The landscape is divided into three distinct areas, all of which are used by dogs and humans alike. The clients chose an open screens style fence so that their dogs could visit with the neighbors' dogs. Photo credit: Lisa Meddin, Harmony Design Northwest

Removing highly flammable, invasive plants is key. When removing Pride of Madera, White sage, Salvia alpiana makes for a great alternative. The California native sage scents the air with an earthy, fresh fragrance, and its edible leaves are a perfect addition to Thanksgiving meals. The lady bug resting on its leaves protects human health by rendering the use of pesticides unnecessary. These delightful creatures are natural pest predators! Photo: Lesly Hall Photography

This garden was created over a time period of 15 years. We have designed 5 distinct gardens bound by a common palette of materials in order to complement the architecture of this California Contemporary home, in Oakland California.

JMMDS created a new drive court, entry stairs, and herb terrace to complement a new addition to an old New Hampshire cape. We reoriented the axis of the vegetable garden toward a view and created a "turning point" for a handsome pot whose lines mimic the mountain peak beyond. A granite retaining wall along the back of the new addition makes space for a bocce court and lawn. Photo by Randy O'Rourke, published in Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love by Julie Moir Messervy. Used with permission from The Taunton Press.

A beautiful view of the new front entrance with a gorgeous bluestone cut drywall retaining wall, a new driveway that is now wide enough for a car to park and still allows humans to have space to walk to the front door. So many problems solved! Next up... PLANTS!

Photography: ©ShadesOfGreen
Design ideas for a contemporary retaining wall landscape in San Francisco.

Nestled into sloping topography, the design of this home allows privacy from the street while providing unique vistas throughout the house and to the surrounding hill country and downtown skyline. Layering rooms with each other as well as circulation galleries, insures seclusion while allowing stunning downtown views. The owners' goals of creating a home with a contemporary flow and finish while providing a warm setting for daily life was accomplished through mixing warm natural finishes such as stained wood with gray tones in concrete and local limestone. The home's program also hinged around using both passive and active green features. Sustainable elements include geothermal heating/cooling, rainwater harvesting, spray foam insulation, high efficiency glazing, recessing lower spaces into the hillside on the west side, and roof/overhang design to provide passive solar coverage of walls and windows. The resulting design is a sustainably balanced, visually pleasing home which reflects the lifestyle and needs of the clients. Photography by Andrew Pogue

Mid-sized beach style light wood floor and beige floor dining room photo in Charleston with white walls, a standard fireplace and a stone fireplace

View of the family estate with the main house and bunk house.
Inspiration for a black one-story glass exterior home remodel in Seattle

We selected an assortment of ornamental grasses, hydrangeas, and other perennials for the terraces to provide multiple seasons of color and interest.

Years ago, Exterior Worlds was contacted by a couple by the names of Rick and Susan Ashcroft. They asked if we could do something about the lagoon-style swimming pool that had been built behind their house in the late1940s. This style had been very popular at that time, and it is still a favored by some of the world’s more lavish resorts. However, ever since the day they had purchased their home, the Ashcroft’s had always been agitated by the ostentatiousness of the whole thing, and had finally decided to have it redesigned as a natural swimming pool. They wanted their back yard to retain the feeling of a tropical locale, but lose the touristic element in favor of that of a cozier, more private corner of paradise. We agreed with their sentiments wholeheartedly. Just a cursory glance at the property confirmed that a natural swimming pool design was a much better fit for the grade of the landscape and the surrounding opportunities for vegetation and lighting. The Ashcroft residence was located on the side of a hill that sloped down toward a ravine, and the house itself house was built 40 feet back from the road. The steep grade of the land posed construction challenges to any type of water feature, but there was a way to build a natural swimming pool here that would achieve the aesthetic the Ashcroft’s were seeking and create a lasting element that required only limited and very intermittent periods of maintenance. We began by stripping the pool down to its shell and building a retaining wall that offset the grade of the land. We shaped the surrounding earth around it into a much deeper basin that would allow water to collect naturally like it does at the base of a cliff. A series of interlocking pavers was laid around the perimeter to create a flat surface that extended from the back of the home to the retaining wall. This is a standard aesthetic used in most natural swimming pools, but it also served a special, practical purpose in this instance. Since this area was subject to heavy land erosion from runoff rainwater, pavers provided a very efficient way of reconstructing key elements of the structure every 5-10 years. The natural swimming pool now appeared as an inviting portal into a remote hill country getaway, just a stone’s throw away from the back of the house. We made it easier to reach by building two series of stone steps that led down to either side of the water’s edge. We were careful to avoid making them look too much like stairs. Instead, we designed them to closely mimic the layers of rock that often jut from the sides of mountains and dormant volcanoes on islands all over the Pacific. To further develop this theme, we placed a large flat stone to serve as a diving area, and we created a waterfall on either side of it by laying down stones in a manner that created varying speeds of water. Our construction methods here were very unique in comparison to those of our competitors. We took almost a month to consciously and deliberately lay each stone by hand. While this may seem painstakingly detailed to some, the rewards were astonishing, because our natural swimming pool mimicked Nature in such a way that it lacked almost all evidence of human engineering, and looked virtually identical to something you would stumble upon in the jungle of a tropical paradise. If you are interested in any high-quality landscape services, Exterior Worlds has been providing the high-end residential landscape services and garden design services discussed above for the Houston and the surrounding areas including memorial villages (Piney Point Village, Bunker Hill Village, Hunter Creek Village), Tanglewood, River Oaks, West University and the greater Houston (Hou), area since 1987. Contact us at 713-827-2255 For more the 20 years Exterior Worlds has specialized in servicing many of Houston's fine neighborhoods.

Modern family loft renovation. A young couple starting a family in the city purchased this two story loft in Boston's South End. Built in the 1990's, the loft was ready for updates. ZED transformed the space, creating a fresh new look and greatly increasing its functionality to accommodate an expanding family within an urban setting. Improvement were made to the aesthetics, scale, and functionality for the growing family to enjoy. Photos by Eric Roth. Construction by Ralph S. Osmond Company. Green architecture by ZeroEnergy Design.

This project, completed for a client in Sugar Land, Texas, was authorized by the homeowner and the architect and was done in conjunction with the efforts of the builder. Its minimalist approach to vegetation, its custom swimming pool design, and its unique hardscapes offer the reader an excellent example of contemporary landscape design. There were a lot of challenges to designing a pool that worked with the architecture of the home and fit the available space in the back yard. To understand the unique nature of the pool, we have to take a closer look at the home. The house features a number of curved facades and unique angles. Instead of a traditional back porch, it features a custom stonework patio and an outdoor kitchen. The pool is elevated above the shrub palette to make it level with the floor of the house. This compensates for the drop in elevation on the way to a lake that is located just beyond the property line. The back patio is made from sandstone laid over a concrete base. It double functions as a deck and as a floor of the summer kitchen that leads straight to the water’s edge. Such a fusion of human architecture with natural elements is common in contemporary landscape design. It is further reinforced by custom water jets built along the patio’s edge using a special construction technique. Our design team predetermined the location of each stone. Intersections of the stones were marked, and the pipes which eventually fed the jets were installed before setting the stone in place. This creates the very powerful illusion that the water is springing from the stone itself. It is perhaps the most effective method of extending the geometry of manmade forms into the natural world beyond as if to establish the supremacy of mind over the raw elements of nature. To continue the home’s architecture, we had to build the pool in a rectilinear shape with a decidedly curved edge that reflected the unique facades of the home. This enables the pool to better connect with the landscape as it gently arcs through the vegetation. This works to establish the preeminence of home architecture over the entire yard. This is a common and very powerful theme found in most contemporary landscape designs. Guests standing on the back patio get the sense that the design of the home itself has been extended infinitely into the yard—making it appear as though it is an actual part of the home. The top of the coping slopes down to the water at a 45 degree angle, creating a marked aesthetic that mirrors the grade of the yard that slopes toward the lake in the distance. This is an example of curved facades and walkway surfaces. The upper story and windows overhang the front wall and the contemporary style front door. We accented the scene with a small birch tree and low growth boxwood shrubs, dwarf yaupon, agapanthus, and nandina. We also planted Bermuda grass, which looks very good cut very short and retains its color. Bermuda grass is often used in contemporary landscape design to line stone walkways and to contemplate small shrubs.

Example of a minimalist two-story wood exterior home design in New York

http://www.esto.com/vecerka
Inspiration for a modern living room remodel in New York with a concrete fireplace and a concealed tv

Design ideas for a traditional backyard landscaping in Minneapolis.

View from mid level terrace, back towards picket vegetable garden.
This is an example of a mid-sized traditional full sun backyard stone retaining wall landscape in Boston.

The challenge of this property was to embrace a steeply sloped front lawn typical to south Minneapolis. The design solution was to create a series of deconstructed terraces that break the massing of stone retaining walls and stones into smaller human-scaled spaces. This avoided creating a fortress-effect of a home up on a hill, and also created unique areas to incorporate and highlight a diversity of trees, shrubs and perennials.

This urban nature garden in Athens, GA is being created with the greatest care and effort to make it attractive to insects, birds and humans. The rain gardens, lined with river rock, capture and conserve rainwater that would otherwise drain off the property and be lost, while native plants benefit wildlife and thrive in the challenging Georgia climate. Zoomworks photography