Parental Approval Required
A close-up of the His and Her’s gardens.
Ravine Refined
The Paper Birch, Hemlock, Dogwood and Spruce trees were all planted in place of the native chaos that was removed. The container gardens bring color to the serene setting.
City Living
In each of the pots, she included a mix of plants, flowers, and veggies, all with interesting combinations of color and texture.
City Living
Look closely at the succulents planted in a discarded pair of shutters.
City Living
Here’s what we’d call fine dining in San Francisco. Note the dog house with the “green roof” in the corner.
Redefining History
For 95 years, the 50′ by 130′ yard behind the house that Carl and Rob bought in a historic Atlanta neighborhood had never been used for entertainment purposes. While some may have looked at it and thought overgrown, the art director and Realtor (respectively) saw a blank slate. They had several goals: Rob’s dream was a Koi pond, Carl’s was a beautiful grass area, and they both wanted a two-level deck and parking pad at the back of the property. In order to keep the costs down, they decided to do all the work themselves — except to level the property. For that, they hired a guy with a Bobcat.
Because the yard graded away from the house, they opted to terrace it into three levels. On one of those was the pond, which the guys dug out themselves –twice (the first time was too shallow and a Great Blue Heron kept snacking on the fish). The other two levels include a lawn area and a pathway to their parking pad, located behind their back fence.
The plantings were either found (the Elephant Ears were just sitting on the side of the road), bought on sale (butterfly bushes, Sago palms, cannas, Japanese Sky Pencils), or moved and repurposed from a pre-existing spot. For the pathway, they opted for easy to maintain, natural looking pea gravel and local stone for borders delivered in an 11-ton load instead of expensive brick and pavers. The finishing touch: Craftsman-style lights bought on closeout that “connected” the yard to the house.
Approximate cost: $10,000 including the deck, yard, pond, fencing, and arbor.
Redefining History
These plantings were either found (the Elephant Ears were just sitting on the side of the road), bought on sale (butterfly bushes, Sago palms, cannas, Japanese Sky Pencils), or moved and re-purposed from another spot.
DIY in Toronto
Inexpensive 12″ x 12″ x 2″ concrete cast patio blocks were laid down in a grid pattern and separated by grass to soften up the design.
On The Corner
When Sandra Youssef Clinton — a horticulturist, plant scientist, and landscape architect — was approached by two empty nesters living in the historic village of Chevy Chase, Maryland, she initially was confused. “They said: ‘I hear you design jewel boxes.’ It took me a minute to realize that she meant making a gem of a little place,” Clinton says. And that’s exactly what she did. The couple’s corner lot was small — and about to get smaller thanks to a planned house expansion, but after a little research into the town’s restrictions, Clinton learned that she can actually move the fence further from the house, about 12 feet beyond their property line, thereby doubling the useable space. With that issue resolved, the next challenge was to add a little privacy: the house faced a busy commuter pedestrian route to the Metro as well as a bus stop. A mix of two types of hollies and clump non-invasive bamboo provided year-round protection without feeling like a solid wall of greenery. The L-shaped lily pool at the edge of a brick-and-stone terrace was included to act as a visual centerpiece for the garden, drawing your eye away from the busy street, as well as providing even more seating options.
Approximate cost: $160,000 including lily pool, terraces, fencing, walls, stairs, drainage corrections, irrigation, lighting, planting, and bulbs
For more info: Clinton-la.com
On The Corner
These plants helped to provide a wall of privacy between the garden and a busy street.
On The Corner
The entry way to the house and garden, at dusk.
On The Corner
This L-shaped lily pool was added to draw your eye away from the busy street, as well as to provide even more seating options.
Redefining History
A glimpse of the a two-level deck.
Parental Approval Required
An old playhouse is converted into a greenhouse.
Parental Approval
For landscape designer Erin Ponte’s first project post graduation, she stuck close to home and redesigned her parent’s backyard. While the original ¼ acre lawn in Blue Lake, California was perfect for a young, growing family, it became less useful once Erin and her brother moved out. After much discussion and negotiation, Erin convinced her parents to create a functional garden that included veggie beds, a green house, berms and pathways that “created a journey through the garden.” For her mom, she planted plenty of colorful annuals, perennials, and bulbs with a designated sitting area for her to relax and enjoy the space. Her dad wanted to grow tomatoes and lettuce, among other veggies, so they built slightly raised beds using discarded concrete blocks and converted an old playhouse into a greenhouse. The low brick wall constructed with salvaged bricks not only separates mom’s space from dad’s, but also serves as extra seating for when the couple entertains. All in all, the installation, which included removing the old lawn, installing irrigation lines, grading, and forming the berms took about two months in the spring, with the planting lasting throughout the summer.
Approximate cost: $3,000
For more info: 541-870-9886
Helping Hands
The self-skimming pond is stocked with algae-eating goldfish.
Helping Hands
One of four terraces carved out, with restored retaining walls.
Helping Hands
The owners of this Staten Island house dreamt of taming their neglected and overgrown hillside backyard for years. In fact, they even went so far as enlisting Hans Wiesner to draw up a plan. It took five years for the couple to pull the trigger, and when they finally decided to give it a go, they gave Wiesner a tight, three-month deadline. That wouldn’t have seemed so cumbersome if it weren’t for the fact that no machinery would fit in the 50 by 66 foot backyard. So Wiesner and his team went to work, the old-fashioned way — by hand. The team used bucket brigades to shore up the dilapidated retaining walls and then began to carve out four terraces that gave the space an English country garden feel. Among the elements included on the different levels, Wiesner planted their favorite vegetables (collard greens, eggplant, tomato, zucchini, basil), cut flowers (cone flowers, cosmos, roses, lilies, purple loosestrife, peony, lily of the valley, hydrangea, lilac, butterfly bush, spirea, and viburnum), and a sliver of lawn that helped with absorbing water. The cedar gazebo had to be assembled on site and a leyland cypress plant-wall was added to block the neighbor’s oversized skateboard ramp. All that was left was a self-skimming pond that Wiesner stocked with low-maintenance, algae-eating goldfish.
Approximate cost: between $100,000 to $150,000
For more info: Wiesnerbros.com
Photos by Hans Wiesner
Small Space, Big Concept
The 1/2 acre available to the homeowners did not stop them from dreaming big.
Home on the Range
The four, five by five slightly raised plots — one for each member of the family.
DIY in Toronto
Back in the summer of 2004, Tim and D’Arcy bought a fixer upper in west Toronto — and they had their work cut out for them. Not only did their “granny” house need work from top to bottom, but front to back as well. Specifically, their backyard was nothing but a 16′ x 60′ swath of grass with a decrepit sidewalk running through the center. The “bowling alley,” as they called it, had to go. With a limited budget and DIY mentality, they spent the next five years creating a modern garden that fits all their needs. The patio area was a must, since they loved to eat outdoors. They laid down cheap 12″ x 12″ x 2″ concrete cast patio blocks in a grid pattern (keeping with rectilinear architecture of the overall space), separated by grass to soften it up. Behind and around the patio, they created rectangular and square side gardens including raised vegetable beds and a raised wooden walkway and BBQ deck. To do this, they used reclaimed cedar boards stained black to divide the mini-gardens, which offered a nice contrast to the bright green plants with purple and white flowers — snowball hydrangea, star magnolia, Casablanca lilies, irises, delphiniums, rose of sharon, hostas, grasses, and yuccas — that they planted. “The garden is continually changing and evolving,” says Tim, “We make mistakes, but we learn from them and continue to improve our ‘work-in-progress’.”
Approximate cost: $2,500
Photos by: Tim via STUDIO G
City Living
Baylor Chapman, founder of Lila B. Design (an eco-friendly floral and garden design firm in San Francisco), proves that city dwellers can have just as much fun outdoors as their suburban counterparts. Since Chapman’s deck was almost the same size as her studio (500 and 800 square feet respectively), it was important that she create a space that extended the home as well as brought in some well-needed natural elements. Keeping with the green theme of her design firm, she sourced many of the containers, storage, and decorative elements from a nearby “creative reuse center” called San Francisco Scrap Metal, as well as on the street and local hardware stores. In each of the pots, she included a mix of plants, flowers, and veggies, all with interesting combinations of color and texture (everything from Russian kale and artichoke to Lavender ‘Goodwin Creek Gray’ and After Dark Peppermint Tree). With limited ground space to work with, Chapman took a vertical approach, planting succulents in a discarded pair of shutters and in a frame — even the currently unoccupied doghouse has a green roof. The result: an urban, low-budget garden that requires little maintenance and provides a lot of character.
Approximate cost: $1,825
For more info: Lilabdesign.com
Fairy Tale Setting
Redesigning the six-acre landscape for the new owners of the Kerrwood Estate in Blue Hill, Maine was no easy task. While Mike Quinn of Quinn-Evans Architects transformed the existing white sterile box into an expansive Shingle-Style Cottage, Bruce John Riddell was hired to create a semi-wild, semi-manicured waterfront sloping backyard. The steep site required careful grading and slope retention. Riddell also included cobbled trenches, semi-permeable basket weave terraces (a nod to the owner’s own basket weaving hobby), gravel drains, chain-linked downspouts emptying into newly planted fern beds, and a perennial wildflower “moat” surrounding the “castle.” Climbing hydrangeas, creeping thyme, natural bolder walls, a spiral granite-and-moss meditation path, and native blueberry bushes all helped achieve Riddell’s goal of celebrating the natural environment while showing how a man-‘built world can successfully blend with nature.
Approximate cost: 250,000-plus
For more info: Landartdesign.com
Photos by William Brehm of Riverside Studio Photography
Fairy Tale Setting, Continued
Climbing hydrangeas and creeping thyme help celebrate the natural environment.
Fairy Tale Setting, Continued
Natural bolder walls and a perennial wildflower “moat” surround the home.
Fairy Tale Setting, Continued
The steep site for the semi-wild, semi-manicured sloping backyard required careful grading and slope retention.
Small Space, Big Concept
Perennial beds were added to provide definition surrounding the kids’ dining area.
Small Space, Big Concept
Here is one of the of outdoor “rooms” divided by low stone bench walls.
DIY in Toronto
Rectangular gardens, raised vegetable beds and a raised wooden walkway adorn the back and side of the patio.
Redefining History
Seen here is the Koi pond, which the guys dug out themselves — twice.
Ravine Refined
While Harvard-trained landscape architect Nancy Lyons Hannick is proud of many of the backyards she’s transformed over the last 31 years, the one that is closest to her heart is her own. When she bought her Highland Park, Illinois home, the backyard was barely walk-able, let alone enjoyable. To create a more functional and diverse space that resembles the New England landscape she spent years enjoying, she had to first contend with a 10-foot deep slope littered with overgrown invasive and volunteer plants (plants that grow on their own like, buckthorn, honeysuckle, ash trees). Her plan included a Lannon-stone patio and stairwell that zig-zagged down the ravine as well as two ponds, one at the top of the property and another at the bottom, connected by a rushing waterfall. In place of the trees and plants Hannick removed, she planted dozens of native species including Paper Birch, Hemlock, Flowering Dogwood, and Spruce trees. For color, Hannick opted for container gardens filled with plantings like impatiens, caladium, and geraniums, mini-petunias, daisies, and hydrangea. The result: orderly chaos that is relatively low maintenance.
Approximate cost: $30,000
For more info: nlhlarch.com
Ravine Refined
The stairwell descending from the patio zig-zags down the refined ravine.
Ravine Refined
The top pond and the bottom pond are connected by a rushing waterfall.
Small Space, Big Concept
Jen and Scott may have only had a half-acre in Menlo Park, California to work with, but that didn’t stop them from dreaming big. The couple wanted their backyard to be the neighborhood hub — a place for their three young daughters and themselves to entertain in. They brought in Pete Pedersen, San Rafael-based landscape architect in order to achieve their lofty goals, which included: an outdoor grilling station, dining area, kid’s dining area, play space, vegetable garden, and a hot tub. In order to fit everything in without the backyard seeming cluttered, Pedersen created a series of outdoor “rooms” divided by low stone bench walls and enclosed by a concrete walkway, which also serves nicely as a track for the girls’ Big Wheels. In one corner, the four-feet tall raised beds help take the backache out of growing tomatoes and strawberries (Jen and Scott are both over six feet tall), and the playground sits on bouncy, colorful Vitriturf instead of the usual hard and brown mulch. A mature wisteria was relocated to the dining trellis to help protect the house from the intense afternoon sun and perennial beds were added to provide definition ‘on the outside of the kids’ “tricycle loop,” around the base of the stone bench walls, and surrounding the kids’ dining area. But the couple’s favorite spot is the super secret spa: an 8 x 8 hot tub wedged into the last free morsel of side yard protected from neighbors by a towering Podocarpus ‘Gracilior’ hedge.
Approximate cost: $350,000 including demolition, hardscape, landscape, appliances, carpentry, masonry, lighting, and irrigation
For more info: Pedersenassociates.com
Photos by Bartone
Small Space, Big Concept
Four-feet tall raised beds help take the backache out of growing tomatoes and strawberries.
Home on the Range
Both patios were crafted from materials recycled from tear downs in the area and their other projects.
Home on the Range, Continued
A close-up of the outdoor fire pit.
Home on the Range
It’s slightly ironic that when landscape architects Mark and Bonnie Hershberger built their house, they ran out of money before they could start the 3/4 of an acre backyard. But that didn’t stop the duo from finishing the job — it just took a little more time (about eight years), a lot of sweat, and a good dose of resourceful thinking. Located in on the outskirts of Jackson, Wyoming, the couple wanted to create an environment that not only blended in with the prairie-like surroundings, but also required little water. They planted a mix of native and non-native grasses in shades of blues, greens, and yellows (blue oat, Idaho fescue, Carl forester feather, etc) that grew tall or were mowed depending on the area. Because they were in area prone to poor drainage, they devised a channeling system of metal grates and cobblestones (both recycled), which allowed water to percolate away from the house and directed excess standing water down to a stream at the edge of the property. The two angular stone patios, one with a custom metal fire pit, were both crafted from materials recycled from tear downs in the area and their other projects. The only areas that really need attention are the small experimental perennial beds and vegetable garden. For the latter, the four, five by five slightly raised plots — one for each member of the family — make use of an efficient drip irrigation system, which allows the family to grow everything from strawberries to violets.
Approximate cost: $20,000
For more info: Hershberger.com
Photo credit: Dale Horchner and Mark Hershberger
