Alcove is a quarterly magazine about small gardens—and the lives shaped within them.

We are drawn to the spaces just outside the door: courtyards, side yards, modest back gardens, and in-between places that influence daily life more than we often realize. These are not show gardens. They are lived-in spaces—tended between mornings and evenings, across seasons and years.

Through essays, visual stories, and thoughtful design reflections, we look beyond before-and-after moments to ask a more personal question: what does it actually feel like to live here?

What We Believe

We believe good gardens are not defined by size, trend, or spectacle. They are defined by experience—by enclosure and openness, by patience, by the way they support life as it is truly lived.

Smallness is not a limitation. It is a boundary that clarifies what matters.

Restraint is not absence. It is intention.

Who It’s For

This magazine is for those who notice.
Who care less about spectacle and more about presence.
Who believe gardens are not just designed—but lived with.

About the Founder

Alcove was created by DaShan Nixon, a garden designer and writer with more than a decade of experience designing intimate residential gardens. Her work centers on small spaces, seasonal thinking, and the emotional experience of gardens once life moves back in—after installation, after the tools are gone, when the space begins to belong to its people.

Welcome to Alcove.