GWEN STEFANI'S Sweet Escape

SHE'S BUSIER THAN EVER WITH MUSIC, MAKEUP AND THE VOICE. STILL, THE ROCKER IS RELISHING A PEACEFUL ERA WITH HUSBAND BLAKE SHELTON AND HER THREE SONS - AND LOVING COUNTRY LIFE IN OKLAHOMA

- MELODY CHIU

Gwen Stefani can’t quite believe it: She’s turned into her parents. “When I was young, I’d walk home from school and see my mom in her shorts doing her gardening, and my dad would be cutting the trees and make me pick up the branches. I’d be like, ‘I’m never having a tree at my house.’” Yet these days, when she and her husband, Blake Shelton, are at their home near Tishomingo, Okla., the rocker tends to far more than just a lone tree. They have sunflowers. Zinnias. Even plots of corn. “I just had the most incredible dahlias ever,” says Stefani, 53, beaming as she describes herself as a “garden flower nerd” after her People photo shoot in Los Angeles. “When we get to Oklahoma, we’re constantly working—and it’s a different kind of work. It’s probably what my mom was doing back in the day, and now I get it!”

Stefani still feels surprised by the decidedly un-Hollywood turn her life has taken in the past decade. “I didn’t see any of this coming with Blake. This was just a big old ‘What?’” she says of falling for the country superstar, 47, and his down-home life. After meeting on the set of The Voice in 2014, they began dating a year later following their respective splits. “I even used to say to Blake, ‘Why are you here? Why aren’t you in L.A.?’ But he’s like, ‘This is my home,’” recalls Stefani. “And when I met Blake, that’s when I felt home, like, ‘Oh, this is where I’m supposed to be, with this guy.’”