BRIDGET WILSON: A Designing Woman

BRIDGET WILSON: A Designing Woman

By Vicky Moon

Her work was so impactful that it spilled over everywhere—old and new gardens and it was transformative.

— JILL VOGEL

Bridget Wilson

Photo by Doug Gehlsen of Middleburg Photo

Bridget Wilson is up at dawn, dressed in tights and a tank top, no make-up and as fit as can be. She’s off to Middleburg from the Walnut Springs Farm she shares with her husband, Brian, and their four children. She then leads a 75-minute Native Barre exercise class.

From here, you might see her stop at Middleburg’s Common Grounds for coffee and a bite before off to the next stop—her business involving all things floral. “I love doing design work,” she said.

It’s tulips galore in these beautiful beds.

At Oak Spring, the Brick House is from the early Mellon era and is now a private residence.

Jill Vogel and Bridget Wilson got down and dirty for a grand tour during Historic Garden Week.

A resident peacock makes a visit.

She’s recently completed a grueling yet successful project at Jill and Alex Vogel’s Oak Spring near Upperville for the Garden Club of Virginia’s Historic Garden Week. Once the home of the late Paul Mellon and his celebrated late second wife, garden guru Bunny Mellon, the property features stately old oak and magnolia trees as well as the Georgian inspired home known as The Brick House. Bridget was asked to update and renovate the gardens.

Jill Vogel said she chose her “because she’s so talented, creative, and willing to do the exceptional things other people do not have the vision to do.” Several thousand bulbs, hundreds of boxwood, and mountains of plants and pea gravel later, Bridget created a breathtaking space.

“The process is as special as the result,” Jill noted, adding that Bridget “is meticulous about the drawings and the planning. Her attitude is that nothing is too much trouble to make it perfect.”

Until 2016, Bridget said “I knew nothing about flowers then and decided to purchase a lavender plant,” she wrote in a long, informative memo. She “researched online what other plants I might buy with the lavender.”

She took an online flower farming class and was addicted, then spent every moment “learning about the different kinds of cut flowers.” At one point, she grew 40,000 plants, many from seed. She began with the help of daughter Audrey by making small bouquets for friends and family.

Work and design for the Vogels included new hedging and planting many unique perennials. Last October, Bridget “designed a planting scheme of more than 17,000 tulips, daffodils, fritillaria, and many more unique and rare bulbs.” She put them in by hand in shades of white, green, purple, and dark black flowers. After renovating the older gardens, she went to work designing a formal boxwood parterre.

The newer space was to replace a sloping lawn with only a play set for the children. Work started in early August, with Bridget overseeing grading, installing waterlines and the boxwood. By the end of November, 9,000 tulip bulbs in apricot, pink and white were dug in. “We built the garden from concept to completion in less than seven months,” Bridget said.

Then, one week before the garden tour was about to get underway, every tulip was lost after a week of 80-degree heat followed by “a terrible rainstorm.” All those tulips were pulled and a new design was planted in only three days.

“We were unsure if we’d make it in time to show the garden,” she said. They worked 14 hours a day and finished trimming the garden at 10 o’clock the night before the show.

What’s next? A new Mediterranean inspired design for Ashley Whitner. The plantings will be “wild but tidy” using “loose perennials and native plants.” A cut flower garden will be added and “she’ll have a beautiful collection of dahlias to fill her home this year.”

Details: bridgetwilsonflowers.com