Private Quarters: Woodland Garden in Sandy Springs
For years, Rebecca Pinckney collected ideas and photos about the plants, trees and design for the woodland garden she hoped to create in her Sandy Springs home.
When she retired in 2007, she focused fulltime on her horticulture at home. She and her husband Fred, who celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary this year, also added a resistance pool under an open-air pavilion, dramatically changing their backyard.
“It was my turn to have fun making the paths through the backyard and the woodland gardens,” she said.
Snapshot
Residents: Fred and Rebecca Pinckney. Fred is an attorney and arbitrator; Rebecca is a retired teacher, and a Fulton County master gardener and an officer of the Chattahoochee Unit of The Herb Society of America.
Location: Sandy Springs
Size: About 3,500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 and a half baths
Year built and bought: 1980
Builder: Greg Howington
Architectural style: Federal. The couple was attracted by its clean look and shutter-free exterior, as well as the glass transom over the front door.
Renovations: They added onto the house to accommodate the SwimEx pool, a resistance swimming pool for exercise. A paddlewheel generates a counter-current in the pool. The couple saw the pool while visiting Boston and wanted the pool to be part of a second-level pavilion overlooking the garden, a style that reminded them of trips to Bermuda. When they talked to deck builders in Atlanta, “they thought we were crazy” because of the size and weight, and wanted them to put it in the ground. A couple of years later, DeckWright, which is now part of MOSAIC Group, used their architecture and building expertise to install the pool and pavilion.
What’s in the garden: More than 75 trees, cut flowers, shrubs, vines, ground cover and herbs, connected via stone and natural paths. One of the trees has a connection to their last name - a Georgia fever bark called “Pinckneya”.
Why a woodland garden: The property, nearly three-quarters of an acre, has more sun in the front than in the backyard and has old hardwood trees in the backyard, Rebecca said. “Prior to it being a woodland garden, it was a dog run. So all of that fencing was eventually pulled out and taken away and discarded,” she said. “That part of the yard was graded and the path was laid. From there, we started filling in the landscape, trees and shrubbery.”
Favorite design feature: At Brandywine River Museum in Pennsylvania, the couple was inspired to use a millstone as a feature in the garden. Their millstone was purchased from Henry Hine (millstones.com) at the Scott Antique Market. The garden also has boulders and benches. “It’s intended to be a place where you can just come and sit and rest and enjoy the beauty of nature,” Rebecca said.
