32 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {punchline} After Denise Shackleton replaced the magnolia trees along her front fence with persimmons, she was surprised by how enthusiastic her neighbors and friends were about the transformed landscape. “When they ripen, I’m everybody’s best friend,” Denise laughs. By the time she reinvented her front yard as an edible garden, Denise had long dreamed of being able to grow her own produce. Now, it doesn’t faze her when people stop by to ask if ents’ farm in Northern California. Then, at a home and garden show in San Mateo, she discovered landscape designer Leslie Bennett, whose display artfully incorporated edible plants. Denise knew she’d found the perfect partner. Leslie is the visionary behind Pine House Edible Gardens, which not only specializes in creating gardens that are fruitful as well as beautiful, but also offers ongoing gardening and harvesting services to keep clients’ landscapes flourishing in every season. Denise brought in Leslie to reimagine first one corner of her yard, and then another, and still another. Off and on for over 10 years, the stately home’s grounds evolved into a series of garden vignettes that are as delicious as they are decorative. On a sunny day in October, when the cool breeze signals the shift from summer to fall, Denise’s inviting front yard is bursting with color and texture. It’s only when you look a little closer that the garden reveals its secrets. Tucked behind an heirloom wine press, a tempting array of vegetables beckABOVE (from left): Denise picks oxheart tomatoes with granddaughter Annaliese in her Atherton garden; Zucchini blossoms can be fried for a seasonal Italian delicacy. she needs help picking all those firm-fleshed Fuyu persimmons or wants someone to take them off her hands. Thanks to her garden’s designer and her own prowess in the kitchen, Denise is well-equipped to handle the harvest. She dries slices of the fruit to enjoy all year, makes a persimmon-habanero jam to spoon over cream cheese and she still has plenty of fruit to share. “I’m a big fan of Fuyus,” she admits. Denise and her husband Woody moved to Atherton in 2006 after raising their children in the Belmont hills, where her gardening aspirations never really came to fruition. “I thought you could grow anything in California, but that’s not the case,” she says of her old home. But just a little farther south down the Peninsula, it’s a different story. “We moved 10 miles and got a 15-degree difference in weather,” Denise says. In Atherton, it was possible to raise fruits and vegetables, just like she’d enjoyed on her grandparRACHEL WEILL PHOTOGRAPHY REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM GARDEN WONDERLAND BY LESLIE BENNETT & JULIE CHAI, COPYRIGHT © 2024
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