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Tag: Courtyards

  • St. Oak’s Courtyard Garden: The Our Foood Stories Bloggers Reveal Their Outdoor Remodel

    This trash-to-lushness story begins in the small town of Kyritz, Germany, when two creatives, Laura Muthesius and Nora Eisermann, decide to turn a historic apartment building into holiday rental units. The two performed their magic on the interiors (see their artful transformation of one of the flats over on Remodelista), but what to do with the backyard, which was unloved and unused, other than as a place to store trash bins?

    The simple answer: add more plants and, in particular, more flowers. Aside from a hydrangea, the courtyard was devoid of color. After moving the garbage cans indoors to their own storage area and covering the hardscaping—uneven bricks and cobblestones laid out in a somewhat garish pattern—with a layer of gravel, Laura and Nora turned their attention to planting. More hydrangeas. A quince tree. Lots of oregano. American mint, anise hyssop, an aronia tree, climbing roses, lavender, sage, and potted olive trees.

    “We wanted a wild-looking garden that has a Mediterranean feeling. We were a bit scared not to have enough light for the herbs like oregano and lavender, as it is not sunny all day in the backyard but it seems to be just enough as they are all growing so well,” they share. The plants were the costliest part of the landscape design but also “the best investment, as they just grow more and more beautiful each year.”

    After moving in furniture to create outdoor living and dining spaces, and adding an outdoor kitchen (the chicest we’ve seen!), the once neglected courtyard is now their “secret little garden.” Let’s take a tour, and be sure to scroll to the end to see the space in its original state, complete with trash bins.

    Photography courtesy of Our Food Stories. For rental details, go here.

    Laura and Nora furnished the outdoor living area with pieces from Tine K Home
    Above: Laura and Nora furnished the outdoor living area with pieces from Tine K Home’s bamboo collection.
    Above: “The ivy and wild vine that climb up the backside of the building is just so so charming and makes you feel like you are in a secret little garden.”

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  • Garden of Eden: The Most Beautiful Spot in Brooklyn Happens to Be in an Industrial Park (Seriously) – Gardenista

    This week, we’re revisiting some of our all-time favorite stories about gardening in New York City. Cultivating plants in the Big Apple comes with challenges—yards tend to be small and shady, and privacy is rare—but if you have the patience, these urban gardens can produce some big-time magic. Behold…

    High levels of arsenic and lead in the soil, a decrepit factory building, a courtyard roofed over with half-rotted plywood and tarpaper and paved in concrete—we’ve all heard this Brooklyn story at least once. But surprise, there’s a happy ending for one garden on an industrial block in East Williamsburg.

    When FABR Studio + Workshop partners Thom Dalmas, Bretaigne Walliser, and Eli Fernald discovered the skeleton of a 700-square-foot courtyard while remodeling a building for clients, they were able to see beyond the grit. They decided to site their company headquarters in a first-floor studio space (see the interiors on Remodelista) and—in a genius move—to install steel factory doors to connect their office to a courtyard garden. (N.B.: FABR has since disbanded, with Dalmas and Walliser starting TBo Architecture.)

    The problem? The plan required them to create a courtyard garden from scratch, which required a leap of faith. “We dug up the whole concrete floor—broken slabs and dirt—and removed layers of plywood and tarpaper, and rebuilt a garden wall,” said Bret. “At that point we tested the soil—and it was shockingly high with lead and heavy metal. It was essentially a brown field site.”

    The solution? They remediated the dirt below the concrete with ground-up fish bones and fish meal (to render the heavy metals inert) and carted topsoil one wheelbarrow at a time to create a healthy foundation for plants. “It took a week and smelled like low tide for days, but the plants are absolutely thriving,” said Bret.

    The result? Magic. Read on and see if you agree:

    Photography by Matthew Williams.

    Above: “We’ve been building up and layering the palette out there,” said Bret. Potted plants clustered at the edge of a koi pond include tropical caladiums, a decorative orange tree, and a lime tree.

    In a neighborhood where rusting construction cranes and corrugated sheet metal are far more common sights than butterflies and bees, Fabr Studio created an oasis both for themselves and for the next generation of insects and humans (Bret and Tom are partners in life as well as in work, and have two young children who have named all the fish).

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  • Courtyard Gardens in New York City: Our Favorite Backyards in Manhattan and Brooklyn

    This week, we’re revisiting some of our all-time favorite stories about gardening in New York City. Cultivating plants in the Big Apple comes with challenges—yards tend to be small and shady, and privacy is rare—but if you have the patience, these urban gardens can produce some big-time magic. Behold…

    Courtyard gardens, enclosed on all sides by walls or fences, can transform a cramped space into an oasis. They preserve privacy while welcoming sunlight. And they can make even the smallest townhouse feel larger. We’ve collected 10 of our favorites from New York City, the unofficial epicenter for courtyard gardens.

    Boxwood + Brick in Upper East Side

    Above: Columnar boxwoods and brick walls lend this Upper East Side garden, designed by Lili Herrera, an elegant and somewhat formal look. Photograph courtesy of Fawn Galli, from True Blue: A Jolt of Color Enlivens a Manhattan Townhouse Garden.

    Balcony Views in Flatbush

    When garden designer Brook Klausing first saw his clients’ townhouse backyard in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, it looked bleak: a chain-link fence, an old concrete patio, and a patch of hard-packed dirt. No more. Photograph courtesy of Brook Landscape, from Garden Designer Visit: Brook Klausing Elevates a Brooklyn Backyard.
    Above: When garden designer Brook Klausing first saw his clients’ townhouse backyard in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, it looked bleak: a chain-link fence, an old concrete patio, and a patch of hard-packed dirt. No more. Photograph courtesy of Brook Landscape, from Garden Designer Visit: Brook Klausing Elevates a Brooklyn Backyard.

    Sustainable Design in Bed-Stuy

    Lauren Snyder and Keith Burns
    Above: Lauren Snyder and Keith Burns’s Brooklyn townhouse has a rainwater reclamation system (on the roof), a compost tumbler, and permeable hardscaping. Photograph by Jonathan Hokklo, from Sustainable Solutions: A Modern Garden for a Historic Townhouse in Brooklyn.

    A Bamboo Grove in Greenwich Village

    An airy hedge of bamboo provides screening at the garden’s perimeter while a pared-down palette of green and white focuses the eye on the center of the space. “The white limestone is like a canvas. When the sun is directly overhead, you can see the shadows of the bamboo and other plants starkly against it,” says designer Julie Farris. Photograph by Matthew Williams, from Before & After: From
    Above: An airy hedge of bamboo provides screening at the garden’s perimeter while a pared-down palette of green and white focuses the eye on the center of the space. “The white limestone is like a canvas. When the sun is directly overhead, you can see the shadows of the bamboo and other plants starkly against it,” says designer Julie Farris. Photograph by Matthew Williams, from Before & After: From ‘Fishbowl’ Townhouse Garden to Private Oasis.

    Wisteria + Steel in Upper West Side

    “We essentially built the garden around the wisteria,”says Devin O
    Above: “We essentially built the garden around the wisteria,”says Devin O’Neill (O’Neill Rose Architects), of the tree on the left. It’s the only plant they kept from the original backyard. The walls are made from sheets of corten steel, the same type of metal favored by artist Richard Serra. Photograph by Michael Moran, from A New York Story: The Stunning Revival of a Landmarked Townhouse with an Intriguing History.

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  • Before & After: A Modern Courtyard Garden for a Historic Home – Gardenista

    For their historic home in the enclave of Clifton in Bristol, UK, an energetic couple wanted an informal, biodiverse, and sustainable landscape where their grandchildren and dogs could romp. They called on landscape architecture firm Artisan Landscapes to come up with their dream garden, but the firm recognized that the grand Georgian-style home imposed a degree of formality on its landscape that couldn’t be ignored. As a compromise, they kept the classic formal courtyard layout and overlaid “soft, naturalistic meadow planting” to fulfill the clients’ desires for an environmentally friendly garden.

    Join us for a tour.

    Photography courtesy of Artisan Landscapes.

    Above: “The homeowners are lucky enough to have both a front and a back garden,” say the architects, “so we could devote the entire back garden to ‘garden,’ while the front garden has a large lawn for the dogs and grandkids, a greenhouse, and informal borders of vegetables intermingled with perennials.” The back garden, they say, is a more intimate space, “although the grandchildren love whirling about the paths.”
    The sunken octagon is a focal point of the garden but was also one of the more challenging features to install.
    Above: The sunken octagon is a focal point of the garden but was also one of the more challenging features to install. “There was a one-meter-thick piece of limestone bedrock located under it that had to be removed to install drainage,” say the architects.

    Before

    The courtyard had a generous footprint, but the neglected landscape was uninspiring.
    Above: The courtyard had a generous footprint, but the neglected landscape was uninspiring.

    After

    An antique urn is a focal point in the garden. For more inspiration, see Landscaping: 8 Ideas to Add Antiques Artfully to Any Garden.
    Above: An antique urn is a focal point in the garden. For more inspiration, see Landscaping: 8 Ideas to Add Antiques Artfully to Any Garden.
    A long, slim reflecting pool is one of two major water features in the project.
    Above: A long, slim reflecting pool is one of two major water features in the project. “They have a combined volume of five thousand cubic liters,” say the architects, and both are controlled by pumps on remote-control switches.
    Salvia surrounds the pool. For everything you need to know about growing it, see Salvia: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design.
    Above: Salvia surrounds the pool. For everything you need to know about growing it, see Salvia: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design.

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  • Landscape Architecture Design for a Desert Climate: A Zen Garden in Santa Monica

    Landscape Architecture Design for a Desert Climate: A Zen Garden in Santa Monica

    What happens when a Japanese-style garden meets the southern California desert? For the very Zen results, let’s visit a serene gravel courtyard that landscape architecture firm Terremoto designed for Mohawk General Store in Santa Monica.

    Photography by Caitlin Atkinson, courtesy of Terremoto.

    Passionflower vines soften the redbrick facade of Mohawk General Store. “The vines were existing when we started the project and we decided to keep them because they were happy there,” says landscape architect David Godshall.
    Above: Passionflower vines soften the redbrick facade of Mohawk General Store. “The vines were existing when we started the project and we decided to keep them because they were happy there,” says landscape architect David Godshall.

    “This was an attempt to create a garden that was both Japanese and desert simultaneously,” landscape architect David Godshall says, adding that client Kevin Carney wanted a space to have movie screenings and to create a backdrop for fashion shoots.

    The garden, formerly occupied by gardening shop Potted, had existing hardscape (some concrete slabs) and a few specimen plants—including two large palms—that the team salvaged from the previous design. “For the rest of it, we started from scratch.”

    During the remodel, Terremoto removed “chunky, two-inch gravel and a fair amount of existing concrete” and replaced the surface with decomposed concrete with “a heavy dusting” of gravel on top to stabilize the DG, Godshall says: “With this approach you lose the negative aspects of getting DG on the bottom of your shoes and also the feeling that gravel is a trudge to walk through.”
    Above: During the remodel, Terremoto removed “chunky, two-inch gravel and a fair amount of existing concrete” and replaced the surface with decomposed concrete with “a heavy dusting” of gravel on top to stabilize the DG, Godshall says: “With this approach you lose the negative aspects of getting DG on the bottom of your shoes and also the feeling that gravel is a trudge to walk through.”

    “We made the design process conversational,” Godshall says. “We went cactus shopping with the clients. Then we went boulder shopping. After we got all the elements on site, an incredibly hardworking crew shadow boxed them into place. Then there was a lot of looking at how things looked, walking around, and shifting it around.”

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