Places to Entertain, Relax, and Play for all ages. Patios, walks, and walls, steps down steep slopes, green space for games and frolickingly, flower gardens to delight and relax in. Custom design plans for 1800’s farmhouses to today’s farmhouse. Materials of brick, blue-stone, fieldstone, and granite. Beautiful, functional landscapes, and colorful flower gardens, filled with planting combinations that look good in winter as well as summer, and from inside as well as outside will add beauty to your day.
Charming Makeover seats 10
Before Ugly and hard to get down the slope. After Great space to entertain. Large enough for family gatherings with sitting walls, easy steps to descend from the back kitchen stairs and garage parking area. Featuring my design of “stone carpet” bluestone patio, flower gardens, lighting, and more. A perfect place to entertain for this Colonial style home.
Suburban Retreat with Red Japanese Maple Grove
Before An empty construction site. After A circular dining terrace, retaining walls, steps, and path to and from the driveway. A place space for children tucked into the design. Featuring a burgundy leafed Japanese Maple grove, Dogwood grove, flowering native shrub border, mixed perennial border, herb garden, night lighting, and more to create this back yard retreat.
“The Long Border”: a Flower Garden to Engage Your Senses
Before: Just lawn to property edges right and back sides. After: Let yourself linger. Take in the colors, shapes, textures. Listen to birdsong and leaf rustle. Enjoy the scents. This ‘Long Border” flower garden delights in all seasons. The bench invites you linger and enjoy. Flowering Cherry trees, native shrubs and hydrangeas, native pollinators, ornamental grasses, roses and more combine to create lush plantings. Note the natural “oxbow curves” defining the beds and beckoning to follow it and explore.
Farmhouse Gardens with Natural Stone
Before: Ordinary–Lots of undefined lawn. After: Fieldstone slab steps invite you to the back patio from the firepit area into the flowering shade garden. Bin storage with side entry to mud room. Slab steppingstone patio features a retaining wall garden with a Dogwood Tree in flower. A circular fieldstone wall surrounds the firepit area big enough for parties. It also creates a flat play area for games and frolickingly children. A Boulder sitting garden becomes a destination across the lawn. Knoll sitting garden with slab stone bench and bluestone patio beckons you to enjoy its gardens and elevated view.
Outdoor Room 1800’s Farmhouse (Pergola Garden)
Before 1 Undefined hot space that filled up with water and iced in winter to make this family entry awful. After 1 Vine covered Pergola creates shade, a safe and welcoming family entry, and outdoor living room with four season flower gardens. Note: the detail of my design for the “stone carpet” in the entry foyer to family entry. Drainage solved!
Lush English Country
Before An ordinary foundation garden that people mistook for the front door. After The design transformed the look of the house and the gate makes it clearly a back yard off the drive. Shaped beds, a custom gate, masses of flowering plants created beautiful back gardens with seasonal waves of flowering of trees, shrubs, and perennials. Features include my designs for waterfall pond and serpentine sitting wall garden. Four season plantings create an abundance of color and form that frames the home’s architecture and makes it look special.
