About the studio
Gardens people live in, and the crew that stays to look after them.
One truck, one mower and a lot of clay.
Ruth and Walt Ashby started Fernhill in 1993 with a pickup truck and a handful of neighbors’ lawns in Raleigh. Ruth was a horticulturist who couldn’t stand watching good plants go in the wrong place; Walt could build anything out of stone.
Thirty-two years on, we are a studio of designers, horticulturists and builders, still family-run, still based in the Triangle. We design, build and care for gardens in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and the towns in between, and we keep the same crews on the same gardens for years.
We are not the cheapest. We would rather do fewer gardens properly than more of them quickly, and we tell you up front what something will really cost.
32+
100K
60+
4.9
What we believe
Three things we won’t cut corners on
01
Plant for the place
We choose plants for your soil, your light and our summers, not for the photo. Natives where they fit, tough non-natives where they earn it.
02
Build what lasts
Proper bases, real drainage, honest materials. The parts you never see are the parts we spend longest on.
03
Stay on afterwards
Most of our clients are still with us years after the build. The crew who planted your garden comes back to look after it.
The people
Who you’ll meet on site
Ruth Ashby
Co-founder · Horticulture
Marcus Ashby
Design lead
Tomás Reyes
Build lead · 24 years with us
Jess Okafor
Care manager