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Donny Osmond has put roots down for his grandkids — literally.
The singer has cultivated a “secret garden” outside of his Utah home. It’s there, in his accompanying orchard, that he’s made a tradition of planting fruit trees for his grandchildren. With the newest additions of grandson Dune Tyler and granddaughter Aussie Rae, the children of Osmond’s son Chris Osmond, there are now 14 trees.
“I have a garden. It’s my oasis. I call it a secret garden,” Osmond tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, on newsstands now. “I’ve got a little vineyard. I grow grapes. I have an orchard.”
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“[The trees] are almost ready to be picked. So it’s fun to have [my grandkids] walk out to the orchard with me to their tree and pick their fruit that their grandpa grew for them,” he says.
Osmond, 65, and his wife Debbie Osmond‘s growing third generation comes from their five children: Don, Jeremy, Brandon, Chris and Joshua Osmond.
The former teen idol, who married his wife in 1978, is not just a doting father and a legendary performer: he’s a budding horticulturist. In addition to his fruit trees, the singer grows about seven different types of raspberries — and loves eating them fresh off the vine.
“All my life I’ve wanted to do this. I don’t have the greatest green thumb,” he admits to PEOPLE, “but I’m learning.”
It’s really all about building out his home as an oasis for himself and his family, who all live within 20 minutes of each other. “I’ve always wanted waterfalls,” he explains. “I love the sound of water. In the last five years, I built waterfalls around the fire pit where Debbie and I can surround ourselves with our grandkids and make s’mores as the sunset is going down. You feel like you’re up in the mountains, pine trees all around us and you go out and just pick raspberries and fresh fruit off the tree.”
In another recent interview with PEOPLE, Osmond talked about how fulfilling it is to see his children raise their own kids. “It’s such a great dynamic to see your children grow up to be parents,” Osmond said in August. “They graduate into that echelon of life just finding their own feet, finding their own wings.”
And part of letting his children take the lead is leaning in to “just be grandpa.” Explained Osmond, “It’s just like grandpa’s in the corner playing with the grandkids. That’s what I like to do.”
