Outdoor Spaces
A guild garden anchors the corner of this kitchen garden of permaculture principles. Greens are arranged to provide drifts of color, a garden shed to hold tools, a top bar bee hive to attract pollinators, a cold frame to bring plants throuh a cold winter. Bark edging by J. Walter Landscape & Irrigation www.jwlic.com Cold Frame by ANNIEBAM Landsape Solutions
An herb spiral allows for more plants than a straight line. Edible greens are arranged in patterns. A food forest is in the background and features japanese plum, pineapple guava, chilean wintergreen, blueberries, and native plants. Bark edging by J. Walter Landscape & Irrigation www.jwlic.com Garden shed by Jane Hart-Meyer www.janesbackyard.com Photo by: Amy Whitworth
Adding more permeable surfaces to your landscape design is another strategy for keeping rainwater on-site and reducing runoff. “We always opt for stone patios set in decomposed granite, which allows water to be absorbed into the soil below,” Sadosky says. Driveways provide another opportunity to add permeable surfaces. “While most of our projects already have driveways installed, when possible, we encourage using a small stone, gravel or decomposed granite as an alternative,” Sadosky says.
Eliminating or reducing the size of a traditional lawn is one of the most effective ways you can reduce water use in the garden. “More importantly, it’s putting lawn where it is useful for recreation and entertaining,” says landscape architect Phil Steinhauer of Designscapes Colorado, and eliminating it on slopes or in small patches.
Proving that shade structures don’t have to cost a fortune to look good and serve their purpose, Adam Bresnick Architects used inexpensive camo netting to cast dappled light over a colorful seating area in Madrid. The lightweight material would move in the breeze, changing the shadow patterns below and creating the feeling of being beneath the branches of a shade tree. A brightly striped outdoor rug and stylish Acapulco chairs make the seating area even more enticing.
Plants in this garden bed include: ‘Jack Spratt’ New Zealand flax (Phormium ‘Jack Spratt’, zones 8 to 11) Perez’s sea lavender (Limonium perezii, zones 8 to 10) ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia (Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’, zones 6 to 9) Blue fescue (Festuca glauca, zones 4 to 8) Breeze mat rush (Lomandra longifolia ‘LM300’, Zone 8) Blue chalk sticks (Senecio mandraliscae, zones 9 to 12) Silver carpet (Dymondia margaretae, zones 4 to 9) Water requirement: Low to moderate Light requirement: Full sun IN LA
Pocket-Size Meadow in Colorado A parking strip by Lauren Springer at the Gardens on Spring Creek, in Fort Collins, Colorado, looks like a watercolor painting with swaths of lemon-yellow and lavender-purple blooms. Choosing a mix of bloom forms — such as the flat tops of yarrow, the flower spikes from a blooming yucca and the round globe thistles — offers more visual interest than planting a single flower form, and it contributes to a meadow-like look. Plants in this garden bed include: ‘Anthea’ yarrow (Achillea ‘Anthea’, zones 3 to 9) Blue allium (Allium caeruleum, zones 4 to 8) Adam’s needle (Yucca filamentosa, zones 5 to 10) ‘Munstead’ English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia ‘Munstead’, zones 5 to 9) ‘Shades of Mango’ pineleaf penstemon (Penstemon pinifolius ‘Shades of Mango’, zones 4 to 9) Water requirement: Low to moderate Light requirement: Full sun
While technically a bed bordering a Boston driveway rather than the street, this three-tiered combination by landscape architect Sean Papich featuring perennial purple coneflowers, tawny ornamental grasses and low-growing tufts of day lily foliage would also work as a sidewalk combination. The purple coneflowers are particularly long-blooming and, in combination with the tall ornamental grasses, will carry the garden through fall. Plants in this garden bed include: ‘Magnus’ purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’, zones 3 to 8) ‘Karl Foerster’ feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, zones 4 to 9) ‘Stella de Oro’ day lily (Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’, zones 4 to 9), after blooming Water requirement: Moderate Light requirement: Full sun
Ground covers level and focus the visual field. Here’s a great example of how the ground plane, filled with one blooming plant, can draw the eye forward through a design. The gravel path leads us into the larger planting and out to the water, but the creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum, zones 4 to 8) ground cover frames and guides, too, like runway lights. If there were a variety of flowering species down low, we’d get lost in the visual chaos, and the calm and serenity the garden is evoking would be lost. Even though this is a water’s-edge scene, I can’t help but think of a woodland trail.
Plants shown (click photo to see the plants tagged): Spotted Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum ‘Bartered Bride’, USDA zones 3 to 8; find your zone), Ruby Star purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ‘Ruby Star’, zones 4 to 9), Shenandoah switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’, zones 4 to 9), Hubricht’s bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii, zones 4 to 9)
Coleus, sweet potato vine, petunia wave
Front walk
Seems simple enough....
Simple straight lines keep the room feeling clean and uncluttered. The line of black pencil trim draws the eye, and the size and orientation of the dark slate floor tiles emphasize length. Even the faucets and sconce are linear. Again, using the 4-by-16-inch subway tiles made the walls feel less busy. “It made the walls seem longer and just makes things feel good in here,” she says.
On path to screen porch? Checkerboard herb garden. This garden by Schmechtig Landscapes has a checkerboard base, with squares of pavers, gravel and planted herbs. You will need good sunlight to pull this off with most herbs.
Give awnings a contemporary update. For a more modern look than your typical cloth awning hung above a window, consider unusual shapes and ways of hanging these go-to exterior shades. For example, in this San Diego home, five shade sails serve as a modern awning for the patio just off the living room. Mounted at regular intervals and hung to overlap each other, the triangular shades look almost like a line of sailboats or the white crests of waves.
Still leaves longer view open.6. Add a minimalist overhang. Keep your shade structure minimalist by using materials like metal or wood to construct a graphic, clean-lined design. Play with where you can pare down design elements until you’ve reached a design that fulfills the utility of the job without overly fussy details. Does the shade ceiling need to extend to cover the entire trellis? Can you eliminate unnecessary posts or other supports? For example, this contemporary prairie house in Minnesota has an elegant, minimalist shade structure that adds to, rather than distracts from, the clean lines of the home.
4. Go modern with a zigzag shade cloth. More often than not, we see shade sails stretched in flat sheets, casting a triangle of shade over a target area. Mix it up for a more contemporary look — and create a larger pool of shade — with multiple strips of shade cloth mounted in a zigzag pattern.
Fire pit. This ground-hugging fire pit is made from a stock tank that’s 6 feet long, 2 feet wide and 1 foot high. It’s drilled on the side for a gas line and in the bottom for drainage. For the burner, you can buy a kit or do what the couple at Our Humble Abode did and make it yourself. The burner adjusts from a low flame for ambiance to a higher one for warmth and is set on crushed river rock.
Yez, a bubbler - but lower for birds?
Connect patio/deck to screen house with hardscape
Metal screens on brick. Also cozy enclosed feeling
Landscape architect Michael A. Gilkey designed this sculptural, dimensional screen to enclose an at-home yoga garden in Sarasota, Florida. (The raised wood platform is designed for a yoga mat.) Sections of thermally treated ash wood are attached to vertical posts. Boards flipped on their edges become floating shelves for potted succulents and sculpture. The fencing provides privacy and a visually rich backdrop for a backyard yoga practice and relaxation.
Screen porch/sunroom on back patio?
More of the poured slab
Designer Chris Corbett created a new outdoor space for the owner of this home in Northern California, replacing a dilapidated deck and tearing out a thirsty lawn. The redesign drastically reduces maintenance and water use and sets up an existing mature cherry tree to thrive. The main patio area is a poured concrete slab with quarter-inch joints (the thinner lines you can see on the surface of most of the concrete). The surface has a lightly washed sand finish (lightly washed and swept with a broom to expose the sand). The day after the concrete patio was poured, Corbett used a handheld grinder and a diamond blade to create the design you see in the foreground. He cut along surface joints, then removed the top 3 inches of concrete along those cuts, leaving the bottom 3 inches intact. The concrete is still one solid slab, with the pebbles covering where the concrete connects. The concrete looks like separate tiles, but it will never shift.
striped rug, outdoor curtains and throw pillows have transformed a simple front porch into an extraordinary outdoor space.
Plant large groupings. Masses of flowers help feed bees and create a calming space for people. Mass three to five species to optimize pollen stability. Bees and butterflies prefer plant groupings that are at least 3 feet by 3 feet. Larger flower groupings attract more bees.
Plant flowers that benefit bees and people. Bees love nectar-producing flowers, such as scabiosa, alliums, lavender, echinacea, yarrow and jasmine. These flowers also have simple silhouettes that complement the clean lines of modern green spaces. In addition to providing nectar and pollen for pollinators, these particular flowers are a boon to people as well.
Here, lavender softens the geometric lines of this contemporary garden.
Cool boundary/focal point. Among pines?
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