As magical journeys often do, Keke Donald’s began in a garden—the one she wandered through just outside her grandmother’s beauty shop as a little girl.
“It was very Steel Magnolias,” Keke says. The shop sat attached to her grandparents’ house on an expansive Blountsville farm, where conversation drifted through open windows and lingered in the air. “The women would sit around and talk about gardening and what they were planting.”
When the last client left for the day, her grandmother tied on a wide-brimmed hat and stepped outside. She planted flowers along each side of the driveway, then straight down the center, filling every open stretch of ground with intention and care. Wandering between the beauty shop and the drive, Keke first learned what a garden could be.
“Gardening has always been something I’ve loved,” she says. “I don’t necessarily have a green thumb—but it’s something I enjoy, so I’m going to figure out how to take care of it.” She likens gardening to cooking in that way. “I think it’s either something you love or you don’t. I’ll cook to eat something good, but I’ll sit and read gardening books all day the way some people study recipes.”
Though she is a master gardener who has spent more than 250 hours in the classroom, Keke believes her most valuable lessons have come from decades of getting her hands in the dirt. “Most of what I know has been trial and error over the years.” Birmingham, she says, offers gardeners a generous opportunity to savor the process. “I get to enjoy my window boxes from March all the way through November,” she explains. “Gardeners in many areas get such a short window.” Even with the occasional freeze, she considers the growing season to be a benefit of living in Birmingham. “Overall, our conditions here are pretty ideal.”
Winter, for her, is less about waiting and more about imagining. “It’s my planning season,” she says, thinking ahead to what might change, what might grow. It’s also when she finds herself returning to a favorite line from Audrey Hepburn: To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.
Keke is also an accomplished Birmingham realtor, where her passion for plants shapes the way she sees every property—each one full of possibility. You might spot her on an early morning walk through her own garden at 5:30, her Sheepadoodle, George , trotting alongside, or imagining floral transformations for homeowners across the city.
One of her specialties is container gardening, a practice that gives her both flexibility and creative freedom. Her own window boxes overflow with whites and evergreens, offering a sense of ease and continuity. Pots and boxes allow her to rearrange, rethink, and begin again. “I plant more than I should,” she admits. “Sometimes it gets overcrowded—but I like it full.” Her approach is generous and forgiving: begin with something structural, soften it with layers, then let something trail over the edge—the classic fill, thrill, and spill method.
At her home, the front garden remains restrained, anchored by whites and evergreens that set an elegant tone. “The front is calm and filled with pastels,” Keke says. “Then the back is kind of like Skittles—it’s where I like to have a party with all the different colors.” She tends two beehives that help her garden to thrive.
One of the great pleasures of gardening, she’s found, is watching each area change over time. She’s especially fond of dahlias. “They’re probably my favorite thing to grow,” she says. “They’re intriguing in our climate.” She recalls meeting a woman who plants more than 600 dahlias every year, digging up every tuber by hand. “I’m not there yet,” Keke says. “Maybe in ten more years I’ll join a dahlia society.”
For those eager to add a bit more beauty to their own yards, her advice is simple: start with one large pot and plant something joyful. “Pop into one of our local garden shops and ask questions,” she says. “Everybody wants to help.”
From there, the possibilities for each area of the yard are endless—ready and waiting as you dream them up. That, she’s found, is the magic of tending a garden.
Follow Keke out into the garden on Instagram @Flowers_on_Fairway