AT HOME WITH PLANTS

Business travel and pleasure trips helped inspire this Cincinnati garden

- MEGHAN SHINN

Travelers often come back from vacation with a souvenir or two; from a work trip, they're usually toting home a suitcase of laundry and other tasks. But Stan Elliott has collected a certain kind of keepsake on leisure and business journeys alike: inspiration for the incredible garden he is creating at the home he shares with husband Jay Shatz.

In the early 2000s, Stan and Jay were creators and executive producers of a garden-makeover television show called Desperate Landscapes. They traveled throughout the United States, filming 140 episodes, each of which depicted a one-day yard transformation. Those trips-plus visits to public gardens here and abroad-exposed Stan to a gamut of plants and landscape styles that would inform his home garden.

Stan and Jay's property covers a little more than an acre within a quiet Cincinnati suburb of traditional houses with a mid-century feel.

When they purchased the home, a 1950s ranch, in 2005, Stan began work on the landscape, starting with the front yard, which at the time hosted only lawn and few deciduous trees.

The home sits atop a moderate slope that is bisected by a curved driveway passing by the front entry. Stan has planted the front garden from curb to doorstep, using trees, low ground covers and everything in between. Coupled with the slope, these dense layers all but obscure the house and its closest planting beds from view of the street.