The landscaping showcases a parade of color throughout the growing season, starting with hellebores, daffodils and tulips in the spring, then iris and peonies followed by roses, coreopsis, nepeta, baptisia and salvia.

“What I love about it, you can feel you can come outside and all thoughts are gone,” she said. “Anything good, bad or ugly melts always. I just listen to the birds. I’m solely focused on how I feel when I’m there. I leave my troubles at the gate.”

Sullivan operates Dirt Therapy Gardens & Decor with her husband, Mike, on their almost acre of land a few blocks from Fontenelle Forest. As well as plants they sell concrete fixtures for the garden.

Tina Sullivan loves giving free tours as well.

She’s divided the property into rooms. The east garden features a pergola with grapes, hostas and coral bells. Garden Avenue is filled with sun-loving plants and draws visitors to the secret garden, which includes roses, peonies, clematis and a 6-foot fence of arborvitae.

The Sullivans are in the midst of building a Japanese or zen garden and are adding an orchard and a living fence across the back of their lot.

People often wonder how she can have such continual color without planting a lot of annuals, which she only uses in pots. She tries to build layers of color, so something is always blooming. It might be an iris, a globemaster allium, asters, knockout roses or a climbing rose. She has mock orange, peonies and several varieties of Agastache.

Hydrangeas are a favorite as well as Zagreb coreopsis, which blooms most of the summer.

“There’s a lot of color in my garden pretty much all the time,” Sullivan said. “I focus on more bang-for-your-buck flowers. I really try to keep those types of perennials in the garden at all times. They are those performers that can give you more of a show than does a one and done and done for the season.”

She spends hours on what she calls a labor of love.

That’s why she wants to share a message with gardeners who spend as much time as she does outdoors.

“Wear your hats and reapply your sun block, even wear sun glasses and use lip protection,” she said. “You can still be a gardener but you have to watch yourself.”

The Sullivans’ 27-year-old daughter, Marisa Lozo, has been diagnosed with melanoma on the side of her foot. She’s had two surgeries to remove it and a skin graft.

The Sullivans recently held a fundraiser for Lozo, selling plants from their garden as well as those volunteered by friends and other random gardeners.

Trees, Shrubs and More donated items as well as Canoyer Garden Center.

They were able to raise $1,400 for Lozo’s medical and family needs. She’s unable to work.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better community to come out and support her,” Tina Sullivan said. “We were just thrilled people came.”

She also sold many annuals and vegetables that she started from seed in February in her plant room.

That’s where she likes to plan out what she’ll do in the garden the next summer.

“You get kind of winter bound,” she said. “You can’t go out and play in the garden at all. I end up taking refuge in my grow room. I write down what I want to accomplish the next season. I have to plot it out and think about our budget and what we can accomplish that year.”

As well as tours, Sullivan shares her knowledge on Instagram at dirt_therapybytinamarie and on YouTube on Dirt Therapy Gardens. After three years of compiling video, she said she’s finally pulled the trigger on posting it.