The owners had worked with us on another property and knew we would be able to address this property’s problems and create a landscape that would fit their lifestyle. There were several issues such as older and overgrown plant material, new landscaping that had been poorly planned and installed, a lack of outdoor living space that needed addressed, and a large driveway that took up valuable space. Brad choose to use the home’s age and history as their direction for the design to invoke a timeless feel to the landscape and avoid the typical suburban landscapes of today. The idea was to create suburban gardens that would have been common for homes of its size and stature in the neighborhood at the time it was built.
The large size of the lot and the layout of the house would help dictate the arrangement of spaces. The idea was to divide the property into garden rooms and patios connected by walkways and open lawn. Focal points and sight lines would be used to add visual interest as one moved throughout the spaces. A feeling of formality was created with the geometric layout but softened with a more casual and loose planting scheme.
We laid out the new patio in a way that would save a large existing tree. The primary focal point for the patio is the elevated water feature with traditional lion’s head fountain. The water feature is flanked on both sides by openings leading out to an open lawn. The patio is bordered on one side by sitting walls which are separated by a wide opening into a large garden room. A walk leads off the patio to a smaller patio, turns and ends at the new driveway. The driveway was reconfigured to provide more usable parking, close enough to the house to be convenient but not to close as to encroach on the garden spaces. Focal points and views into the garden rooms great visitors entering from the driveway along the walk. Materials for the patios and walls were dictated by the house with matching brick for the vertical surfaces and traditional cut flagstone for the paving and wall caps. Outdoor lighting was used throughout to provide light for use at night, for safety along walks when coming and going after dark and to highlight certain elements in the garden such as the water feature.
Plantings were used to a achieve a variety of design goals such as dividing spaces into rooms, as visual focal points, and colorful gardens. Most of the larger trees around the perimeter were retained for the privacy with a few understory plants added for additional coverage. Traditional boxwood hedges divide the garden spaces and in the large garden room they provide a green backdrop to colorful mixed perennial borders that surround the space. The loose colorful borders were intended to add a casual feel to the ridged formal spaces. A crape myrtle tree inside a hedge of small dwarf boxwoods, up lit at night, at the center of the large garden room provides a focal point from several vantage points. A smaller garden room aligns with the sunroom and provides a pleasant view through the wall of windows. Additional plantings where added around a new driveway gate and along an existing hedge to provide a thicker planting buffer along the noisy side street. A bed of roses screens the parking area.
We were able to create a garden that should remain timeless and relevant for many years to come. While this project is complete as it is and stands on its own as a finished landscape, the designer’s intent was for it to be the first phase of a larger design. The layout would allow for the seamless addition of future walkways, gardens and a swimming pool. In the meantime the owner’s have the outdoor living space that modern families desire coupled with gardens that pay tribute the homes age and history.