Once a setting for the imaginative adventures of little girls, a charming playhouse in Leila and Bill Brazeal’s backyard holds fast as the cornerstone of their flourishing garden, Leila’s labor of love for decades. “The work is worth it, because when I sit on my screened porch and look out at that, it just makes me happy,” says Leila, whose devotion to her yard’s flowers and foliage began when she and her husband purchased the woodland property in 1999. Bill constructed the cottage for their two daughters at a previous home years earlier, and moved the quaint structure to the new acreage.
Leila Brazeal incorporates a variety of hydrangeas throughout her backyard garden, such as creamy ‘Limelight’ and French hydrangeas that bloom in a spectrum of hues from vivid pink to purple and blue. In addition to the beds around a quaint playhouse, a tranquil nook surrounded by plantings is a hideaway among the flowers. Wooden furnishings make the space ideal for quiet reflection or catching up with a friend.
A stone pathway extends from the Brazeals’ covered back patio to the front stoop of the tin-roofed cottage, which now houses Leila’s gardening tools. Confederate jasmine vines intertwine along the façade, and beds of ‘Limelight’ hydrangeas, George Tabor azaleas, pink and white begonias, and variegated caladiums frame the building.
“Pink, white, and blue are the colors that I always use in my yard,” says Leila, who selects various annuals, like petunias, in her go-to hues for the decorative planters scattered around the garden. A whitewashed pedestal urn and several shorter containers keep company with an iron bench nestled among branches of hot pink hydrangeas and azaleas.
Leila has a feeling her catchall shed will soon be restored to its former playhouse glory for their grandchildren. In the meantime, she’ll continue to maintain the lovely landscape she enjoys viewing from her porch after a long, hard day of yard work. “I don’t always feel like going out there and sweating—it’s hot and there’s bugs and you’re usually dirty,” she says. “But it’s just pretty when it’s all fixed up. That’s why I do it—it’s therapy for my soul.”
Styling by Tracey MacMillan Russell
Photography by Stephanie Welbourne Steele
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