Landscape for Love 2025: A Backyard of Hope for the Doy Family
Each year, our Landscape for Love giveaway gives the Bedner’s team a chance to do what we love most — use our passion for plants and design to nurture growth and give back to others. This fall, we selected two deserving recipients for our 2025 projects. Our first transformation took place on Monday, October 20, for Michael and Misty Doy of Canonsburg, PA.
A Story of Strength and Love
Misty’s nomination shared the story of her husband, Michael — a man whose kindness, strength, and love for the outdoors have inspired everyone who knows him.
After meeting online and building a life together across continents, Michael and Misty created a warm, welcoming home filled with family and nature. Michael poured his heart into their landscape, planting trees, tending flowers, and caring for the birds and wildlife that brought him joy.
In 2021, life changed dramatically when Michael was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Around the same time, the Doys faced the unimaginable loss of Misty’s son. Despite these hardships, Michael found comfort in the garden — even as his strength faded, he continued to nurture his outdoor spaces as best he could.
This year, Misty shared how much it would mean for Michael to see his beloved gardens restored — a symbol of hope, healing, and renewal.
Restoring Beauty and Peace
On October 20, 15 members of the Bedner’s team arrived ready to get to work. Together, they transformed both the front and back yards, refreshing overgrown beds, creating new planting areas, and filling the space with color, texture, and life once again.
In the front yard, the team replaced a dead lilac with a smoke bush, refreshed the peony and entry beds with new mulch and plantings, and created two new beds flanking the driveway for a welcoming touch.
In the backyard, they added new perennial beds near the deck, installed graceful Hakuro Nishiki willows along the property edge, and reset the walkway to the deck. A memorial tree and seating area were carefully preserved — a space that holds deep meaning for the family.
The new landscape design includes long-blooming perennials like echinacea, coreopsis, and baptisia, along with flowering shrubs and small trees to bring year-round beauty and peace to their home.
the before
By The Numbers:
2025 Landscape for Love – Doy Family Project
- 8 yards of leaf compost
- 14 yards of mulch
- 74 plants installed
- 15 Bedner’s staff volunteers
- 1 inspiring day of teamwork and love
the after
Nurturing Growth, Giving Hope
At Bedner’s, we believe that caring for people and caring for the land go hand in hand. Seeing the Doy family’s joy reminded us that landscapes aren’t just about plants — they’re about connection, healing, and hope.
We’re so grateful to the Doy family for allowing us to be part of their story, and to our incredible team for their generosity, hard work, and hearts for service.
Stay tuned — we’ll be sharing details soon about our second Landscape for Love 2025 project.
Melanie has been with the family garden center business since 1999, gaining hands-on experience in nearly every aspect–from cashiering and greenhouse production to bookkeeping, perennial buying, marketing, and store management. Now serving as Finance and Marketing Director, she combines her expertise with a passion for growing the business. She and her husband, Russ, have loved seeing how plants, gardening, and beautiful landscapes bring joy to our community.
