Little Bird Gardens blooms in a new backyard home

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Bright pink cherry blossoms fall like snow in the backyard garden, gathering across the nursery floor. Red umbrellas with white scalloped edges rise above tables of plants. A wooden fence hems in part of the space, and beyond it, just south of Vashon’s uptown, a rich green building sits along the highway.

This is the new home of Little Bird Gardens, the island nursery owned by longtime Vashon resident Kim Cantrell, now tucked behind Mind+set Apothecary + Restoreum at 17917 Vashon Highway SW.

Cantrell, who has lived on Vashon for 30 years, moves through the garden and points out elderberry, rhododendrons, meadow flowers, native shrubs and nonnative plants she has chosen by hand.

“It’s a little tucked in, but in a good way,” Cantrell said. “In a secret garden way.”

Little Bird Gardens moved from its former location outside the Country Store & Farm earlier this year and opened in the apothecary’s backyard in March. The move marks a new chapter for Cantrell, whose nursery opened in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for Mardi Ledbetter, owner of Mind+set Apothecary + Restoreum.

It is also a new chapter for their friendship. “Kimmy and I have been best friends for 25 years,” Ledbetter said.

The two women have long worked with plants, but in different ways. Cantrell is a gardener and nursery owner, drawn to the shape, texture and beauty of plants and to helping people build gardens that thrive in Vashon’s varied soil and climate. Ledbetter is an herbalist by training, making medicinals with mostly native plants — work she began while trying to heal her own autoimmune condition.

Now, they are sharing one address.

“We didn’t have enough time for each other,” Ledbetter said with a laugh. “Because we both were busy with these silly things called jobs. And so we just had to move in with one another.”

For years, the apothecary’s backyard served as a gathering space. Ledbetter hosted performers, bands, small shows, First Friday events, Strawberry Festival happenings and flea markets there.

But now, the backyard brims with a different kind of music: the sound of a hose watering plants, the scent of damp soil and green leaves, and the chatter of island gardeners on the hunt for their next plant.

The two businesses remain separate. Customers can enter Little Bird either through the apothecary, past the smell of incense and shelves of herbal goods, or through the nursery’s own outdoor entrance, a garden gate just to the right of the building.

Together, the businesses offer what Ledbetter described as a natural fit: a place where islanders can buy medicinal herbs, garden plants and a little advice in one stop.

“It brings amazing foot traffic for me and for Kimmy both,” Ledbetter said. “It’s very zen-like when people come to visit.”

For Cantrell, Little Bird Gardens began as something like a retirement plan, after decades of physical gardening work had begun to take a toll. Running a nursery offered her a way to keep shaping island gardens without spending quite as many hours hunched over in them.

It is one of two dedicated nurseries on Vashon. Compared with the larger and beloved Kathy’s Corner, Cantrell said, Little Bird is smaller, more curated and more intimate, with an ever-changing selection tied to the season.

“I truly go through a list of plants and I pick the best things, or the interesting things,” Cantrell said.

That can mean flowering shrubs, groundcovers, bushes, garden tools, small trees, planters, garden sculptures and dozens of native plants. Cantrell said Little Bird carries more than 50 varieties of native plants, a cornerstone of the nursery and one of the offerings she believes sets it apart.

“I’m always looking for new natives that I haven’t had before,” Cantrell said, though she added that she is “not a purist in the native world by any means.”

In her own garden, she uses a mix of native and nonnative plants, an approach she believes can be both beautiful and beneficial. Native plants, she said, help support local ecosystems and pollinators, while a layered, densely planted garden can also help retain moisture, cool the soil and create shade as summers grow hotter and drier.

“There’s definitely a focus on bringing in plants that are drought tolerant, that are going to survive our hotter summers,” Cantrell said.

That kind of practical knowledge is central to the business. Cantrell did not study horticulture formally; she studied design. Her education in plants has come over decades in gardens, watching what succeeds and what fails.

“They tell you how they grow,” Cantrell said. “They can tell you how they need to be pruned. Plants tell you a lot of things, if you’re paying attention. And I’ve been paying attention for a long time.”

That attention has become one of Little Bird’s main offerings. Cantrell does not just sell plants. She helps customers figure out what kind of groundcover will actually work in a particular spot, what to plant in shade or sun, how to layer a garden and where not to waste their money.

The new location, Cantrell said, is part of her own effort to practice what she has learned from the garden. This year, she is trying to embrace “less is more.” The smaller space has less direct sunlight, which makes it easier to water and tend. It also gives her more room in her life.

Ledbetter understands that impulse. The new arrangement gives her room to do less — leaving the space to the nursery instead of filling it with events she loved, but that also took a toll.

“It also kind of takes the burden off of me with autoimmune — I tend to do things too much,” Ledbetter said. “I tend to get on board with something and then do it so much that it hurts me. This keeps me from doing that.”

The businesses also complement each other in more tangible ways. Ledbetter already used many of the plants Cantrell sells. In past summers, she said, she kept tables full of Cantrell’s medicinals and natives outside the apothecary. Now, those plants are right behind the shop.

“There’s just a symbiosis in terms of plants and how she uses them and then I use them totally differently,” Cantrell said. “As an herbalist, she’s using plants that I have to make her medicine. I use them differently — I look at plants and gardens as things of beauty.”

The two businesses will celebrate their shared space with a “Love Grows Here” Mother’s Day Celebration from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 10, at Little Bird Gardens. The event, sponsored by Women Hold the Key, will include mimosas, mocktails, music, children’s crafts, a plant sale, portrait artists, lei making and an online gift auction.

In the days leading up to the event, Cantrell has been making final touches to the nursery. She is preparing “the Nest,” a small building in the heart of the garden that serves as part gift shop, part register and part supply shed.

Around it, the garden is settling into itself. The blossoms fall. The umbrellas glow red.

And behind the green apothecary on Vashon Highway, two friends have made a little more room for plants and for each other.

Little Bird Gardens is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Mind+set Apothecary + Restoreum is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.