The Inspiration
We didn’t come into gardening as experts.
For years we admired gardens from the sidelines. We were urban dwellers with a love of plants and not much space to grow. But after spending several years in the UK, our perspective on gardening changed completely.
There, gardens felt like personal expression. Gardens were part of the culture. Even the smallest spaces carried beauty, mood, and a bit of magic.
When we returned to Ontario, the contrast was hard to ignore. Gardening here often felt like a seasonal rush to plant a handful of go-to plants. The two-week rush around Victoria Day with garden centre sell-offs in June came to be known as “Gardening Season”. A season shaped more by retail calendars than by the joy of gardening itself.
People blamed the climate. But that wasn’t it. It was the culture.
And we knew it didn’t have to be that way.
The Farm Years
In 2020, our family moved to a farm and started planting. We named it Kawartha Family Farm.
What began as a desire to achieve a specific design aesthetic quickly became a massive experiment. Over the next five years we planted and observed more than 15,000 perennials, testing hundreds of varieties to see what actually holds up in a lasting garden.
Some plants surprised us and some failed completely. And many new and old favourites returned each year.
The farm became our laboratory. It was a place to test plants, growing methods, and ideas about what a garden could be.
We spent years planting, moving, and deconstructing what we had built until the spaces became clear. It was like we poured a pool of concrete then chipped away at it over years to reveal something beautiful.
The Next Chapter: Honest Perennial Co.
Honest Perennial Co. is the continuation of the work that began on the farm.
Everything we learned became two guides: The Immersive Garden Guide, which covers the design system, and The Honest Perennial Guide, which covers the plants themselves. The Design Blocks turn that system into ready-to-plant gardens.
While the farm chapter of our lives has closed, the ideas behind it continue. We are committed to helping gardeners understand plants more clearly and build gardens that last.
Each season we grow and offer a small batch of perennials from our palette. We’re not a traditional nursery. Think of us more like your local baker. A fresh, limited supply of plants that we’ve individually nurtured.
Gardening as Creative Work
We believe gardening is creative work. In that spirit we will continue to develop tools and share information to tap into the creativity of all gardeners.
All while building our own new gardens, from a more informed starting point.
We still believe that garden culture is something that is built, one gardener at a time.
Stephen and Shelley Hood & Family