Full Circle: Awesome Flower Bed in Gardnerville, Nevada using KICK Garden Soil, BOOST Soil Amendment, and PUNCH Liquid Booster. All-natural results!

Design ideas for a large mediterranean full sun courtyard gravel formal garden in Tampa.

Inspiration for a large asian partial sun water fountain landscape in DC Metro.

For more photos of this project see: AMANTE
Design ideas for a traditional landscaping in San Francisco.

A long, stepped-stucco retaining wall topped by flagstones alongside a driveway with a custom automatic wrought iron gate and fence at the top. The stucco is a facing for cinder blocks.

Caldwell Pink antique rose, Potato vine, English ivy, Gold Bougainvillea David Morello
This is an example of a traditional landscaping in Houston.

Path through the grass -- grass between the rocks or no?
Inspiration for a mid-sized traditional full sun backyard stone garden path.

Custom trellis on neighboring fence is a great way to hide, or spruce up, an unsightly fence that cannot be demolished or replaced.
Inspiration for a small contemporary partial sun backyard landscaping in Houston for spring.

This shady planter includes an Arizona Ash on the left, underplanted with vinca major. In the center foreground is xylosma, and on the right wall is star jasmine. The small tree on the right is a peach.

Reused granite block and aggregate for wall and paths
This is an example of a large craftsman shade backyard landscaping in San Francisco.

Courtyard garden landscape and hardscape design by Matthew Giampietro
Design ideas for a mid-sized traditional courtyard brick formal garden in Miami.

We created a patio space for the owners, with a seat wall and landscaping around the perimeter of the property.
Design ideas for a mid-sized modern shade backyard concrete paver landscaping in New York for summer.

This dining room operates as a processional volume, choreographed along a deep axial sightline that terminates not in a wall but in a garden — an ivy-clad plane of green glimpsed through full-height glazing. The architecture is fundamentally additive rather than decorative: a coffered, stepped ceiling plane with recessed reveal channels floats above the seating zone, its subtle datum lines describing a rectangular "room within a room" that anchors the table without recourse to enclosing partitions. Flanking this central passage, two millwork pylons — one clad in pale limed oak on the right, one in a fine bone-toned wallcovering on the left — function as vestigial pilasters, compressing the entry threshold before releasing into the loftier dining volume. The floor reinforces this directionality through a wide-plank chevron parquet laid on the primary axis, its herringbone rhythm accelerating the eye toward the terrace. The furniture plan is deliberately non-orthogonal: an elongated oval table on twin cylindrical pedestals softens the room's rectilinear discipline, while the loosely arrayed chairs break parade-ground symmetry in favor of a more inhabited, gestural composition. Deep-set corner windows and a low banquette-height sill with integrated casework at left introduce a secondary spatial episode, a quieter alcove that relieves the room's axial insistence. ## II. Materiality, Color & Texture The palette is a study in warm neutrality calibrated across a narrow tonal band, with contrast delivered through texture rather than hue. The foundational register is greige-to-oatmeal: floor-to-ceiling drapery in a heavy, densely gathered linen falls in pin-sharp cartridge pleats, its matte drape absorbing light and softening the glass wall's hard geometry. Against this, the dining chairs are upholstered in a slubbed, striated fabric — likely a raw silk or abaca-like bast fiber — whose horizontal grain reads almost as bark, and which is set in taut opposition to the ebonized, tapered hardwood frames in the Italian mid-century idiom of Gio Ponti or Ico Parisi. The tabletop, a mottled verdigris-and-bronze stone or fossilized surface, introduces the room's only earth-toned saturation, echoed by the burl-and-walnut plinth supporting a slender fluted bronze sculpture. The oak millwork is limed and open-grained, deliberately dry and tactile beside the high-polish patinated brass of the pendant. Underfoot, a hand-knotted silk rug in cloud-grey with charcoal ombré edges introduces atmospheric perspective — a painterly gradient that dematerializes the floor plane. Chromatic release arrives entirely from two sources: the framed abstract expressionist canvas at right, with its viridian, cobalt and violet gestural detonations, and the living wall of ivy beyond the glass. Both function as color events, not color schemes. ## III. Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile Daylight is the primary luminaire here, entering as a broad, north-soft wash through the terrace glazing and diffused further by the ivy screen, which acts as a natural lambrequin filtering glare into a cool, even green-tinted light. Artificial sources are deployed sculpturally rather than functionally: the pendant — a folded, petal-form composition of smoked glass and patinated metal — reads as a suspended object of art, throwing a warm downward pool onto the table while its dark bronze silhouette provides essential visual weight against the white ceiling. Wall-mounted alabaster sconces bracket the room at both thresholds, their translucent stone glowing with a low-lumen, candle-adjacent warmth that establishes perimeter intimacy after dusk. The resulting atmosphere is serene, curated and quietly patrician — a room engineered for extended conversation rather than display. Stylistically, the project synthesizes a **contemporary Soft Minimalism** with a strongly collected **Mid-Century Italian** sensibility: the restraint of the architectural envelope and monochromatic textile program provides a gallery-like neutral ground, upon which a small number of high-character objects — the sculptural pendant, the Ponti-esque seating, the abstract canvas, the exterior stone sculpture — perform as museum-grade punctuation. It is an interior that achieves luxury through material integrity and negative space rather than ornament.

A pool of colorful heucheras and ferns surround a brook-like water feature, flanked by stone terraces.
Photo of a traditional shade backyard stone water fountain landscape in San Francisco.

Photo of a large traditional full sun backyard stone garden path in New Orleans for summer.

Design ideas for a traditional full sun gravel formal garden in New York.

A backyard drought-tolerant design with a decomposed granite area and walkways leading to it. It's surrounded by low-moisture plants and mulch with a porcelain fountain by the house.

Carol Lindsay Sedum and Baby's Tears Groundcovers soften stone steps.
Design ideas for a rustic landscaping in Portland.

Serene connected ponds and streams create a peaceful backyard retreat. River rock "streams" complement the design. photo by Living Magazine
Inspiration for a traditional landscaping in Dallas.