Laura White and Boots Levinson have turned the bare yard of their Merion Station Tudor into a pollinator garden that draws hummingbirds, bees and neighbors. Five years ago, the property had little more than rocks and a crab apple tree.

The couple moved from a one-bedroom Center City condo to the three-story, 3,000-square-foot home in 2021. White, a psychiatrist with no formal gardening training, started planting almost immediately. The Philadelphia Inquirer profiled the garden Thursday, Sept. 3, detailing how the project spread from the couple's porch to the curb and into a neighbor's yard across the street.

The front yard now holds platter-sized hibiscus, hydrangea, cardinal flowers, partridge peas, creeping Jenny, daisies and lavender. Deep pink celosia lines the curb, pushing up against parked cars. "It's a hostile environment. You hope for the best," Levinson told the Inquirer.

White planted a kitchen garden along one side of the house with honeynut squash, Swiss chard, Thai and Shishito peppers, plum tomatoes she cans, and cucumbers on a trellis. Alpine strawberries ripen in the front yard each spring. They are sweet enough that neighborhood children snag them walking past.

White credits neighbor Suzanne Kane, who keeps a garden across the street, as a key mentor. Kane shares plantings and advice, and the two households' gardens now form what White describes as a pollinator pathway for hummingbirds and bees moving between yards.

The yard was bare when they arrived. White learned the basics by watching her father, Bruce, garden. Levinson, a Realtor, said White's scientific training makes her a better gardener. He described his own role as watering and manual labor.

The couple hired Merion Station mason Deen Vinci of Surrounded by Stone to repoint the property's stone arch, build its wood door, pave the front driveway and reset the patio bricks. White gardens year-round, starting seeds under hydroponic lamps in the basement each winter and choosing perennials that shift color across seasons. Muhly grass turns from green in summer to fluffy pink in fall. Amsonia grass blooms blue in spring and shifts from green to gold by autumn.

White shops for plants at Primex Garden Center in Glenside, Wynnewood Garden Center in the Wynnewood Shopping Center, and Lancaster County Farmers Market in Wayne.

Next on her list: moving Amaryllis plants from the yard into the basement for about eight weeks so they bloom indoors by Christmas.