An Evening with Holly Hoffmann, Landscape Designer

Are you interested in learning about garden design and horticulture?

Are you interested in learning about garden design and horticulture? A fantastic opportunity awaits you at the Tulsa Garden Center. Join the Tulsa Herb Society in welcoming Holly Hoffmann, a renowned landscape designer from West Virginia, on Monday, July 7 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

A native West Virginian and West Virginia University graduate, Holly comes from a long line of gardeners. “My family instilled in me a great reverence for nature and beauty,” she said. “Gardening has always been in my blood.”

A childhood among gardeners encouraged Holly to make it her vocation. "We were brought up in nature," Holly said of her and her brother's childhood in Fairmont. "My parents were both big gardeners and cooks. They had ornamental gardens and vegetable gardens." When Holly was 14, the family moved to Wheeling, W.Va., where her father, the late Joe Hoffmann, wrote a gardening column for the “News Register.”

At West Virginia University, Holly first majored in landscape architecture, but switched to journalism with a minor in anthropology. She reasoned that a journalism background would hold her in good stead for a variety of careers. Although that has held true, Holly said she's always regretted that she didn't get that landscape architecture degree.

In her 24-year career of creating gardens – from the Kanawha Valley to the Greenbrier Valley – Holly Hoffmann has learned many lessons about garden design and horticulture. Here's perhaps the most important: Sometimes, you should just relax and enjoy what you have.

It's a mantra she often repeats to herself when she leaves the TerraSalis Garden Center in Milton, where she handles the business end of the center and works with clients on garden design. She heads up U.S. 60 and down a gravel road to the 45 acres of property she and her husband Scott Smith call home.

Holly has been designing gardens in West Virginia for 22 years, from formal to naturalized, and from subdivisions to the posh new residences at The Greenbrier Sporting Club. When she goes home each night, it's to the relaxing spot she and Scott own in Culloden. The vegetable garden thrives in raised beds behind a fence on the flattest and sunniest spot. "I'm going to let nature be," she said.

Long days in the busy spring and summer months, coupled with a nagging shoulder injury and not being 20 years old anymore, have taught Holly not to take her own yard so seriously.

Holly designs formal gardens and naturalized gardens, always with an eye toward the client's desires. "Everybody's so darn busy. Nobody has time to relax," she said. "One thing I find rewarding is advising people so they feel comfortable making the garden their own."

For more information on Holly’s speaking engagement in Tulsa, call (918) 746-5125.

For more information, contact

Tulsa Garden Center

2435 S. Peoria, Tulsa, OK

(918) 746-5125