![\"Firecracker](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-008_264107523.jpg\")
Firecracker plants. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\nFor The Union-Tribune<\/p>\n
Michelle Lillywhite loves \u2014 really loves \u2014 flowers. Yes, of course, who doesn\u2019t? But Lillywhite, a family photographer with three very young kids whom she homeschools \u2014 teaches floral workshops in her garden. While it\u2019s also filled with fruit trees and edible plants, Lillywhite is very conscious of nurturing plants that will put out flowers in succession year-round.<\/p>\n
When I first saw the garden in May as part of the 2026 Clairemont Outdoor Living & Garden Tour, I was struck by the raised beds by the sidewalk filled with now-fading sweet peas alongside fat, vibrant dahlias. Walking along the driveway into the back, I then saw a spacious treehouse snuggled into a ginormous flame tree in the center of the garden that dominates the space.<\/p>\n
Along the two fences at the property line are the fruit trees that Lillywhite and her husband, Spencer, an aerospace engineer, planted when they first moved into the house in January 2020. The couple added two types of lemons, a lime, two types of oranges, a pomegranate, three types of guavas, a persimmon, an avocado, two types of peaches, cherimoyas, a fig, a mango and four varieties of bananas \u2014 all this on a tenth of an acre.<\/p>\n
Firecracker plants. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a dragonfruit succulent as well as a variety of healing and cooking herbs, including lavender, borage bursting with purple flowers, cilantro, lemon balm, lemon thyme, oregano, lemon verbena and catmint.<\/p>\n
And there are the edibles, from blackberry, boysenberry and loganberry vines to climbing beans, onions and green onions and more passionfruit than one family can possibly eat in a season. The vines spread from a structure connected to the house to the flame tree, interwoven with the branches and string lights. In May, the fruit was green and there were still flowers lingering on the vines. Now the flowers are gone, and the fruit is just starting to change color. And the bunches of grapes that were also hanging nearby have since been harvested.<\/p>\n
Oh, but the flowers!<\/p>\n
![\"Chickens](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-010.jpg?w=620\")
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Chickens hang out in the patio area, which connects to a chicken coop. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n
![\"Michelle](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-001.jpg?w=620\")
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Michelle Lillywhite\u2019s husband, Spencer, did several building projects, including the chicken coop. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-013.jpg?w=620\")
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A view across a portion of the backyard and patio. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n
![\"Along](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-014.jpg?w=620\")
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Along the fences at the property line are fruit trees that Michelle Lillywhite and her husband, Spencer, planted when they first moved into the house. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n
Show Caption<\/p>\n
1 of 4<\/p>\n
Chickens hang out in the patio area, which connects to a chicken coop. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n
Expand<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe have about 25 rose varieties, including multiple David Austin and climbing roses,\u201d Lillywhite said. \u201cAnd heirloom zinnias from Dawn Creek and Floret Flower Farm, dahlias from growers across the country and also grown from seed from Floret. We have cosmos coming in shortly, and calendula.\u201d<\/p>\n As if that weren\u2019t enough, Lillywhite and her husband have five chickens and a whimsical coop he built alongside the garage with a fenced-in space behind the garage, complete with fire pit and four orange Adirondack chairs that the hens enjoy hanging out in.<\/p>\n In short, it\u2019s a charmingly irresistible space.<\/p>\n When the family moved in, there was nothing but grass and, beyond the grass, \u201ca mess,\u201d as Lillywhite put it. So the couple got to work. They had had gardening experience from their prior home in Ocean Beach before moving into this house.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were used to amending the soil, planning out,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI wasn\u2019t doing seed starting there, but we were used to going to the nursery, shopping for plants, and planting in the other space. We hadn\u2019t done any fruit trees prior to here, but growing up, my dad always had fruit trees on our property.\u201d<\/p>\n Lillywhite grew up in Camarillo in Ventura County. \u201cMy dad always had a couple of garden beds, and he probably had 15 fruit trees he would tend to. I would pick things sometimes, but I wasn\u2019t really actively involved. But I grew up appreciating homegrown produce.\u201d<\/p>\n Blueberries ripen in the Lillywhite yard, which has many varieties of fruit trees and bushes. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Avocados hang off a tree in the backyard. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n A pomegranate starts to ripen. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Passion fruits are abundant. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n A blackberry plant. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Show Caption<\/p>\n 1 of 5<\/p>\n Blueberries ripen in the Lillywhite yard, which has many varieties of fruit trees and bushes. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Expand<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cMy dad told us when we moved in to buy our fruit trees first because that way we\u2019d have fruit soon,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that was the first thing we did.\u201d<\/p>\n Once the trees were in, they put raised beds in the front, alongside the driveway fence and in the back for the herb garden.<\/p>\n Spencer installed the decomposed granite pathways and relocated small boulders that had been scattered around the garden. Being the engineer he is, he built the coop and treehouse.<\/p>\n \u201cMy sister moved down here and had chickens in Vista, and I thought, wait, we should have chickens,\u201d she said. \u201cSo my husband built that coop that year, and then the treehouse. He just loved the idea of a treehouse, so he put that in last year, in 2025. He just really likes projects.\u201d<\/p>\n A catmint plant. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Bougainvillea. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n The yard contains about 25 varieties of roses. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Purple flowers start to emerge from the herb borage. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Seedlings grow in a dedicated area for seed starting. It will soon be full of pods from sweet pea plants. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Show Caption<\/p>\n 1 of 5<\/p>\n A catmint plant. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)\n<\/p>\n Expand<\/a><\/p>\n That includes fertilizing the fruit trees, pruning the trees and bushes, helping with the compost and lawn mowing. He also installed drip irrigation with the help of his father.<\/p>\n \u201cI mainly take care of the garden beds and prune the roses,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m kind of like the flower one and he does a lot of other stuff. It\u2019s definitely a tag team. I think you both have to love it if you want to have a garden.\u201d<\/p>\n In the six years Lillywhite\u2019s been working on the garden, she has learned a lot.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to think that I could just do things out of order, like I could just pop a bunch of things in the ground without drip (irrigation) being set up, and I could have time to manually water, and then, you know, I\u2019d have time to compost randomly,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I feel like I\u2019ve learned that there\u2019s kind of like a flow: You got to get your soil prepped, your drip done well.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like building a house. You need a good foundation,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd now I have my seed-starting setup over here on the table, so then I can pop in seeds to the good soil that are getting good drips. I think once the soil is good and the water is good, it becomes a really good ecosystem, so it\u2019s easier to help things grow. I notice a lot of people, they don\u2019t do those things first, and then they\u2019re struggling with pests, disease.\u201d<\/p>\n Lillywhite is big on mulching with the leaves that fall.<\/p>\n \u201cI told my workshop attendees that, about how, when you look out in nature, you look out of the fields, you have the season of growth and you have the season of fall, where everything dies, and then everything stays on the soil, so it\u2019s composting down, and then it\u2019s growing, and then composting down,\u201d she said. \u201cUnless you\u2019re in the desert, you never just have bare dirt.\u201d<\/p>\n That flow with the seasons extends to her planting calendar, especially for flowers.<\/p>\n \u201cI kind of know by now what things do well in certain seasons. So, in fall I\u2019m planting, like, snapdragons, stock, ranunculus, a couple different types of ranunculus. What else am I doing? Spring sweet peas. Those will be in for the spring.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, I\u2019m just finishing up my summer planting. Then I\u2019m putting in zinnias, cosmos and some strawflowers,\u201d she noted. \u201cIn winter, you can start seeds and plant bulbs.\u201d<\/p>\n Lillywhite does a lot of seed starting \u2014 she has some starts, as she mentioned, on the patio table, and is waiting for the sweet pea pods to begin exploding so she can gather seeds for next season and to sell in her neighborhood. Her sister in Vista has a farm store and sold her sweet pea seeds there.<\/p>\n \u201cWe might eventually have a tiny farm stand out front here to sell things like seeds or extra fruit,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019ll be next year\u2019s project.\u201d<\/p>\n For the plants she buys, Lillywhite shops at a variety of nurseries.<\/p>\n \u201cI go to Walter Anderson (Nursery)<\/a> normally for my more mature plants. I buy a lot of my roses from David Austin<\/a>, and my seeds I get from Johnny Seeds<\/a> most of the time,\u201d she said. \u201cI buy my zinnias from Dawn Creek Farm<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n If Lillywhite has any advice for people just getting into gardening, it\u2019s mostly about learning about soil health, overcoming fear of failure and being part of a community of gardeners.<\/p>\n \u201cLearning about soil and soil health is probably the best thing to learn before you start a garden,\u201d she said, \u201cAnd, I think, not being afraid to fail. I feel like so many new gardeners are like, \u2018Oh, well, I kill everything.\u2019 Well, I kill a lot of things. A lot of things die, too. So not being afraid to start again, try something new. And then I think getting connected with other gardeners is a really beautiful part of gardening, because you learn so much from talking to other people, and then you can say, \u2018Oh yeah, I have that too.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n She suggested using the experienced people who work at nurseries as a great resource.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think there\u2019s no substitute for getting connected in your community too. It\u2019s like knowing your neighbors, or like sometimes even just walking around, you\u2019ll see someone out front like, \u2018Oh, what are you growing?\u2019 The other day we saw someone on the corner starting a succulent bed, and she didn\u2019t know that the dump had free compost. The San Diego Gardener<\/a> group is really great on Facebook. Facebook groups are really helpful for answering questions.\u201d<\/p>\n Farmers markets are also a great inspiration. \u201cYou can view what we can do in our area,\u201d she said. \u201cSo are garden tours. I feel like in order to be a good gardener, you do kind of have to be a researcher.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the pace of life that you have when you garden, you can\u2019t force it, and you kind of follow the rhythms of nature. I think it\u2019s learning that you can create beauty wherever you are. And for us, we are home a lot, probably more than most other families, because we really enjoy our space. So, I think tending to your own space and reaping the benefits and the fruit of that is really a beautiful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For The Union-Tribune Michelle Lillywhite loves \u2014 really loves \u2014 flowers. Yes, of course, who doesn\u2019t? But Lillywhite,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[19505,181,74,76,75,420],"class_list":["post-404165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-home-and-garden","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-005_264107491.jpg\")
A view of the tree house interior. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Blueberries](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-016.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Avocados](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-022.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-015.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Passion](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-011.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-009.jpg?w=620\")
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<\/p>\n![\"Bougainvillea.](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-017.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-004.jpg?w=620\")
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<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-020_264107509.jpg\")
A backyard swing is part of the fun for 4-year-old Clay. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Michelle](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SUT-L-LILLYWHITE-TREEHOUSEGARDEN-003.jpg\")
Michelle Lillywhite\u2019s husband, Spencer, is an aerospace engineer who built the chicken coop and the tree house by hand. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n