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Denise Wiles Adams

Much like researching a mystery novel of days gone by, Denise Wiles Adams is able to research old gardens and landscapes by digging through the letters, photographs, newspaper clippings, household records, and diaries of the past. She has distilled hundreds of antique nursery catalogs into a unique survey that creates a database of more than 25,000 plants — an invaluable, scientific, yet practical reference on American heirloom ornamental plants that the professional designer and home gardener alike will find indispensable.

Denise's informative lectures on heirloom plants focus on perennials of the past for the present and restoring American gardens. During her lectures, Denise reminds people about the plants that are familiar to them, sometimes so familiar as to be ignored. She likes to surprise her audience with information about a plant that they thought was new, but actually has a fine history in earlier American gardens.

During her talks, Denise interacts with her audience and invites them to tell about the plants they remember from childhood or those that are important to their families. It proves to be quite emotional for some and the stories are always wonderful.

Denise is a frequent writer for publications such as Fine Gardening, Herbalist, Perennial Plants, and Country Gardens. Her own gardens have been featured in a number of regional and national publications.

Denise Wiles Adams lives what she preaches in her home — originally a mid-nineteenth-century tavern in Buckingham County, Virginia. With her family and their 10 cats, she keeps gardens with an emphasis on heirloom plant species and cultivars. In Virginia she is known as the mistress of The Tavern at Gravel Hill. She also collects seventeenth-century English furniture and enjoys walking and reading vintage English mysteries.