…formerly the home of Willowdale Farm.

Thank you for visiting my next garden project in Salisbury, Maryland.  

In December 2025, I made the decision to return to my “home” in Maryland. I missed the eastern shore, my friends and chosen family, and the networks I had built over 25 years. It was very hard to leave my gardens behind. I worried (and still do) about their maintenance and especially about my bees. 

I found a beautiful home on Riverside Drive, an area where I had always wanted to live. It’s a safe, quiet, friendly, and very beautiful area, and I was excited to start my new garden. 

When I purchased the house, it was surrounded by mature trees and shrubs–not a perennial in sight, and I faced the challenge of full or part shade on most (80%) of the lot. The south side gets blazing sun all day long. So I installed Vego beds along the driveway for veg and decided to make the best of the shade and see what would grow. I brought my lily bulbs, konjac tubers, a few hostas, and Aunt Marge’s rose. There wasn’t time to dig out much else.  

Shortly after I arrived in March, I started planting in the beds that were mostly cleared of the non-native shrubs, and I created additional beds. The rest is a work in progress. I hope you join me as I build the garden and my population of insects. My hope is to establish the biodiversity I had in Pennsylvania.  

~Angie Hartley