Lynn and Jim Swanson have created a layered, colorful landscape around their Wood Valley home that particularly shines in autumn.
by Helen Yoest | photography by Juli Leonard

For nearly 40 years, Lynn and Jim Swanson have lived in a spec home they bought in Wood Valley. While the house itself was beautiful, it was the lot they both fell in love with: just over an acre of land, encircled by old-growth trees. Through decades of work, they’ve transformed the garden into a perennial delight. It’s marked by its vast collection of Japanese maples — 250 of them, situated throughout their lot — and layers of daphne, hydrangeas, dogwoods and ferns.
When they bought the 1.3-acre lot, there wasn’t much there. “There were some shrubs lined up along the foundation, but no other added plants,” says Lynn. But to the Swansons’ good fortune, the lot hadn’t been clear-cut. “There were several mature pines and oaks on the property, which attracted us to the lot,” Lynn says. “But there were no natural areas created around groups of trees,
they were just surrounded with about 15,000 square feet of grass!”

And to their further good fortune, they had a neighbor with a green thumb, Kathy Sill. “I remember how excited I would get when Kathy would call to say she was dividing things; do you want any?” says Lynn. “I would come home with things Kathy shared, trying to remember every word she said about the plants and how to care for them until I could get home and write it down.”
Over time, Sill became Lynn’s plant mentor, guiding her in understanding the height and width of plants at maturity to make long-term plans for the yard. “I remember on one of her visits to my yard when I had just started planting shrubs. She looked at some plants I’d put in and asked if I knew how big those shrubs would get — I didn’t,” says Lynn. So Sill took her around the corner to her yard to get a sense of the mature version. “It was a first and lasting lesson on giving a plant the room it needs,” says Lynn.
Lynn started by working on the foundation plantings within her large property. “I dutifully pruned the builder’s plants along the front of the house. Most of them were holly, and I originally kept them as green meatballs,” she says. As she got more adventurous, she trimmed a pair of what she thought were Carissa hollies flanking the front porch, shaping them into lollipop forms.
A few years later, she discovered her mistake when she decided to swap out the original foundation plants for a more interesting selection of shrubs. “I found plant tags at the base of plants, and they were not just little evergreens, they were Setsugekka camellias,” she says. “I’d been pruning off their flowers all along!”
Slowly, Lynn started to learn to build a garden, sometimes making mistakes along the way. “I still remember bringing home my first $100 worth of plants, thinking I’d made a great purchase, and they practically disappeared in the yard!” she says. “But Jim always told me, Don’t add those up! Some things are better not to know!”
She also took time to visit different gardens to get inspiration. “A garden reflects the gardener; they are all so interesting, with so many different styles,” says Lynn. “Seeing how plants are sited and displayed within their vignettes, you start to learn what make good companions, keeping in mind how in time you might extend your own planting.”
Her husband helped as an enthusiast and partner. “I love the garden, I appreciate the garden, but Lynn is the gardener,” Jim says. In the early days of the garden, Jim traveled a lot for work. “But he’d come home and ask if I wanted to get a glass of wine and show him what I’d been doing in the garden,” Lynn says. “Having an interested spouse and walking through it together was magic.”
Along the way, Lynn’s love of gardening turned into a career as a garden designer. The couple each independently became fans of Japanese maples, too. Lynn had been using them in her clients’ designs, and Jim, on a work trip to Atlanta, visited a colleague’s garden, where he was shown the Shishigashira Japanese maple, along with an intertwined red and green maple. “Until then, I hadn’t realized there was such a variety or noticed how interesting they were,” Jim says.
They started adding these unique trees to their landscape and now have 250 of them on the property. “Most of the Japanese maples, 225 of them, are of the species most people recognise as Japanese maples — including Acer palmatum, Acer shirasawanum and Acer japonicum — the ones that have the small, deeply cut leaves in colors from greens to burgundy to orange,” says Lynn. The other 25 are various other species of maples, like the ones with beautiful yellow to red fall color often used along Raleigh’s streetscapes or as specimens in a home garden. “I enjoy seeing the great variety available,” says Lynn.
Their passion for Japanese maples grew to the point where they joined The Maple Society of North America, a nonprofit organization that promotes the culture, conservation and awareness of maples, including Japanese maples. They took their first trip to its annual conference, which alternates between the East and West Coasts, in 2015 when it was held in Oregon. “We enjoyed meeting growers and other enthusiasts, visiting gardens displaying maples and growing knowledge about maples,” says Lynn.
Lynn was invited to join the board of The Maple Society in 2021, where she was involved in planning its annual meetings. “Lynn has been largely responsible for the success of our annual conferences,” says Bill Hibler, the president of the Maple Society of North America.
In the fall of that year, the Swansons started the Southeast regional interest group for the society, which gathers a couple of times a year. “So far, we’ve had meetings in Raleigh, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Athens, Georgia,” says Lynn. In addition, the Swansons have opened their home and garden for visitations, local meetings and as a site for a grafting class. “Their efforts have been instrumental in increasing our membership in the area,” says Hibler.


Nearly 40 years after starting their garden, the Swansons have steadily reduced the lawn to under about 2,000 feet, replacing it with their plantings. “I believe in grass as a condiment, a place for your eyes or feet to rest between beds,” says Lynn. In addition to maples, the Swanson garden is filled with many types of plants, including juniper, hardy chrysanthemum, ferns and a pair of mature Wolf Eye dogwoods flanking an entrance into the woodland garden that look great spring through fall. “I especially like the variegated Maejima daphne and hydrangeas, but I always seem to have a new favorite,” says Lynn. Currently, she’s loving her snakebark maple. “I bought it when it was dormant, admiring its interesting striated bark. But when it leafed out, it had the most beautiful variegation, and I was immediately charmed,” says Lynn.
And the routine of strolling through the yard together, a tradition that started in its earliest days, continues today. “Walking through the garden, especially in the spring when leaves are emerging, allows us to notice the detail and variety,” says Jim. Agrees Lynn: “I love quiet walks in the morning to see how everything is doing and listen to the birds.”
Lynn and Jim continue to be active in the Maple Society of North America and the Southeast regional meetings, and Hibler says the pair are among their “greatest supporters.” But of course, Lynn says, a garden is never done: “Even now, I am planting a new bed with a variety of shapes, colo
This article originally appeared in the November issue of WALTER magazine.