About The Grass Girl
Clare Horne
I grew up in Wilson County, Tennessee. Dogs underfoot, dirt under my fingernails. But I also grew up around women who knew what a beautiful home looked like — inside and out. Women who cared about how things were done, not just whether they got done. I didn't know it at the time, but that's where my eye comes from. Both sides of it.
I studied fine art. Got my master's degree. And I never stopped — I still paint, I still make sculptures, I'm still working in the studio when I'm not on a site. I didn't leave art to become a garden designer. I just found a version of it that's harder, more unpredictable, and more fun. A painting stays where you put it. A garden has opinions. It has weather and root systems and seasons that do whatever they want. Designing something beautiful that also has to survive a Tennessee August and still look good in February — that's the challenge I can't get enough of.
The Grass Girl
Gerry and Clare
My first clients were Gerry and his wife, Lisa. Gerry had cultivated his garden for decades. He had hydrocephalus and had been severely affected by strokes. He couldn't always recall my name. But he knew me. Every time he saw me in the garden, he'd smile and say the same thing:
"The Grass Girl."
That was it. That's where the name came from. Not a branding exercise. Not a marketing decision. A man who couldn't remember my name but always recognized me in his garden.
The name will never change. It means too much.
Pickles on the farm.
I live on a farm outside Nashville with my dog Pickles, my dog Winnie, and my cat Maxine. It's where most of the real work happens, honestly, before I ever have a client. I plant things out there constantly. Right now I've got a color palette I've been watching since last spring to see how it shifts from May through October. I've designed and built a gate system twice because the first version wasn't right. I have three areas — and counting — dedicated to natural swimming pond garden spaces. I probably have more experiments going than I do finished spaces, and I'm fine with that. Because by the time something ends up in your design, I've already lived with it. I already know what works and what I'd never do again. Nothing in your garden is a guess.
Every client gets me. Not a team, not a junior designer working from my notes. I'm the one walking your property and sitting at the drawing table and noticing that the view from your kitchen window changes completely between March and June. Your project gets my full attention because I don't know how to give it anything less.
Every project starts with a conversation.
If what you've read here sounds right, I'd like to hear about your property.