Yard of the Week: Urban Oasis for a Chicago Family
A landscape architect creates a yard with a treehouse to entice a couple’s young children to engage with nature
Located alongside an end-unit townhome in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood is a yard designed to engage the homeowners’ three children. The parents hired landscape architect Stephen Prasses to create an inviting space that would encourage their kids to spend as much time as possible outdoors, immersed in their little slice of nature in the city.
A new treehouse serves as the focal point in the children’s garden. It sits along the street side of the side yard.
Prasses created a gravel path that connects the lawn to the children’s garden. The gravel is bluestone chips, a by-product of cutting bluestone.
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Prasses created a gravel path that connects the lawn to the children’s garden. The gravel is bluestone chips, a by-product of cutting bluestone.
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Daniels Wood Land supplied the treehouse. The California company creates custom, almost Disneyesque treehouses and play structures. “While I helped my clients pick this one out, I can’t take any credit for designing it,” Prassas says.
Getting the treehouse into the garden was no easy feat. It arrived from California in several pieces, and the team lowered it from the street into the yard over a tall hedge using a crane.
Getting the treehouse into the garden was no easy feat. It arrived from California in several pieces, and the team lowered it from the street into the yard over a tall hedge using a crane.
The base of the treehouse is a hollowed-out tree log with a carved entrance and a ladder inside that leads to a trap door in the treehouse floor. The tree trunk grounds the structure in the naturalistic setting of the garden, while the whimsical asymmetrical house portion grabs the eye. The treehouse also has a swing that hangs off an arm on the right side.
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In front of the treehouse, Prassas created a mound of meadow grass — Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica, zones 3 to 8). “I wanted to create a soft meadow for the kids,” Prassas says.
“This is a shady garden and naturalistic play space. I wanted to add shade-tolerant plants with lots of textures and different-colored leaves,” Prassas says. “These include ferns, hostas, grasses and sumacs that make it more interesting for the kids. Another plant I included is witch hazel, which flowers when nothing else is flowering.” The witch hazel species he planted is Autumn Embers vernal witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis ‘Autumn Embers’, zones 4 to 8).
Woody plants Passas added to the garden include ‘Little Henry’ Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica ‘Little Henry’, zones 5 to 9), cutleaf staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Laciniata’, zones 3 to 8), Snowmound spirea (Spiraea nipponica ‘Snowmound’, zones 3 to 8), bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora, zones 4 to 8) and a variety of hydrangeas.
How to Create a Beautiful Shade Garden
“This is a shady garden and naturalistic play space. I wanted to add shade-tolerant plants with lots of textures and different-colored leaves,” Prassas says. “These include ferns, hostas, grasses and sumacs that make it more interesting for the kids. Another plant I included is witch hazel, which flowers when nothing else is flowering.” The witch hazel species he planted is Autumn Embers vernal witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis ‘Autumn Embers’, zones 4 to 8).
Woody plants Passas added to the garden include ‘Little Henry’ Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica ‘Little Henry’, zones 5 to 9), cutleaf staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Laciniata’, zones 3 to 8), Snowmound spirea (Spiraea nipponica ‘Snowmound’, zones 3 to 8), bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora, zones 4 to 8) and a variety of hydrangeas.
How to Create a Beautiful Shade Garden
Along the way from the lawn to the treehouse, the path meanders past a garden of stumps interspersed with plants that present a wide range of textures.
The stumps give felled trees a new purpose. In this photo, Prassas’ son is traversing them. Prassas added a chalkboard as well as a bench that was repurposed from a tree. The bench and stumps can serve as seating if the kids want to play school.
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The stumps give felled trees a new purpose. In this photo, Prassas’ son is traversing them. Prassas added a chalkboard as well as a bench that was repurposed from a tree. The bench and stumps can serve as seating if the kids want to play school.
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Lightscape installed the outdoor lighting. “They installed tiny lantern-like lights up the existing saucer magnolia tree,” Prassas says. The lights creates an inviting glow toward the treehouse in the evening, which also lights up at night.
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This photo was taken from the children’s garden, looking across the lawn toward the back of the property. The deck is located next to the patio behind the large shrubs on the left.
Prassas notes that sustainability is built into the choices he makes. Examples include using by-products such as the bluestone chip gravel, as well as choosing classic materials, such as bluestone and brick, that won’t fall out of fashion. The former homeowners chose those latter two for the patio here.
“One way to be sustainable is to create hardscapes that won’t need to be replaced. Bluestone is classic. It will never look dated, and it holds up really well. You can take bluestone that was installed 50 years ago and repurpose it, rearrange it or blend it with new bluestone, and no one is the wiser,” Prassas says.
The existing patio bricks are repurposed Chicago street paver bricks, whichcan be reused, rearranged and reincorporated into new designs over and over again. Because these classic, durable bricks were used, there was no need to replace the existing patio.
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Prassas notes that sustainability is built into the choices he makes. Examples include using by-products such as the bluestone chip gravel, as well as choosing classic materials, such as bluestone and brick, that won’t fall out of fashion. The former homeowners chose those latter two for the patio here.
“One way to be sustainable is to create hardscapes that won’t need to be replaced. Bluestone is classic. It will never look dated, and it holds up really well. You can take bluestone that was installed 50 years ago and repurpose it, rearrange it or blend it with new bluestone, and no one is the wiser,” Prassas says.
The existing patio bricks are repurposed Chicago street paver bricks, whichcan be reused, rearranged and reincorporated into new designs over and over again. Because these classic, durable bricks were used, there was no need to replace the existing patio.
More on Houzz
Read more stories about urban gardens
Browse thousands of patio photos
Hire a landscape contractor
Shop for your outdoor spaces
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Yard at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple with three young children
Location: Chicago
Size: 3,600 square feet (334 square meters)
Landscape architect: Prassas Landscape Studio
Landscape contractor: Topiarius
“The yard had been professionally landscaped by former homeowners in the past and had great bones,” Prassas says. After his clients bought the home, the main goal was to make the yard child-friendly. The patio, an adjacent deck (just outside this photo’s frame on the right) and a small lawn area were existing. There also were well-established trees, a tall arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis, USDA zones 2 to 7; find your zone) privacy hedge and other woody plants in place. Prassas tweaked the patio to improve the flow from the deck to the yard, adding some stairs (not shown). He also added pots for herbs along the patio.
“A previous homeowner had been a strong gardener, but the landscaping had fallen to the wayside a bit,” Prassas says. He cleaned up this small lawn area and the surrounding gardens, then concentrated on the children’s garden. He removed a few trees to open it up a bit but maintained the shady microclimate. He also added new plants with interesting colors, foliage and flowers to engage the children’s interest.
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