![[The Grass Girl's garden design depicting a formal french back yard garden with a southern twist, featuring tall framing conifers, blooming pink azaleas, and pom topiary hollies] — residential garden design Nashville TN](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d4b8776c9fed300018d8f4a/cb373e0a-f307-43c7-9674-72536bae008a/The-Grass-Girl-Back-Yard-Residential-Garden-Design-Nashville-TN.jpeg)
Fine Garden Design
You already know the difference between a landscape that was installed and one that was designed. You've felt it at someone's home, in a garden abroad, in the way certain places make you slow down without knowing why.
That's what I do. I design that feeling.
I came to garden design from fine art. I think about a property the way I think about a canvas or an installation. Every decision is compositional. I built this as an art practice, not a business to franchise or scale.
I'm Clare Horne. I run The Grass Girl, a garden design studio based on my working farm outside Nashville. The farm is where I developed my practice and where I test every idea before I bring it to a client's property. I work across Middle Tennessee, from city lots in Nashville to multi-acre estates in Franklin, Leiper's Fork, and Wilson County.
How To Begin
There are four ways into the work. One is a single afternoon. Three are commissions.
Garden Consultation. A single on-site visit with written field notes. Advice, diagnosis, and direction for any property, at any stage. Learn more about Garden Consultations.
Garden Commissions. For defined garden spaces. Entries, courtyards, pool gardens, privacy plantings, the gardens that shape how a home is lived in day to day. Learn more about Garden Commissions.
Whole Property Commissions. For new builds, full residential landscapes, and existing homes where the entire exterior needs a cohesive design vision. Learn more about Whole Property Commissions.
Land Portraiture Commissions. For acreage, farms, and estates where the design has to read the whole land and the lives within it before it can shape any part of it. Learn more about Land Portraiture Commissions.
![[Gorgeous TN native drought tolerant naturalistic garden with pink blooms in Nashville farm home entry by landscape and garden designer The Grass Girl] — fine garden design Nashville Tennessee by The Grass Girl](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d4b8776c9fed300018d8f4a/1780446647514-QWYY0T79Z19R62XO83D8/The-Grass-Girl-Tennessee-Landscape-Garden-Designer-Wilson-County-Davidson-Williamson.png)
How A Commission Unfolds
Every commission moves through the same layers. Not every project needs all three. Some clients take the design and build from the plan. Some need me through the build. Some want the long relationship. That gets worked out in conversation, after I've seen your property.
The Design. I study your property before I draw a single line, then design a garden you can build from. You receive a complete, buildable garden design with every plant hand-selected for exactly where it's going.
From Drawing to Ground. For projects where the vision needs protecting through the build, I stay on site. I source and curate the plant material, align the contractor with the design intent, and direct placement, spacing, and composition in real time.
The Ongoing Conversation. For clients who want the relationship to continue, I come back through the seasons, write maintenance documents specific to what's in your ground, and provide design counsel as the property evolves.
Every commission can be carried the whole way: design, plant sourcing, contractor alignment, and my presence on the ground until the last tree is set. If you want a garden taken from first drawing to finished ground under one eye, that is work I take on.
The Design
The process starts on your property. I walk the land slowly. I read the light, the water, the grade. We talk about how you actually live out there. Where you have your coffee. Where the kids disappear to. What you see from the kitchen window that you wish were different.
On larger properties, there's more to read. How water moves across slopes. What the land does in January that it doesn't do in June. Some properties I need to visit across seasons before I design anything, because the ground keeps revealing things that change the plan. I don't rush that. I call this practice land portraiture.
From there, I design. The specific tree, the specific form, chosen for exactly where it's going and what it needs to do there. The path that curves a certain way because that's where your eye already wants to go. The bed that blooms in sequence so there's never a month where the garden goes quiet. Everything is resolved on paper before anyone picks up a shovel.
I'm not designing for the photograph. I'm designing for the Tuesday morning in April when you walk outside and something blooms that you forgot was there. I call this approach Inhabitation Design.
From Drawing to Ground
A garden designed at this level is closer to a large-scale art installation than it is to a renovation. The canvas is the earth. The medium is living material: plants, stone, soil, light, water, and time. And like any installation, the final outcome is shaped by the decisions that happen during the build. The small shifts in placement, spacing, and proportion, and the way a site responds as it's being formed.
For those investing in a garden that is meant to feel intentional and composed down to the last detail, what I bring is this: I can see the finished piece before it exists. I can stand in the middle of a half-built garden and know that the tree the crew is about to plant needs to move three feet east, because five years from now, at five o'clock in October, the shadow it casts will land wrong. That's not something a plan catches.
On these projects, I source and curate the plant material. I align the contractor with the design intent. I direct placement, spacing, and composition on site. The specifics of that involvement are shaped by the project and get worked out in conversation.
The Ongoing Conversation
A garden doesn't end when the install does. It grows, it shifts, and it will change its mind about things you thought were settled. Middle Tennessee weather will humble you and hang your plan out to dry. The soil changes. The light changes as trees mature.
Most designers think of a garden as a project with a completion date. I think of it as a relationship with a piece of land.
For clients who want that relationship to continue, I stay with the property. I come back through the seasons. I write maintenance documents specific to what's in your ground. A working record of what the garden needs now and what to watch for next. That ongoing conversation is where some of my best work happens. The garden gets smarter every year, and so does my understanding of what it needs.
No two properties ask for the same thing.
A project might be one focused area on a fifty-acre estate, a complete design for a half-acre lot, or a multi-year phased plan for a property with future builds to account for. Some gardens take a season to design. Some take a year.
You tell me about your property and what you're hoping for. I tell you honestly whether my approach is the right fit. If it is, we move forward. If it isn't, I'll tell you that too.
Tell me about your property.
Not sure which way in is yours? Start with a Consultation.
Want to know exactly what happens from the first phone call to a finished design? Here's the full walkthrough.
Want to understand the philosophy behind the design? Read 'Land Portraiture' and 'Inhabitation Design.'