daffodils and hellebores in spring and ends with a jewel-like blend of Asian wildflowers at the onset of winter. To illustrate how layering works, Culp takes you on a personal tour through each part of his celebrated garden: the woodland garden, the perennial border, the kitchen garden, the shrubbery, and the walled garden. 

The Layered Garden shows you how to recreate Culp's majestic display, starting with a basic lesson in layering—how to choose the correct plants by understanding how they grow and change throughout the seasons, how to design a layered garden, and how to maintain it. The book culminates with a chapter dedicated to signature plants for all four seasons.

“Gardenmaking, in its finest form, is a celebration of life and of love. David and his book epitomize this.” —Lauren Springer Ogden

Along with his partner, Michael Alderfer, David Culp is the creator of the gardens at Brandywine Cottage in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. David has been lecturing about gardens nationwide for more than 25 years. His articles have appeared in Country Living, Fine Gardening, Green Scene, and many other publications. He is a former contributing editor to Horticulture magazine and served as chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Hardy Plant Society. An expert on herbaceous perennials, David is vice president for Sunny Border Nurseries in Connecticut. He developed the Brandywine Hybrid strain of hellebores and was cited in the Wall Street Journal for his expertise on snowdrops. The garden at Brandywine Cottage has been featured several times in Martha Stewart Living and on HGTV. Visit him at davidlculp.com.

Adam Levine is an award-winning garden writer whose work has appeared in several books as well as many regional and national magazines. He lives and gardens in Media, Pennsylvania.

Rob Cardillo has been photographing gardens, plants, and the people who tend them for more than 20 years. Formerly the director of photography at Organic Gardening, he now works for major publishers, horticultural suppliers, and landscape designers throughout the United States. Visit him at robcardillo.com.