If you’re lucky enough to have a garden in a big city, you learn to accept the fact that while you’re out there, you’re in full view of everyone whose windows overlook your yard. Hanging an awning over your entire backyard or planting a tree big enough to screen everything isn’t a good option, since usually, getting the light you need to grow things is already a challenge.
So what are the best ways to make a small urban garden feel more private—or at least to create the illusion of privacy? For advice, we asked landscape designer Susan Welti, a partner in the Brooklyn-based Foras Studio. Susan has designed countless urban spaces; two of her gardens appear in our Gardenista book.
Here are some of her ideas to create privacy in a small city backyard.
Photography by Matthew Williams for Gardenista, except where noted.
Above: An eastern white pine tree draws the eye away from the neighbors’ houses in a Brooklyn garden designed by Foras Studio.
Is it really possible to have privacy in an outdoor city garden?
Let’s admit that it’s almost impossible to create as much privacy as you might want. “There are so many buildings surrounding you, and they’re so much bigger than you,” Susan says. “But while you can’t block out the buildings, what you can do is to create something beautiful and compelling that will hold the eye within the confines of the site, and make you feel enclosed and secure.”
Above: The neighbors’ Japanese maple trees (at right) create a bower and privacy barrier.
How can you use trees to create privacy?
“You can’t just throw in a big tree to block the view, because that also blocks the light,” says Susan. “In most city gardens there are trees in your sightline, but they’re often really big—such as oaks or maples or ailanthus. It’s nice to put in a tree that’s a more human scale. We use a lot of fruit trees—crab apple, dwarf apple, even pomegranate and fig. These all flower, which is always nice.”
Susan also recommends small understory trees like Chionanthus virginicus, known as “old man’s beard”; Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Autumn Brilliance’ (serviceberry); and Magnolia virginiana—native magnolia or sweetbay. And if you’re not going for bloom, consider a Japanese maple—“They fit beautifully into a pared-back grassy landscape.”
Above: A row of small hornbeam trees (Carpinus caroliniana) are pruned tightly to create a flat screen against a fence.
What are the best trees for fence-line privacy?
When space is at a premium, Susan often uses trees that are pleached—trained and clipped to grow on a flat plane, like an espalier.
“Pleached trees are a powerful visual element, and you can control where they canopy out,” she says. Susan’s choice is hornbeam(Carpinus caroliniana), a native tree that takes well to pruning; she buys them already started off from Brooklyn’s Urban Arborists. “Pleached trees don’t bloom; it’s more about the shape and the beauty of the foliage.”
Can vines and climbers be used to create privacy?
“Vines are great for adding a green layer to a fence or pergola,” says Susan. “For an airy look, you want plants that have some visual porosity. We use Wisteria frutescens ‘Amethyst Falls,’ a native plant that’s less vigorous than Chinese or Japanese wisteria, and has a nice bloom.” For other flowering vines, she recommends clematis, honeysuckle, and crossvine, such as Bignonia capreolata ‘Tangerine Beauty.’ To create a wall of green, Susan suggests the vigorous, shade-tolerant Akebia ‘Shirobana’—but be aware that it’s considered invasive in some areas, so check with local authorities before planting, and be prepared to monitor its growth carefully.
All week, we’re republishing some of our favorite Garden Visits that have a personal connection to our writers. No public gardens here, no vast estates, no professionally designed landscapes—just the backyards, vegetable patches, and flower beds that remind our writers of home. This story by Gardenista contributor Clare Coulson is from June 2022.
In the summer of 2017, I planted a gravel garden along a scrappy stretch of land that edged a recently renovated studio. I wanted to create a small garden that was a space for guests to look out to or sit in. I knew that this was a sunbaked area—it faces south and has no protection from either the summer sun or the wind that whips through the fields it faces out onto. And with extremely free-draining sandy soil, whatever was planted here had to be resilient and, as I had no plans to irrigate, drought-tolerant, too.
Photography by Clare Coulson.
Above: Stipa tenuissima is the star plant in the garden, acting as a tactile and shimmering base for the spires of verbascum and verbena to move through.
I signed up for the excellent gravel garden study day at Beth Chatto’s garden in Essex, which was a step-by-step with David Ward (he worked with Beth when she created her famed gravel garden in the 1980s). His key tips were: 1) choose plants carefully (Beth’s mantra, after all, was ‘right plant, right place’); and 2) start those plants off well. That means digging in some compost at the outset to ensure that you’ve got good soil and then soaking plants really well before you plant them, ideally leaving each plant soaking in a bucket of water for an hour before planting. Water everything well, but beyond this do not get out the hose.
Above: Dianthus carthusianorum is the perfect dry garden plant; from a low mound of fine leaves, it sends up leggy stems topped with hot pink flowers. They will occasionally re-flower if deadheaded.
We used a sub-base to stabilize the areas where we would walk around the beds and this was topped with gravel. I was left with two organic shaped large beds and once everything was planted I added some gravel around the plants, too, which helps minimize weeds but also retains some moisture.
To save money I grew almost every plant from seed. Some of those plants were incredibly easy to grow: Stipa tenuissima, Dianthus carthusianorum and Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’. Others, including Verbena bonariensis and Eryngium giganteum, I found much more tricky from seed, but they were brilliant self seeders; from a couple of verbena plants, there is now a self-seeded verbena forest in high summer of hundreds of plants that have just placed themselves in any available crack.
Above: Considering a garden from inside a house or building is crucial, creating vistas and sightlines from the place where you might sit and look out.
And the garden has really evolved to be a garden of self-seeders. Poppies have introduced themselves, flowering earlier than everything else in the summer and providing some color. These are followed by hundreds of white verbasums in June and July before the verbena peaks in late summer. I’ve also added some bulbs too—Narcissus ‘Thalia’ for spring and then Allium spaerocephalon for a later color pop around late June.
Light and movement are key to the garden’s success and I can’t say I thought that much about either when I was starting out as a gardener. The sun rises directly behind the garden providing some jaw-dropping moments in the morning. When the grasses here, which include Stipa gigantea and Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foester’ and especially the Stipa tenuissima, move gently on the breeze, it becomes a mesmerizing highly, tactile space. But this is also a garden for insects, and through the summer the garden hums all day and evening with a succession of bees, hoverflies, and butterflies.
Self seeders can, of course, be a pain to garden with. Each summer something edges more into focus and threatens to take over. There’s a constant battle with bronze fennel; its hazy clouds of foliage provide beautiful texture in spring and I love the towering umbels and incredible aromatic element they provide, but leave them to seed at your peril.
All week, we’re republishing some of our favorite Garden Visits that have a personal connection to our writers. No public gardens here, no vast estates, no professionally designed landscapes—just the backyards, vegetable patches, and flower beds that remind our writers of home. This story by contributor Justine Hand is from July 2016.
After bouncing along an undulating, rutted track, wheels crunching over shell drive while wisteria vines lap at the windows, the entrance to my friend Marnie’s garden is like a transition to another world.
Her landscape is an informal, unfussy affair that draws equally from the traditions of English cottage gardens and the wilds of Marnie’s native Cape Cod. Here and there is also a dash of the Mediterranean, reflecting Marnie’s travels to Italy and California. It’s a romantic, unfettered place, full of discovery—the kind that invites children to romp around its pathways. Among the blooms one might find edible treats like thimble berries, or an old pot perfect for the clubhouse, or an ocean-tossed treasure that Marnie has collected from the sea.
Full of proliferous blooms that encroach on paths and climb the walls, Marnie’s world borders, Secret Garden-style, on being overgrown. “I like to let plants do their thing,” she notes. “Sometimes a plant will disappear for a year, and then the next it surprises me by coming back.” This laissez faire approach leads to a much more dynamic garden, “that, like me,” she adds, “changes every year.”
Above: Cape Cod meets Mediterranean—a lobster buoy found washed ashore rests on a deck bordered by a long lavender bed.
Above: The pert faces of verbena and native yarrow bloom in front of the garden shed in July. Above: Marnie’s signature colors, pink and orange, are reflected in these splendid echinacea.
We are longtime admirers of Austin-based landscape architect Christine Ten Eyck—so much so that her works are featured in both of our books: 2016’s Gardenista: The Definitive Guide to Stylish Outdoor Spaces and our upcoming The Low-Impact Garden (in bookstores fall 2025). She has deep roots in Texas, and her landscape designs—artful, rambunctious, ecology-based, perfectly imperfect—celebrate the region’s rich plant diversity. Current projects include a campus transformation plan for University of Texas at Permian Basin and a new master plan for the Lady Bird Wildflower Center.
Below, Christine reveals her best gardening hack, favorite public garden (it’s not in Texas!), and more.
Your first garden memory:
Above: Christine, with her first ever catch, at her grandparents’ lake house. Photograph courtesy of Christine Ten Eyck.
My grandparent’s vegetable garden at their lake house. We would go fishing and my grandpa would put everything he cleaned out of the fish back into the garden soil. I was fascinated! He grew the biggest tomatoes.
Above: Christine swapped a lawn and driveway for tiered garden beds. “Our neighbors think we are nuts living in our own wild native habitat—but we love it,” she wrote in an Instagram post. Photograph by Marion Brenner.
Tough, wild, immersive.
Favorite go-to plant:
Eupatorium havanensis.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
Invasives like King Ranch Bluestem, Arrundo, Vinca major.
Plant that makes you swoon:
Above: A Rusty Blackhaw in bloom on Christine’s property. Photograph by Christine Ten Eyck.
Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum.
Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:
The garden will not always look perfect.
Unpopular gardening opinion:
People need to appreciate resilient gardens that wither, turn brown and gold in response to drought.
A mirror of water and the simpler the better—think about the brimming bowls of the Alhambra in Grenada, Spain.
Favorite way to bring the outdoors in.
Big windows with gray green painted mullions.
Favorite hardscaping material:
Above: “The entry to our house where a driveway used to go right over the tree roots at the base. We created a sedge frame around this spectacular live oak,” says Christine. Photograph by Marion Brenner.
Above: Christine is an avid traveler. Here she is in Monterey, Mexico.
It brings me joy, exercise, and a sense of accomplishment. It is meditative and restorative for me to prune, rake, and just be immersed in the garden along with all the birds and butterflies.
“There isn’t another site like this available anywhere near Portland, Maine,” said Russell Tyson of Whitten Architects, “and it’s the site that makes this house so unique.”
He’s describing a jaw-dropping 36 acres perched along the oceanfront in Scarborough, Maine, the site of many native habitats—rocky coastline, woods, wetlands, and meadows included. Most of the land is in a conservation trust to preserve its natural character, but that didn’t deter the owners, a young couple with two children who wanted a weekend retreat that was “the antithesis of their high-rise life in New York City.” Two acres could be developed, so they removed an existing 1980s house that had “no sort of relationship to the landscape,” said Tyson, the project architect. In its stead, they designed a four-bedroom, mostly single-story house and detached car barn with guest quarters above.
Whitten partnered with landscape architect Todd Richardson to create a strong connection between the house and landscape. They knew each other well and had collaborated before, so they designed the project’s indoor and outdoor elements in tandem. “Here, the exterior spaces were just as important as the interior ones,” said Tyson. Let’s take a look.
Photography by Trent Bell except where noted, courtesy of Whitten Architects.
Above: At the entryway, a Rockport granite boulder directs visitors from the parking court toward the front door just off to the right. A small apple orchard flanks the walkway.
The site was once part of a farm, full of rolling meadows that drop down to the shore.
Above: In the front garden are salvia and ornamental grasses mixed with lawn. “The walls extend outward from the house to throw the architecture out into the landscape,” said Richardson.
The previous house had an asphalt parking lot prominently featured in front; in contrast, said the architect, “we wanted you to park your car and forget about it for the rest of the time you are here.”
Above: Flanking a porch off the bedroom wing: A birch tree at far left hovers over highbush blueberries, northern bayberry, low huckleberry, lowbush blueberry sod, and hay-scented fern. The patch on the right side of the walkway also includes black chokeberry, rhodora, and cinnamon fern.
The landscape architect chose native plants that thrive in this part of Maine.
Above: Each bedroom has a porch to encourage residents and guests to head directly outdoors in the mornings.
The house is framed in Douglas fir and stained in Cabot Nantucket White. The decking is water-resistant ipe wood, and the roof is standing seam metal in slate gray.
Above: Bordered by full-height sliding glass doors, the living room links a courtyard in front of the house to a patio on the opposing side. The landscape architect planted pitch pine here, centered on the axis of a single large pitch pine hovering over the water’s edge—the only tree along the waterfront for about 1,500 feet, visible beyond the living room.
In general, flowers are probably less important than form. Some have a fleeting season, perhaps blooming just once before doing nothing for the remaining eleven months of the year (I’m looking at you Iris germanica). Others have an important support act, providing an abundance of flowers or beautiful foliage for the majority of the year.
Yes, I want plants that are beautiful (and that work well together), but I also want them not to be too much trouble. So increasingly, as I’ve realized that you can never really fight the existing conditions in your garden, I just plant more of these low-work plants. If something does well, and needs little to no TLC then it’s very welcome in my garden.
Earlier this week I read a quote from the late plantswoman Beth Chatto, about her much-copied borders in Essex, England. “The point I need to stress,” she wrote in her ground-breaking book Drought-Resistant Planting, “is that copies of my gravel garden will not necessarily be successful or suitable if the principles underlying my planting designs are not understood. When visitors to my garden tell me they have attempted to make a gravel garden but the plants don’t look or behave as they do in mine, they wonder what they have done wrong. I ask ‘What type of soil do you have?’, ‘Very good,’ they reply. The amount of rainfall? ‘Twice what we have here,’ they tell me. I laugh and tell them if I had good soil and adequate rainfall I would not be growing drought-resistant plants.”
Favorite plants should always come with this disclaimer—what works in one garden may not work in another, because the soil, moisture, and conditions will vary immeasurably. Some of my most cherished plants will flourish in all conditions, but some do particularly well because they are especially suited to my garden, which has very free-draining sandy soil and is largely in full sun.
With that in mind, here are the plants I would not be without.
Above: I love almost all salvias and they all tend to love my garden, too, so long as I put them in a sunny spot. ‘Caradonna’ has the most intense deep purple flowers that will be smothered in bees for weeks on end. Once it’s finished flowering I cut it back and it will re-flower again, although less prolifically. This is a very upright salvia and looks best softened with hazy grasses or more unruly perennials such as Knautia macedonica.
Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’
Above: Arguably the most prolific, no-trouble plant I grow. Catmint springs into life early in the season, often flowering well before any other herbaceous perennial. It’s healthy, seems to cope with almost any conditions, and is particularly beloved by bees that smother this plant while it’s in flower. As soon as it starts to go over, I cut the whole plant back to a few inches from the base and it will usually regrow and flower again within a few weeks. It’s also very easy to divide and replant and looks fabulous flopping over a pathway.
Verbena bonariensis
Above: All the verbenas work really well in my garden, but the tall, billowing Verbena bonariensis is a brilliant border plant, emerging in mid-summer amongst other perennials and grasses. It’s a favorite of many butterflies and has an extremely long season. It looks wonderful though the autumn and winter as it holds its structure, but it will also happily self-seed so I am normally selective in how much of it I leave standing. Finches love to eat the seeds in winter, too.
Creating a fun and safe garden for your kids is a rewarding project that will provide many hours of play. A child-friendly garden can be designed to encourage outdoor activity, imaginative play and bonding time for the whole family – and it can look really good too.
This article has lots of useful tips for turning your garden into a kid-friendly paradise, including essential safety considerations, fun features to install, and creative ideas to inspire you.
1. Safety first
Safety is paramount when designing a garden that children will be using. Here are some key factors to keep in mind:
Play surfaces: Make sure falls can be cushioned with soft, impact-absorbing surfaces such as grass, rubber matting or mulch. Avoid concrete in play areas. Click Here to access professional gardening advice and services.
Fencing & boundaries: Install a safe fence around the perimeter of your garden to stop children from escaping. Childproof locks on gates and sheds will also prevent young children from accessing unsafe outdoor areas.
Shade and sun protection: Incorporate shaded areas to shield children from UV rays. Parasols, pergolas and trees can all be used to create shade. Don’t locate play structures in an area that receives lots of direct sun; as well as exposing children to UV rays this can also cause dangerous hot surfaces.
Toxic plants: Many popular garden plants are toxic to humans. Check that your current plants are safe and replace any that are dangerous. It’s also a good idea to teach children never to eat any part of a plant they find, and explain that some plants can also cause skin irritation.
2. Play structures and equipment
Outdoor playhouses, swing sets and slides: A play structure such as a swing set or climbing frame will get lots of use in a family garden. Choose a product that’s made from child-safe materials and designed to cope with outdoor conditions. Make sure all play structures are anchored tightly to the ground and inspect them for damage regularly.
Sandpit: A sandpit is a fun addition that can entertain your kids for hours and encourage imaginative play. Choose one that comes with a cover so sand remains clean and animals don’t start using it as their litter box.
Water: How about adding a “cooling off” and fun element to your garden by installing a small splash pad or water table? Make sure children are always monitored around the water, and that it’s in an area where drainage is good.
3. Creative play areas
Nature exploration zone: Children love to explore nature. Encourage this natural curiosity by converting an area of the garden into a nature zone. You could create animal habitats with a log pile, grow plants that attract pollinating insects, or add a bird feeding station.
Art & craft station: Messy play is a lot easier to manage outdoors! You could create an outdoor art and craft station using washable paint or chalk; a big chalkboard or washable wall will encourage endless creativity. You could even add a mud kitchen for imaginary cooking sessions.
Outdoor music space: An outdoor music area will foster creative play and provide a tactile, sensory experience for children. Wind chimes made from sticks or cutlery, DIY drums made from tubs or tin cans, and xylophones made from plastic piping are all easy DIY ideas.
4. Functional and fun features
Pathways and trails: If children are using a garden it’s a good idea to include safe paths to and from play equipment. The surface needs to be even, hard-wearing, and anti-slip. Click Here for experienced gardening related advice and services.
Seating areas: While kids like to burn off energy outdoors, it’s also important to have places where they can sit down while waiting for their turn, having a snack, or simply relaxing. Child-sized seating is a nice option but bear in mind that this will need to be replaced as your kids grow.
Gardening plot: Encourage their green fingers by providing them with their own little patch of land to look after. Kids can grow easy-care plants such as sunflowers, herbs, and salad, and learn about the natural world and why its important to take care of it. Seeing their plants thrive and other kids gardening projects offer a rewarding experience and will encourage children to head outdoors more often.
Summing up
Creating a safe and stimulating child-friendly garden is a worthwhile project in a family home. These tips and ideas will help you design a safe and fun outdoor space where kids can exercise, play, and learn.
Have you got any tips for creating a child-friendly garden?
If you’re a regular Gardenista reader, you’re likely already familiar with Sarah Raven. But if you’re not, here’s the easiest way to describe her: She’s the Martha Stewart of the U.K. A tireless gardener, writer, cook, TV personality, entrepreneur, and general arbiter of good taste, Sarah has spent a lifetime crafting beauty and meaning in the domestic realm. She hosts workshops at her floriferous farm Perch Hill in East Sussex, England. She’s written stacks of gardening books and harvest-focused cookbooks, the latest being an updated version of Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook (with a new cover and introduction). She runs a respected mail-order plant nursery. And she hosts the podcast Grow, Cook, Eat, Arrange with colleague Arthur Parkinson.
Despite all her commitments, Sarah found time to answer our Quick Takes questions. Read on for her expert gardening recommendations—including her genius tip for using lemonade to keep cut flowers fresh!
Photography courtesy of Sarah Raven, unless otherwise noted.
Above: Sarah is a master when it comes to container gardening. Photograph by Jonathan Buckley, for A Year Full of Pots. (See our story on her new book here.)
Your first garden memory:
It was picking flowers for my father who was recovering from an operation—a small sherry glass of crocus and iris in February. It’s still one of my favorite ways of having flowers in the house. They’re mini simple jewels.
Garden-related book you return to time and time again:
Giardino_di_hera’s account shows their wonderful garden in southern Italy. It’s just like the garden I dream of and hope to make on a plot of land we’ve just bought in Crete.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic:
Above: An overhead view of the Oast Garden at Perch Hill in spring. Photograph by Jonathan Buckley, for A Year Full of Pots.
Colorful. Jam-packed. Nature-filled.
Plant that makes you swoon:
There are three: Trachelospermum jasminoides, honeysuckles (many), and Sarcococca.
Plant that makes you run the other way:
They are also a few! Variegated, over-fussy leaves, hugely heavy double begonias with flowers so huge they hang their heads with the weight of petals and double bedding pelargoniums with no nectar or pollen for pollinators.
Favorite go-to plant:
Above: Dahlias at sunset at Perch Hill.
Always the dahlia—no doubt.
Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:
Dead-heading and staking are both essential—no garden can survive looking good until the autumn without quite a bit of both.
Gardening or design trend that needs to go:
Stumperies—they feel too contrived to me!
Old wives’ tale gardening trick that actually works:
You should put flat lemonade in your cut flower water. This has citric acid and carbonic acid (CO2 in liquid forms weak acid). By changing pH you decrease bacterial reproduction and enable the flowers to last longer.
Unpopular gardening opinion:
Above: Her gardens are driven primarily by color.
Color is everything, not architectural and structural plants.
Every garden needs a:
Source of water, even if it’s a shallow plate/tray with stones in. The birds and pollinators need tons of water on a hot day. The plate/tray also needs a lip so the insects don’t drown. Keep it full and keep it clean.
Favorite hardscaping material:
Soft, reclaimed red-bricks.
Tool you can’t live without:
Hori-hori knife. It’s brilliant for weeding, even better for planting, and great for teasing open the structure of the soil
Go-to gardening outfit:
A dress always!
Favorite way to bring the outdoors in:
Above: A freshly picked winter salad from her greenhouse.
To have cut flowers around the house and use cut-and-come-again easy salads and herbs like Salad Rocket and Flat-leaved parsley in recipes.
Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:
Mine!
On your wish list:
Lovely huge citrus trees as much for their winter blossom (and its magnificent, seductive fragrance) as their fruit.
Not-to-be missed public garden/park/botanical garden:
Keeps me happy, content, engaged, calm, centered. I’d be a much lesser person without gardening and nature and walking out into it for an hour or two every morning at 5am in summer.
Todd Carr has been obsessed with plants for more than half his life, whether it’s designing landscapes for clients, leading garden coverage for Martha Stewart Living magazine (RIP), tending his own garden in upstate NY, or creating otherworldly botanicalexperiences for visitors to Hort & Pott, the by-appointment-only, self-described “speak-easy shop” that he co-owns with his partner, Carter Harrington. The store opened seven years ago, and today, fellow plant obsessives drive hours to immerse themselves in the magical, flora-focused worlds they create for each season. (Read more about it here.) The couple’s current project? Overhauling the landscaping surrounding their 1890s house in Freehold, NY. In addition, “I have been creating a new line of ceramics, and Carter has been pushing the envelope developing a new collection of outdoor cast concrete containers and sculptural accessories for the garden,” says Todd.
Below, Todd reveals the popular flower that he just can’t stomach, his favorite gardening hack that saves hours of yard work, and why he’s conflicted about the rise of meadow gardens.
Photography courtesy of Hort & Pott, unless otherwise noted.
Above: The pair moved into Arkwood Knoll, the name they’ve given their new property, this past winter after extensive renovations. “We have now been working on a myriad of garden projects that we have been documenting. It’s been an adventure and challenge doing so much exterior work with just the two of us,” says Todd (left), pictured here with Carter. Photograph by Mia Allen.
Your first garden memory:
I must have been 6 or 7, picking fresh snap peas, still warmed by the sun, enjoying the beauty in the shadow of my mothers incredible vegetable garden. That memory forever planted the endearment of being immersed in nature.
@cultivatedbychristin: She has such an evocative way of discussing the true nature of flowers and is inspiring through her arrangements and writing.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.
Big, bold, and textural.
Plant that makes you swoon:
Above: Cephalaria gigantea growing in front of their former house.
Any plant that can get taller than me in one season will captivate my attention every time. Over the years I’ve used such annual giants like castor bean ‘Zanzibar’, and 15-foot-tall broom corn, but fast growing vines like hyacinth bean and birdhouse gourds also make my heart sing. The structural perennial Cephalaria gigantea is a top favorite.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
Roses—just never found myself enthusiastic about them, and not a fan of their scent or the maintenance required to care for them.
Favorite go-to plant:
I have a few signature plants here that I like to incorporate in each garden, but by far the most used here at Arkwood is the native shrub Physocarpus or ninebark. I’ve got quite a few varieties here and growers keep bringing out beautiful new ones that are fun to collect and trial here in the gardens. Physocarpus ‘Amber Jubilee’ is a stand out here at Arkwood from spring to fall and throughout the winter with its shedding bark.
Unpopular gardening opinion:
A few weeds in the garden and blurred border edges are okay—trying to control nature to the max always feels too constrictive to me. Being a little loose and casual with my gardens puts me at ease and I’ve come to accept the blurry lines between the natural and cultivated.
Gardening or design trend that needs to go:
Meadow gardens everywhere. I think there is a right place for them of course and I’m not saying this trend needs to go; I know how beautiful and beneficial they are. I’d just like to see more layered gardens using native trees, and shrubs like sumac, willows, and dogwoods. I’m really enjoying the urban decay garden movement that I have been seeing, with the use of colonizing plant material and weeds being celebrated for the beauty they can possess.
When Stephanie Wong and her partner, Daniel Watson, found their future home in Atwater Village back in 2021, they saw potential behind the concrete lot and dated details. “During the search, we saw so many quick flips with cheap finishes and cookie cutter design choices. Although the property needed work, we were glad to design it in a way that matched our personal vision,” Stephanie describes. It was their first renovation and first landscape project. The result is a thoughtfully updated 1920s Spanish-style property the couple dubbed Finca Glenfeliz. Join us for a tour of the garden.
Above: The building seen here is former two-car garage converted into a small studio the couple now rents for production through Peerspace. The etched terracotta pots at the entrance are from Plant Provisions. Photograph by Marc Gabor for Finca Glenfeliz.
Stephanie works as Brand Director for ORCA, an LA-based landscape design and outdoor product studio founded by Molly Sedlacek. “The garden renovation was actually what brought me to work with ORCA in the first place,” she says. “I fell in love with the landscape design process. It truly is an art form.”
Above: Shown here is a Catalina Ironwood tree, a California native found at Devil Mountain Nursery. As for the grass, “we went with a native California no-mow mix which requires less water, feels more wild, and looks less manicured,” Stephanie explains. “We wanted this zone to feel like a meadow so we brought in a chunk wood stool from Angel City Lumber and natural stone.” Photograph by Marc Gabor for Finca Glenfeliz.
Above: For added privacy from the street, they replaced the open wrought iron gate with a cedar gate. The gravel is Del Rio Pea Gravel and the path is made up of Utah Sunrise Flagstones from Bourget Bros. It’s lined with two vegetable gardens that Daniel built of redwood and a mix of California natives and Australian species. Photograph by Marc Gabor for Finca Glenfeliz.
For the first phase, Stephanie and Daniel worked with landscape designer Nola Talmadge at Field Sound who created the overall layout and plant palette while procuring hard-to-find materials like the flagstones, plants, and boulders. Inspired by the gardens of Mexico and the Mediterranean, the couple brought it in a warmer palette of pebbles, grasses, and stone. They demolished the concrete driveway that runs the length of the property from the street to the garage. From there they brought in bigger trees, boulders, laid flagstones, and pea gravel.
For the second phase, Stephanie and Daniel focused on the finishes themselves. Since joining ORCA, they’ve installed ORCA pavers to create a landing off the back studio and cladded the front porch in ORCA tiles to hide the cracked concrete. “The most rewarding part was seeing so much life in our garden after we removed the concrete and dying grass. I started seeing butterflies, bees, and birds creating a mini ecosystem in our backyard,” says Stephanie.
Above: For the minimal outdoor shower, the idea was to feel immersed in plant life. They sourced two pieces of Deodar Cedar beams from Angel City Lumber and planted Acacia iteaphylla on either side. Photograph by Austin John for Finca Glenfeliz.
The name The Wild Yards Project tells you a little about its founder David Newsom’s journey over the last seven years: It started out as a project. A Los Angeles-based film professional and photographer, Newsom had recently become a parent when he discovered gardening. “I immediately began to worry about my kids’ baseline interaction with the wild world,” he says. “I had no background in botany. I wasn’t into horticulture. I just knew that I found solace in being around plants and animals, and I wanted to give my kids that.” Newsom decided to rewild his backyard, so his kids could have nature right outside their door.
Above: Newsom’s own yard reveals how land can come back to life. “Before I began this work, the state of our home’s dead, baked lot [at left] was overwhelming and depressing,” he says.
As Newsom transformed his yard, he documented his work. “I made so many mistakes, but I wrote about it,” he remembers. “And because I had worked in documentary television, if I saw someone who had written an article or someone who was doing really great work, I would just call them.” As Newsom learned more and shared his journey on social media, he says, “I quickly realized that a lot of people were hungry for the idea.” In 2018, he decided to make his project official, naming it The Wild Yards Project—note that it was yards plural–not just his own.
Above: Newsom’s own wild yard looking particularly lush after California’s atmospheric rivers this past spring.
“At first, I thought I would just go around and film and share stories about what people did,” says Newsom. “But I pretty quickly felt compelled to get my own hands dirty and to build these gardens.” Soon Newsom was consulting with other homeowners who wanted to rewild their yards. “I would go over to their house and help them spin a story about what their land could be—that’s how it started.” His work led to deep research into hyperlocal plants in his Mediterranean chaparral biome and ecological gardening practices. “There’s a series of benefits, so many stacked functions to these gardens beyond amplifying biodiversity,” he says. “We’re amplifying physical and mental health, water infiltration, and carbon sequestration.”
Above: This hillside garden is an example of a full design and install project that Newsom executed for a client.
Casual advice gradually morphed into more formal garden coaching and eventually design and installation services. However, Newsom’s landscape work is different from traditional garden designers. For one, he wants his clients to get their hands dirty. “I tell them: I promise you’ll know more about your land in a year than I do,” he says. “When people move away from traditional gardens, they become authors in the natural and cultural history of their land—and that land is its own educator.” For any project, Newsom visits the property, tests the soil, and explores nearby nature with a similar disposition. Then he creates a plant list and offers a design plan whose execution can range from homeowner DIY to full design and install. Gardeners who want to do it themselves can book Newsom hourly for future coaching. “You don’t need to spend $50,000 to $150,000 on high-priced landscapers,” he says.
When multiple people we admire tell us we should check out The Food Forward Garden, a new gardening book coming out this fall, we pay attention. “It’s a design manual on the art, craft, and importance of growing food closer to home,” says its author, landscape architect Christian Douglas, who has made a name in the industry designing beautiful gardens that provide both nourishment and beneficial habitats. Now based in the Bay Area, he began his career in England, creating landscapes for historic estates and London townhomes, after which he spent several years “exploring desert ecologies and regenerative agriculture throughout the world.” Today, his work is an appealing reflection of this background: His landscapes are a little structured, a little wild—and always teeming with life.
Christian’s book hits bookstores this October. In the meantime, read his thoughts below on the “Russian doll” method of planting, the plant he’s “fallen deeply for,” and his current garden fetish.
Photography by Sasha Gulish, courtesy of Christian Douglas, unless otherwise noted.
Above: Christian, pictured here in the garden of celebrity chef Tyler Florence, a client and friend.
Your first garden memory:
Gardening with my father on our wild and weedy 1970s Oxfordshire allotment. Eating muddy carrots and earthing up potatoes. Wheelbarrow rides and grass paths. Watering cans and runner beans.
The seed that started it all..
Garden-related book you return to time and again:
Second Nature by Michael Pollan. A wonderful love letter to gardens.
Instagram account that inspires you:
Todd Carr and Carter Harrington’s @hortandpott. These two creatives are fascinating to watch as they develop their business and homestead in Upstate New York. Maximalist, botanical heaven.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.
Above: Christian’s mid-century hilltop home in San Rafael. “We love to host and entertain. Our neighbor’s children love charging around the native meadow and foraging in the kitchen garden,” he says.
Curated, timeless, immersive.
Plant that makes you swoon:
A tangle of Carex pansa and California poppies. I’ve fallen quite deeply for Eschscholzia californica ‘Alba’ (poppies) these past few years. Something about the buttery lemon blooms feel soft and delicious on the eyes, especially when a bumble bee is romping around on the anthers.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
Blocks of ‘Platinum Beauty’ Lomandra. I can’t quite get to grips with the “why” of variegated grasses.
Favorite go-to plant:
Above: “Edible decoration for my outdoor lounge area.” Pictured is ‘Bountiful Blue’ blueberry in a basket planter—”these Prolific smaller varieties have been bred specifically home gardens”—and ‘Rogers Red’ grape creeping in underneath. Photograph by Christian Douglas.
Vitis ‘Rogers Red’ (grape) and I are having a moment lately. It doubles wonderfully as a shade vine and rambunctious groundcover, with delicious table grapes and crimson leaves in the autumn. Lower water use. Great for florals, too.
Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:
Close your gate. While both are lovely to have in the garden, deer and vegetables don’t play well together. I’ve learned (and subsequently, unlearned) that lesson far too many times to remember.
Unpopular gardening opinion:
Above: For a client in in Marin, Christian replaced a lawn with a stylized French potager with willow planters and gravel/brick pathways. Espalier apple, pears and fig frame the perimeter.
With unpredictable weather becoming more and more frequent, having effective water conservation and filtering systems in your garden is more important than ever. If you have downspouts in your garden that direct to the street or a drain, let me introduce you to rain gardens! This garden project allows you to disconnect downspouts from sewers and instead let the rainwater rightfully return to the earth.
While a rain garden sounds fancy, it’s really a low-maintenance system used to filter and release stormwater runoff. This keeps water local to the soil and creeks, just how nature intended it.
I live in a rainy climate where a lot of wonderful work is being done to study, build, and educate the public on rain gardens and why they’re so important. It takes some time for these rain gardens to fill in, but boy are they beautiful when they do!
There are many rain gardens in my area, the Pacific Northwest.
To check out some established rain gardens, I went on a walking tour with Deborah Jones from Cougar Creek Streamkeepers. They’re a wonderful group of volunteers dedicated to helping to restore and maintain the health of Cougar Creek, a salmon stream here in BC.
One of the major things they do is create rain gardens to help reduce stormwater drainage. You can check out the rain gardens I visited on this map (stops 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17). The McCloskey Elementary School especially had a beautiful one. You can see the school’s rain garden in the photos throughout this post, among the other stops.
This post will cover…
By the way, this is one of many projects featured in my latest book, The Regenerative Garden. Besides sustainable water drainage systems and gardens, I also cover plenty more ways you can create a natural and self-sustaining garden. Be sure to check it out if you’re ready to take your garden the extra mile towards sustainability.
What is a Rain Garden?
A rain garden is any type of landscape that takes, absorbs, and filters rainwater runoff. Usually, this runoff is directed from man-made surfaces such as pavement or roofs.
Without human interference, all rainwater would naturally soak into the ground. But the more buildings, streets, and other urban developments we create, the more land we cover. This means less and less ground area where rain can soak into the soil.
Our solution was to create water drainage systems like eavestroughs, storm drains, and ditches. This is known as urban runoff. These drainage systems direct water back into streams and rivers, but they become incredibly polluted. They carry litter, oil, fertilizer, gas, pesticides, and more.
Buried downspouts can direct rainwater directly into the garden.
A rain garden can help retain water where it naturally belongs and filter all that urban runoff. It will remove the pollutants that would have otherwise gone down the drain.
Beyond their functional duty, they also can be beautiful gardens that become a habitat for local wildlife and even provide some much-needed shade during the warm season.
McCloskey Elementary School rain garden
How Does a Rain Garden Work?
Home gutters sometimes direct into sewer systems, which route stormwater through the same treatment system as toilets, showers, and sinks. Not only is this treatment unnecessary, but it can also cause overflows of the sewer system that redirects into the nearest river, lake, or ocean. This leaves local soils and waterways devoid of the rainfall they need to stay healthy.
The basin of a rain garden is filled with plants that love moisture and can act as biofilters to purify the water. The upper swales have drought-tolerant plants that love to grow deep roots and access the available groundwater when they can.
The rain garden design can be as simple as attaching a gravel-filled trough to a downspout and building a garden bed around it to designing more elaborate rain gardens that become a haven for bird and insect species.
Rain gardens are also designed to be incredibly low maintenance.
Creating a Unique Rain Garden Design
Every rain garden will look different but there are some rules you will want to follow to get a functional design!
The garden is built as a swale: a recessed center about 4-8 inches with berms around the perimeter to hold water in. The center planting area should be level to prevent pooling. The garden is generally twice as wide as it is long, with the widest part at the lowest point of the slope.
Locate an area 5 to 15 feet away from buildings. At a minimum, the overflow drain should end 5 feet from structures without basements and 10 feet from structures with a basement height of 5 feet; add 2 additional feet for every foot deeper the basement is. Don’t locate a rain garden over underground utilities or large tree roots.
McCloskey Elementary School rain garden
The rain garden’s location should be slowed away from buildings to direct overflow out through spillways to other gardens rather than running back toward structures; however, the garden itself should have no more than a 5% grade overall (1-foot drop in 20 feet).
In rainy climates, the bottom inside of the garden should be 15% of the square footage of the runoff source. So, a 500-square foot root requires a 75 square foot garden base (500×0.15=75).
These measurements were provided by Seattle Public Utilities and King Country Wastewater Treatment Division’s RainWise Program.
Observe the garden after heavy rainfall to ensure the drainage is working correctly and not pooling.
How to Build a Rain Garden
Determine the garden’s location and extend the downspout to the highest point of the garden. Choose a location that can handle plenty of water saturation, away from septic systems, and away from plants, shrubs, or trees that don’t like their roots to stay wet.
Use a garden hose or sprinkle flour to outline the garden’s shape.
Dig the base 24 inches deep and use the soil to berm up the sides.
Fill the base with 12 inches of a rain garden soil mix (one-third compost and two-thirds garden soil). This leaves 12 inches of ponding depth (the space from the top of the base soil to ground level where water can collect during rainy periods).
At the lowest point of the garden edge, create an overflow area packed with rocks. This allows the overflow to be released without eroding the garden. The overflow should be directed to a street drain.
Plant the rain garden design with water-loving plants. Add optional spillways to other garden beds that the overflow can irrigate.
Native plants will have the best chance of survival in your rain garden.
Rain Garden Plants
Choose the right plants for your garden’s conditions. Suggested plants can be native plants or cultivated garden favourites that perform well in your unique microclimate. The best place to find the right plants for your garden is at your local garden nursery, which will carry both native and cultivated plants.
Plant the garden plants, mulch with 2 inches of compost and water well. Water the plants regularly to establish them in the first few years. Add more compost as mulch annually.
Often plants will move into the right position in the garden, like these drought-tolerant plants below that have replanted themselves to the basin of this area.
Over time, your rain garden will look like a natural, curated space.
FAQ About Rain Gardens
Where is the best place to put a rain garden?
Look for a high to low spot, where gravity can help with drainage. You want an area that can handle lots of water saturation.
Keep your rain garden away from large trees where their roots can take over, right next to buildings, and from septic systems. Also, consider the soil, as clay soil will require a larger rain garden to avoid pooling.
What is the best shape for a rain garden?
The best shape depends on your space, as you want to work with gravity rather than against it. Most rain gardens are designed to come from a downspout and move downward. People also design them alongside a driveway or ditch for a longer, more narrow design shape.
You want to maximize infiltration. Guide the water to meander or pool through the garden so that it filters before draining to an overflow drain.
Also ensure you’ve called your local authority and mapped out any utility lines on the property when designing your shape.
What is the best mulch for a rain garden?
Arborist woodchips are great for improving water absorption, as they prevent the soil from compacting. Regularly adding mulch will conserve the moisture in the ground and improve water retention and soil aeration.
Can I add rock to my rain garden?
Rocks won’t absorb any water, so you want to use them sparingly and as a final touch. Once you’ve made sure the soil is spongy and ready to absorb water, you can add rock for aesthetic purposes or to protect the soil from erosion in areas where there’s lots of water flow. Keep it a thin layer and don’t overdo it!
As you can see, creating a rain garden is fairly simple and can provide lasting benefits for years to come. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below!
Earlier this week, Remodelista readers were treated to a tour of a row house in Ghent that was was formerly “charmless” and now fresh and chic thanks to its resourceful new owners, Arthur Verraes and Kelly Desmedt, who did much of the remodeling work themselves. Today, we’re visiting the elements that make the outdoor space equally cool.
While Arthur, architect and founder of Atelier Avondzon, led the house renovation, his girlfriend Kelly, a corporate lawyer, is the mastermind behind the overhaul of the back garden. She had no prior experience with gardening. “I grew up without having a garden myself and knew nothing about plants,” says Kelly, who discovered her green thumb during the COVID pandemic, when they purchased the house. “Ever since, I’ve been thinking about studying to become a landscape architect or to do something with it in a more professional way. For now, I’m indulging this passion by helping out friends and family from time to time and by designing our next project.”
The landscape design was actually the first thing the couple tackled, before turning their attention to the house renovation. “I would definitely recommend this sequence. The moment we were able to move, it already felt like home and the garden was already in full bloom,” she says. “Not to mention, this allowed us to plant trees that we wouldn’t be able to plant afterwards (urban townhouse).”
Below, she gives us a tour of the newly reimagined outdoor space. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom for the before images.)
Above: Arthur and their dog posing at the front door of their remodeled row house. Two simple changes to the exterior transformed the entire look: 1) painting the garage door, gutter, and window frames green and 2) adding a wisteria to frame the front door.
Above: The couple tackled the backyard before renovating the house. Next to them on the lower left is a Mediterranean spurge shrub (Euphorbia characias). Above: “We wanted to create an intimate, green, and cozy environment. a perfect place to catch some morning sun, to have a coffee next to the master bedroom or a place to cool down on a hot summer day. That’s why we decided to plant multiple trees in it, despite the small space,” says Kelly. The tree on the left is an Amur cork tree (Phellodendron amurense).
Above: Arthur and Kelly added these concrete steps that lead to a green roof above. The stairs serve as plant shelves as well for their collection of potted succulents. Above: Kelly chose gravel for the hardscaping for environmental reasons. “We really wanted to ensure a permeable surface. [Flooding] is a big problem in Belgium.”
Too often pathway gaps are neglected and become a home for weeds. But where some may see awkward spaces between stepping stones, I see potential. Plants between pavers can soften hard lines, adding a lush, living element to a design.
It’s relatively simple to fill the cracks between pavers with creeping plants that will stay low, won’t mind being squashed a bit, and may even be fragrant. Ground cover can triumph over weeds, too. Read on for everything you need to know:
How do you choose a ground cover to grow between pavers?
Above: White blooming Isotoma grows in a pathway, framing pavers with texture and color in a California garden designed by Elizabeth Everdell. Photograph courtesy of Everdell Garden Design.
As a landscaper, I routinely feel like a boss on the plant employee search, hunting for highly qualified plant candidates for the position of ground cover. Listed below is my required criteria:
Height: A plant should be low growing, raging in height from basically flat to 2 inches tall. Anything taller could be trip pedestrians and make the pavers look as if they are sinking, even drowning. Rule of thumb: the larger the scale of the pavers, the taller the filler plants can be.
Foliage: The ground cover should be vigorous (but not invasive) and dense like a carpet to smother competing weeds and cooperatively traverse the spaces for continuity.
Above: Photograph by Matthew Williams for Gardenista. Cotulaleptinella ‘Platt’s Black’ (dollhouse fern) grows densely and has a shallow root system, which makes it ideally suited to creeping between stones to fill cracks. See more of this garden in our Gardenista book.
Hardiness: A plant that grows between pavers should be tough and durable to withstand occasional trampling by foot or paw.
No-Fuss: Ground cover plants for pavers must require as little maintenance as possible. A total given.
Design: The ground cover needs to meet the design needs of foliage color, texture, and form. The choice also should complement the colors and textures of the pathway material rather than compete with it, and be congruent with the current landscape theme.
What are the best plants to grow between pavers?
The options below are by no means the only ones, just some of the popular ones, and you have different options depending on whether your path basks in sun or hides in shade.
Above: Different varieties of thyme such as ‘Minimus Russetings’ and ‘Purple Carpet’ soften the pavers in this Brooklyn rooftop garden. Photography by Marni Majorelle. For more, see Brooklyn Oasis: A City Roof Garden, Before & After.
Full Sun:
Creeping thyme (Thymus spp): Considered one of the finest ground covers for filling in between flagstones. It meets all of the criteria of a good plant employee. This petite herb comes in many varieties, all with tiny, rounded fragrant leaves in shades of dark green, lime green, and even yellow with a white edging. Elfin or woolly thyme are especially good varieties that will grow in difficult soils, stay flat and are frighteningly easy to grow.
Dymondia (Dymondia margaretae) is a good alternative. Its phenomenally flat, tidy appearance bears slender leaves that are green on top and gray underneath. A slight upward curl on each leaf edge provides a frosted, two-tone look and it occasionally bears small yellow daisy flowers.
We’ve enjoyed garden designer Lindsey Taylor‘s way with both words and flowers since 2013, when she was a contributor to this site. Recently, we admired her rambunctious cinderblock garden, teeming with tough, hard-wearing beauties, in Newburgh, NY, where she’s based. And just this past fall, we were captivated by her new book, Art in Flower, which collects 40 of the elegant floral arrangements she designed for her monthly Wall Street Journal column, “Flower School.” Each composition is paired with a famous work of art, as well as a short explanation of how the masterpiece inspired her design. It’s a telling conceit: For Lindsey, plants are her paints, and the garden, her canvas.
Her chosen medium is 3D and multi-sensory. “I once visited a garden designed by a very famous designer I like. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so uncomfortable in it until I realized that even though everything was blooming, there was no sound. No buzzing of insects or birds,” Lindsey recalls. “I later found out the client insisted on having the garden sprayed for bees (they are allergic), ticks, and mosquitoes. It was claustrophobic to be in and devastating to experience such a great landscape of pollinator plants in silence.”
Below, a portrait of an artist as a garden designer.
Photography by Lindsey Taylor, unless noted.
Above: “I have a natural tendency to let plants mingle and weave together, and duke it out amongst themselves. I like to tinker away at my own garden, as if it was a large never-finished abstract painting. I stand back, study it and keep going back in, adding a slash of color here and removing a brush stroke there—and eventually it all starts to sing together as it matures.” Photograph by Ngoc Minh Ngo.
Your first garden memory:
Picking daffodils with my Granny at their farm outside of Toronto. Narcissi and the many varieties to grow are really a favorite, particularly species and ones with finer foliage.
Above: In a walled garden in Hudson Highlands designed by Lindsey, a Damson plum tree enjoys a soft landing.
A garden needs to have a soul. It needs to move in the wind, change, have fragrance, feed the birds and other insects and critters, and breathe. When I visit a garden where too much control and need for perfection is in play, I find it unpleasant to be in. If it’s sprayed or watered to stay alive, or if it’s at odds with its environment, I’m not interested. All plants, of course, need a helpful hand with watering and weeding to get established in the first few years, but my goal is to let them sort it out happily on their own once they’ve settled in.
Currently in my own garden I’m healing the land from a recent building construction project. My objective is to merge the line between the cultivated and the natural areas and have the house sit quietly as if it were dropped from the sky and nestled in. I’m working with the existing soil, planting tightly to avoid bringing in mulch and using only wood chips from dead trees we had to clear on the property.
Plant that makes you swoon:
Above: Tall Angelica gigas.
Plants with fragrance. Plants that sway in the wind. Vertical plants that tower up through a dense planting. And plants that feed the birds who bring their precious song to a garden.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
Japanese knotweed and other invasive aggressive bullies.
Favorite go-to plant:
Above: A crowd of Viburnum ‘Mary Milton’, Hydrangea aspera, and Rosa ‘Cecile Brunner’ nearly obscures a door in the walled garden.
A career in art direction is a useful grounding for anybody wishing to go into garden design. Sheila Jack’s career shift was not so much a break as a continuum—of research, editing, and presentation. Before designing the pages of Vogue magazine, her first job was for the architect Norman Foster, and these visual strands from the past feed into her present-day career as a landscape designer.
We visit the project which turned Sheila’s design ideas into something more three-dimensional: her own urban garden.
Above: A work studio faces the house in Sheila Jack’s garden in Hammersmith, London.
“When we installed my husband’s garden studio, we needed to create a pathway to it,” explains Sheila of the garden’s layout. “Our children were beyond the need for lawn, so there was scope to include more planting.”
Above: Photograph by Sheila Jack.
I first met Sheila by the photocopying machine at Tatler magazine, several decades ago. Amid the madness, Sheila stood out as a beacon of clarity, in a crisp white shirt. A few years later I spotted Sheila, ever crisp, at 444 Madison Avenue, a recent arrival at Condé Nast in New York. While I failed to take my job on the 17th floor seriously, Sheila worked hard downstairs, in the scary offices of Vogue. Fast-forwarding a few years, she suddenly appeared on Instagram, with beautifully composed pictures of gardens, in focus. How had she got from there to here?
Above: Sheila’s London garden of mainly green and white.
A large garden presents a whole host of possibilities. Unlike smaller spaces that might require creative optimisation, a big garden gives you room to create something truly unique.
Whether you dream of a tranquil escape, a vibrant entertainment area, or a haven for nature exploration, let’s delve into some inspiring big garden ideas to transform your outdoor space.
1. A symphony of senses: the multi-purpose garden
You can divide a large garden into distinct zones, each offering a unique experience:
Culinary Delights: Designate a section of the garden for your personal vegetable patch. Here you can grow fresh vegetables, fragrant tomatoes, and vibrant lettuce for homegrown salads. The addition of a fruit tree orchard will provide seasonal sweet treats, or you could dedicate a corner to a cascading vertical herb garden for easy access while cooking outdoors.
The Entertainer’s Paradise: Create a dedicated space for gatherings. A spacious patio with comfortable seating and a built-in barbecue is perfect for hosting al fresco meals. Consider adding a fire pit for cosy evenings under the stars, or installing a retractable awning for shade on sunny days.
A Tranquil Escape: Create a peaceful haven tucked away in a secluded corner. A comfortable hammock can be strung between trees, perfect for afternoon naps. Or you can surround a bubbling water feature with calming plants like ferns and hostas, and incorporate a meandering stone path that invites quiet contemplation.
2. Embrace the wild: a wildlife sanctuary
For nature enthusiasts, a big garden can become a haven for local wildlife. Here’s how to create a habitat for your furry and feathered friends:
Plant a Native Oasis: Research and incorporate native plants that attract butterflies, bees, and birds. Include flowering shrubs and perennials for nectar, berry bushes for food, and a variety of trees that offer nesting spots and shelter.
Create a Water Source: A small pond or birdbath provides much-needed refreshment for visiting creatures. Surround it with water-loving plants to create a naturalised look.
Build Creature Comforts: Leave a fallen log pile for insects and small mammals to find shelter. Install bird feeders and nesting boxes to attract specific species, and consider adding a bat box to encourage these natural pest controllers.
3. The ultimate relaxation destination: a backyard spa experience
How about transforming your big garden into a personal sanctuary dedicated to rest and rejuvenation? Here are some luxurious additions to consider:
The Outdoor Sauna: Indulge in the restorative benefits of a sauna right in your own backyard. Prefabricated saunas offer a convenient option, or you can explore designing a custom-built wooden structure to complement your garden’s style. If you are interested you can find outdoor saunas for sale even online.
The Refreshing Plunge Pool: Take the post-sauna experience to the next level with a dedicated plunge pool. While a large in-ground pool might be an option, a smaller, above-ground plunge pool can be a more space and budget-friendly solution.
The Tranquil Treatment Area: Dedicate a sheltered area for outdoor massages or yoga sessions. Create a comfortable space with weatherproof cushions on a raised platform, surrounded by calming greenery and the gentle sounds of nature.
4. A gardener’s playground: the edible landscape
For passionate plant enthusiasts, a large garden becomes a blank canvas for creating a flourishing edible landscape. Here are some ways to transform your space:
Vertical Gardens and Espalier Techniques: Maximise space with vertical gardening techniques like hanging planters and wall-mounted herb gardens. Espalier fruit trees against fences or walls adds a touch of formality and increases fruit production.
Create a Kitchen Garden Maze: Design a winding path through a raised bed vegetable garden. This not only adds a playful element to your space but also encourages exploration and adds to the visual impact.
Incorporate Pollinators and Pest Control: Intersperse your vegetable plants with flowering herbs and companion plants to attract beneficial insects. Create a haven for natural predators like ladybirds to help manage pest populations organically.
5. A fairytale setting: the themed garden
For the imaginative gardener, a big space offers the freedom to create a themed wonderland:
A Secret Garden: Create a hidden oasis filled with flowering vines, climbing roses, and a charming bench nestled beneath a shady arbor. Tuck away a small water feature and surround it with lush foliage for an enchanting escape.
A Mediterranean Oasis: Transport yourself to a sun-drenched paradise. Plant olive trees, lavender bushes, and vibrant bougainvillea. Create a gravel pathway lined with terracotta pots overflowing with colourful succulents. Add a bubbling fountain for a touch of tranquility.
A Japanese Zen Garden: Cultivate a space for meditation and reflection. Utilise raked gravel to create a calming waves pattern, and strategically place large rocks and moss-covered stones for a sense of serenity. Incorporate pruned bonsai trees and a small water feature with trickling water for a truly peaceful ambience.
These are just a few ideas to spark your creativity. When designing your big garden, consider your lifestyle, hobbies, and overall vision for the space. Don’t be afraid to experiment, incorporate unique features, and create a garden that reflects your personality. Remember, the beauty of a large garden lies in its potential, which is waiting to be transformed into your own personal outdoor paradise.
Additional tips for large garden design
Seek Inspiration: Explore botanical gardens, visit local garden shows, and browse gardening magazines for inspiration.
Plan and Zone: Sketch out a rough plan for your garden, dividing it into designated areas based on your desired functions.
Seek Expert Advice: Consult with a landscape designer for professional guidance on plant selection, layout planning, and construction features.
Embrace Sustainability: Implement water-saving techniques like drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting. Choose native plants that require minimal maintenance and attract pollinators.
Enjoy the Journey: Creating a big garden is a process, so savour it! Take your time, and enjoy watching your grand vision come to life.
Gardening should be as easy as playing in dirt. But if you’re a beginner, you may be intimidated by the seemingly limitless options out there: what to grow, which tools to buy, how to build a raised bed, and so on. And if sustainability is a priority (and it should be for everyone), there’s the added element of making sure what you choose is earth-friendly. Vego Garden, a leading manufacturer of stylish, eco-conscious, and durable modular garden beds, takes the guesswork out of container gardening.
Vego Garden carries everything you need to start a vegetable garden—from actual seedlings (like tomatoes, melons, and more) to garden tools and soil. In the five years since the company launched, Vego Garden has become the leading choice for stylish and long-lasting garden beds. And now, they’ve come up with a new product line designed for indoor gardeners as well.
Here are eight reasons to go with Vego Garden for your growing needs. And read to the bottom for a special Gardenista reader discount.
1. No outdoor space? No problem.
Above: Vego Garden started as a maker of sustainable raised garden beds, but now it’s entered the indoor container gardening market—to great success. The company’s line of Self-Watering Planters received a 2024 iF Design Award as well as a Red Dot Award for its innovative design. The collection includes an herb planter box with trellis, a mini planter box with trellis, as well as a rolling tomato pot with trellis.
2. They’re great for beginner gardeners.
Above: Vego Garden’s planters are all self-watering. Fill it once with water to provide moisture for up to several weeks. A handy water gauge shows the water level—so you’re never at risk of under- or over-watering, both common beginner mistakes.
Chances are high that over the last two decades, you’ve been influenced at least once by Deborah Needleman, even if you’ve never heard of her. At different times over a long stretch starting in the early aughts, she helmed three of the most influential trendsetting publications in the country: domino (which she founded), followed by WSJ (the Wall Street Journal’s monthly magazine), and later T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Before she was a style arbiter, though, she was a garden editor (House & Garden) and columnist (Slate). And now, she’s returned to her first love—the world of plants. “It’s been ages since I was a garden writer and constantly immersed in the world of gardening. But now my days again revolve around being immersed in nature and making things from it—gardens and baskets, including basketry things for the garden like plant tuteurs, cloches, and trugs,” says Deborah, who spends most of her time now at her country home in the Hudson Valley. “I’m just so happy to back mucking around in the garden and in the woods.”
Below, she makes the case for non-natives in the garden (when they make sense), Okatsune secateurs (“better than Felcos”), and an all-white gardening outfit (we’re now converts).
Photography courtesy of Deborah Needleman, unless otherwise noted.
Above: Deborah, in her sitting room, surrounded by flowers, both real and man-made: painting of tulips by Luke Edward Hall, watercolor of nasturtium by Emma Tennant, porcelain hyacinth by Vladimir Kanevsky. Photograph by Lily Weisberg.
Your first garden memory:
Not a garden, but the wild woods at the edge of the newly built suburb where I grew up. It felt like entering the private, backstage area you weren’t supposed to see, because everything around it was neat and manicured and without drama or mystery. And years later, when I first heard the term “landscape architecture,” it opened my mind to the idea of designing spaces from the materials of nature. A total revelation. I wanted to make places that incorporated wildness and unpredictability within the bounds of a structure.
Garden-related book you return to time and again:
I most often go back to Henry Mitchell’s The Essential Earthman, essays from his old column in TheWashington Post. He was a colleague of mine in the ’90s–erudite, hilarious, eccentric, and wildly opinionated. He was offended by the idea of “low maintenance” gardens, and adored ephemeral plants and flowers, as those are the ones that have the power to break your heart. He would take the day off work when his bearded irises bloomed.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.
Nature coaxed into atmosphere.
Above: Deborah’s mostly cultivated, slightly wild garden in Garrison, NY.
I’m crazy for spires like verbascum and foxglove. And I also love an umbellifer–Queen Anne’s lace, ammi, angelica.
Above: A gorgeous jumble of Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’, nepeta, and allium in her gravel garden.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
I don’t go in much for leaves that are red or yellow or variegated as they often look sickly or like they’re trying too hard to make a point. And I’ve often thought that if forsythia didn’t flower so early, probably no one would countenance that beastly yellow later in the season when there are so many other things to delight us. This season I realized I’d had enough of its shaggy demeanor and clashing jolt of brightness against the soft, subtle colors of early spring. They’re getting evicted as soon as I have a moment.
Favorite go-to plant:
Boxwood balls. They seem to solve almost every garden problem.
Above: Boxwood balls make an appearance in Deborah’s vegetable patch.
