Ina Garten is the queen of easy elegance. From her simple yet delicious recipes to the stunning garden outside her East Hampton home, she knows how to turn basic elements into something magical.
Thankfully for us Ina lovers, she shares lots of her beautiful ideas with her online audience. One Instagram post that caught my eye was a video montage of her meticulously landscaped garden. It features an understated yet wow-worthy combination of classic garden plants laid out in a sophisticated symmetrical design.
If you’re keen to copy the design, here’s a list of the 7 plants Ina uses to make her garden shine and where you can buy them. All that’s left to do is plant! So to borrow one of the Barefoot Contessa’s favorite phrases, “How easy is that?”
1. Roses
Ina grows a few different rose varieties in her garden. She has a gorgeous dark pink climbing rose that’s effortlessly intertwined with a clematis and covering an arch over a grassy path. The ‘Blaze’ improved climbing rose from Fast Growing Trees will give you the exact same effect when planted next to an arch or arbor in your garden.
Ina balances the rich magenta hues of her climbing roses with ruffled white blooms on her shrub roses. The ‘White Drift’ rose from the Gardening Know How Shop is a low-growing variety that becomes almost like a ground cover. It produces an abundance of dainty cream-colored blooms that last all summer long.
2. Clematis
Ina’s garden is all about beautiful juxtaposition. She knows how to balance structure and freedom, like with her tightly trimmed hedges and overflowing flowering perennials.
One beautiful bit of juxtaposition is the dark purple clematis that she grows alongside the pink roses on her arch. The ‘Happy Jack’ clematis from Proven Winners, which you can get at the Home Depot, has the same luscious jewel-toned blooms as Ina’s vine and makes for an ideal climbing companion plant.
3. Hostas
Hostas are one of the most classic and easiest to grow perennials. They’re a staple in so many gardens because they’re hardy, have beautiful foliage, and come in tons of different colors and variegated varieties.
Ina grows solid green hostas, but you can add an extra layer of interest to your own landscape with a colorful hosta variety like this lime green hosta with emerald edges from Monrovia at Lowe’s. It would tie in perfectly with a lady’s mantle plant—another pick from Ina’s garden—and create a dynamic rhythm of zesty color that runs through your garden.
4. Lady’s Mantle
Lady’s mantle is one of those overlooked perennials that most people walk right past at the nursery. But Ina’s garden is a great example of how you can use this plant to create a show-stopping display.
This under-appreciated plant can be a bit hard to find sometimes, but you can buy live lady’s mantle plants from Amazon. Plant several in a large drift at the front of your garden beds for the most dramatic effect.
5. Boxwoods
The most prevalent plant in Ina’s East Coast garden is boxwood. This stately shrub creates the shape and structure of her landscape. She uses them almost like raised beds to contain other wilder plants and create a formal garden design that’s reminiscent of English and French landscaping.
Get the look by lining your garden beds with boxwood shrubs like these ones from Proven Winners at Home Depot. Prune them into tight hedges with either straight or rounded edges for a formal style like Ina has in her garden.
6. Hardy Geraniums
Inside the boxwood hedges in Ina’s garden, she grows ‘Rozanne’ hardy geraniums, which you can get in the Gardening Know How Shop. These bright purple beauties create a sense of energy against the lime green elements in Ina’s garden because they’re opposites on the color wheel. They also tie in with the purple blooms of the clematis, but they add a slightly different shade of purple that leans more towards blue and keeps the overall design from becoming boring.
Hardy geranium is an easy-care perennial that’s suited to many different growing conditions, so it’s a good fit for most gardens.
7. Climbing Hydrangea
At the back of Ina’s garden, there’s a huge climbing hydrangea covering a trellis over a seating area. That’s another thing Ina does well—she includes plenty of vertical elements that draw the eye up and invite you to examine the garden all around you.
A climbing hydrangea, like this one from the Gardening Know How Shop, is a wonderful addition to a shady spot in your landscape. It can help create privacy around a secluded seating area like in Ina’s yard, or you can use it to cover a fence or wall that needs an extra touch of something special.
This article features products available from third party vendors on the Gardening Know How Shop. Keep in mind that our plant inventory is limited—so if you’re thinking of purchasing, don’t wait!
