Justin and Jessica Patterson’s dream home just happened to come with the perfect foundation: a stunning garden, fit with plenty of room for their three growing kids to roam.
The stone arch framing the rustic greenhouse in Justin and Jessica Patterson’s garden looks as if it’s been there for at least a century or more. In reality, the neighbor who still lives next door built it for a previous owner just a couple of decades ago.
The Pattersons possess a love of old things. Although the rustic 1879 cabin on the property that’s full of charm was obviously a major selling point, it was actually the garden and land itself that motivated the couple to relocate their family from University Heights in Springfield to this corner of Chadwick. The Pattersons previously lived in Germany while Jessica was in the Air Force, and the landscape of the rolling Ozark Mountains reminded them of the European countryside.
“It felt like we were in France, Germany, England or Scotland,” Justin says. “It just had all the elements that we love.”
The couple got to work sprucing up the garden and bringing it back to life. They began by clearing most of it out so they could start with a blank canvas, and filled it with pops of colorful petunias, coneflowers and black-eyed Susans.
“We wanted to make it magical, but also very English-inspired,” Jessica says.
One of their favorite aspects of the garden is that it’s constantly revealing surprises. Every spring, they see new flowers pop up that they didn’t plant. One of the previous owners planted several rose bushes, but none of them were alive when the Pattersons moved there. But since then, they’ve had about two or three of her original rose bushes come back since they’ve cleared space for them.
The garden also features an outdoor fireplace and walking paths paved with reclaimed brick. Justin and Jessica have added pieces from their own finds throughout, like several door knockers collected in Europe that now hang on the greenhouse door. Their daughters, Millie, age 5, and Ada, age 2, love pretending to garden in the greenhouse. “They’ll go and pick flowers, get dirt, put it all in the pots and line them in a row to water,” Justin says. “They also love to plant seeds, but then they’re always ready for them to grow in the next two minutes.”
The girls spend hours outside when the weather is nice, and there’s no doubt their baby brother, Olli, will one day join in on the fun. “We both always wanted a place where the kids could go outside and run free, where there are no worries,” Jessica says. “It’s so quiet and peaceful here.”
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