Why all this effort? She takes a moment, then finds her thought: “I really do it for my husband, because this is his home, he was raised here, we’re here ….” When she speaks again, it begins as an almost conspiratorial whisper. “I’m the Yankee in the family, and I couldn’t just have it out here looking terrible. I couldn’t do it. The garden is a living, breathing thing. I guess that’s why I do it.”
Mr. Monroe, as she calls him, would be pleased, if not perhaps a little bemused by the petite blonde woman usually covered in dirt and brandishing loppers.
Although Oak Hill Farm isn’t open to the public, the DeLashmutts do share it in other ways. An educational program offered through the Mosby Heritage Area Association, of which Gayle just finished a term as president, sends school groups through. History groups and garden clubs also visit—Gayle is active in the Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club, and the couple offers their home as a venue for the occasional fund-raiser. MosbyHeritageArea.org
(Originally published in the August 2008 Issue)
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