Santosha in Centerville 

A couple creates a sanctuary in the heart of a charming village

Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, have spent much of the last few decades transforming the gardens at their home, Highgrove House, into an oasis of organic practices that has yielded a sensory tsunami of floral and vegetative splendor. In the same spirit, local attorney Peter Daigle and his wife, Diane Kovanda, a yoga and meditation teacher, have been working on creating a sustainable and organic home garden—transforming stretches of lawn to a haven of flowers, fruit trees and vegetables with the help of Peter’s sister, Falmouth landscaper and garden designer Maria Hickey, of Maria Hickey & Associates

Two years ago Peter, Diane and Maria sat down and discussed an overview of what they wanted to accomplish. The collaboration of Maria’s many years of horticultural and landscape design expertise as a certified plant expert—combined with the multi-season vegetable growing techniques of Elliot Coleman, of Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine and J.M. Fortier, author of “The Market Gardener”—sowed the seeds to provide a year-round food supply using greenhouses, hydroponics, and outdoor vegetable gardens. In all, it was a perfect confluence of philosophy, knowledge, expertise and hard work, with the happy outcome that their dream was realized.

“With a great plan, you can make the impossible possible.,” says Maria. “A good landscape plan takes into consideration current site conditions and the proposed changes needed for the plan’s successful implementation.” She designed a plan to create a functioning wildlife habitat to attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and pollinating insects. This included species of edible fruits, vegetables and beneficial host plants that Maria curated to provide food and shelter to a wide variety of species that now share the space.