Last Friday night the Society of Garden and Landscape Designers (SGLD) gathered in London to present their annual awards. Gardenista got the scoop on this year’s winners, which include several firms who won multiple awards for their submissions.
The “Garden of the Year Award” went to a family garden in Putney designed by Tomoko Kawauchi, the design director at Charlotte Rowe Garden Design; this garden was a triple-winner, also taking home the prizes in the “Small Residential Landscapes & Gardens” and “Built Landscape Design” categories. Another multi-award winner was a shady,terraced London gardensubmitted by Adolfo Harrison, which won both the “Judges’ Award” and the “Garden Jewel Award.” Fi Boyle took home the “People’s Choice Award,” which is the only category decided by public vote, for a garden sited in an old quarry.
But the garden that most caught our eye was the winner of the “New Designer Landscapes & Gardens” award design by Nicholas Morton, though he’s no novice designer: Before starting his own firm he worked for more than a decade for well-known designers Charlotte Rowe and Arne Maynard. Morton had also previously won one of SGLD’s Student Awards. “It is an incredible confirmation for a young design studio to be recognised by the SGLD,” says Morton.
Judges praised Morton’s restoration of a coastal town garden as a “a delightful, well-planted garden that overcomes challenging conditions with skill,” while remarking on the thoughtful planting, high-quality materials, and clever use of budget. They also noted: “The restrained design works beautifully with the building and its history.
Here’s a peek at Morton’s winning garden.
Photography by Elissa Diver, courtesy of Nicholas Morton.
Above: Added as part of architectural work on the house, new French doors connect the garden to the open-plan sitting room and kitchen. Morton describes the resulting indoor-outdoor space as “a place that feels like it is very private and a far away from the world outside. Above:”The clients’ in-town property was a tricky L-shaped garden that wraps around the house, from the back to one side. “The challenge was to connect two arms of a garden, which had very different conditions, using planting that would both look good year-round and have seasonal highlights from multiple windows. All whilst breaking up the space to create a journey that both utilised, and encouraged use of, all of the space,” says Morton. Above: For the hardscaping, Morton paired reclaimed Yorkstone pavers with a shell-based gravel mulch, which helps the garden retain water, for a welcome time-worn feeling. Outdoor furniture pieces from HAY’s iconic Palissade collection appears in each of the garden’s seating areas. Above: Custom wood fencing and a row of newly-planted pleached trees and two specimen multi-stem ‘Strawberry’ trees create privacy and vertical interest along the property line. Above: Morton describes his drought-tolerant planting scheme as “deceptively simple,” noting he used repeated structural planting with a matrix of grasses that “allow the feature plants to really stand out when it is their turn to shine.” Strategically-placed, naturalistic evergreen shrubs break up the space and define different areas within the garden. Above: Note how Morton cleverly concealed an external oil boiler (at right) that dominated the view along this arm of the garden. Morton designed what he calls a “collector’s table,” a reclaimed slate table top with custom-made corten legs, to hold the clients’ potted sun-loving plants.
Susanna Grant is a garden designer and co-director of Care, Not Capital, with the irrepressible John Little (we wrote about him here). With help from “lots of excellent gardeners and ecologists,” they offer a free program that helps to equip trainees with the skills needed for “modern gardening.” Susanna explains: “The main idea is shifting the emphasis and some of the budget away from hard landscaping and infrastructure towards planting, habitat creation—and gardeners.”
This little yard in North London was transformed by Susanna for like-minded clients, who had already successfully campaigned with their Islington neighbors to get the local authorities to install some planters on a sad stretch of sidewalk, which they described as a “disused piece of pavement.” They asked Susanna to make a wildlife garden there; then asked her to help them with their own disused backyard.
Above: A lot of plants and a consistent palette in the hardscaping make a small space seem bigger. “It was a tough brief as the owner wanted interesting plants: lots of planting plus room. I think it shows what you can fit in a space.” Above: “The back garden is tiny, north-facing and quite boxed in,” says Susanna. “It backs onto flats, and rather than try to pretend they weren’t there, I wanted to ensure the view from the house focused the eye on the planting—not up and beyond.” Above: “The client wanted interesting plants,” continues Susanna. “Although my scheme was predominantly quite woodland because of the aspect, there was an existing banana, nandina domestica and acer palmatum which I needed to work around. I added an Abutilon ‘Canary Bird’ right next to the house as it flowers for most of the year and picks up on the vibe of some of the existing plants.”
To save money on construction costs, build a patio in sections. If you need to have soil compacted to create a solid base for a patio, plan ahead by leveling the entire area. Then build the patio in stages, as your budget allows for expansion. In the meantime, you can cover the unused area with mulch.
“The first thing you do in a small garden project is to take inventory to do an analysis, so you can make decisions about the things that are existing and are good,” says landscape architect David Godshall of Terremoto, who elected to salvage an existing concrete patio as part of a garden rehab (shown above) in Los Angeles.
Mixing materials—such as redwood decking and poured concrete—can add interest and texture to a patio (while saving money).
9. Create a focal point with inexpensive furnishings.
Above: Ikea chairs flank a ceramic stool-turned-side table. Photograph by Matthew Williams.
Instead of expensive outdoor furniture, you can hang a hammock to create a focal point for the patio. Create a seating arrangement with flea market finds or outdoor furniture from Ikea—versatile pieces can do double duty indoors in the off season.
1o. Define a patio’s perimeter with potted plants.
Building a fence or wall around a patio is an expensive undertaking. A budget-friendly alternative to create privacy is to group together a few tall potted plants.
See more ideas:
N.B.: This post was first published January 2019; it has been updated with new photos, prices, and links.
Is your garden probiotic? In other words, is it teeming with beneficial microbes that vastly outnumber pathogens and keep you healthy? Looking at your landscape from this angle, suggests British ecological gardener and designer Sid Hill, can be an easy way to boost your gut health.
Gardeners tend to have healthier microbiomes than non-gardeners, he says, since handling plants and soil and working outdoors increases our intake of the good guys, which easily enter our systems. Biodiversity in plants boosts the biodiversity of our gut flora. So, removing even just lowly moss or pulling little plants out of cracks reduces this access. Instead, as gardeners we need to make sure our landscapes invite more plant life, and one way to do this is by using materials that have bioreceptivity. It’s simpler than it sounds.
Above: Gardener Sid Hill demonstrates on his YouTube channel that even the ground can be full of beneficial microbes if allowed to support moss and other small plants.
Sid is a gardener who also coaches other gardeners on how to make their spaces more effective in supporting biodiversity. His communication style is persuasive, seen to good effect on his YouTube channel and on Instagram. Growing up, Sid was home-schooled, traveling around Europe with his parents in a campervan. At age 15, he even set up his own gardening business. Sid’s style is thoughtful. He is not looking for instant fame.
Recently, we asked Sid to tell us more about how something as passive as paving or a wall can support biodiversity.
Why is it important to encourage plant life in overlooked places?
Above: Sid Hill lives in Totnes, Devon, historically a part of the ancient rainforest around the western edges of the British Isles. It’s mossy and the trees are covered with lichen. “Use materials that naturally host life on their surfaces.”
“Science is showing that our own biology is closely linked to the health and diversity of plants in the landscape. We are constantly exchanging microbes with the environments around us. When those environments are thriving with plant life, that microbial exchange helps to strengthen our personal microbiome. And diversity is key.”
What materials in a garden are bioreceptive?
Above: Sid made this paving using local slate and stone, and aged wood as seating. In a bucket of water, he broke up moss that he gathered nearby and applied it to the cracks, which soon became green.
“Natural stone, weathered wood, and other organic materials are bioreceptive in the sense that they have the ability to host life. Surface texture is a huge factor in whether something supports life or not (the ingredients for this are shelter, water, and nutrients). That’s why cracks in paving are so successful: those crevices provide shelter from disturbance, hold moisture, and capture organic matter, which offers nutrition for mosses and other plants to establish.”
How do you reduce the impact of paving?
Above: To bind together pathways, Sid uses soilcrete. “It creates a semi-permeable surface which helps soften hard landscaping and bring life back into those built areas.”
“I’m an experimental gardener, always testing ideas and playing with new theories. The idea behind ‘soilcrete’ is to create a mix of roughly 5:1 garden soil to cement instead of using sand. Sand extraction has a huge environmental footprint, although, of course, cement is even more impactful. It’s very easy to use, but natural builders I’ve spoken to have since suggested using lime instead of cement. I haven’t tested that yet, so for me it’s still open for experimentation.”
How can we adjust or improve the hard landscaping we already have?
Above: Resist the impulse to tidy every crack and crevice.
“The key is to make plant growth look intentional. Allow moss to grow in a geometric pattern through paving cracks. Lift a few paving slabs and plant herbs or ornamental grasses in those gaps. Or you can sow wildflowers into the cracks so you end up with a patio that offers bursts of flowers through the season, rather than something that feels neglected or overgrown.”
The depaving movement has become something of a national sport in the Netherlands, with municipalities competing to see who can remove the most paving from their town each year. Stateside the crusade to replace concrete and asphalt with permeable landscapes (ideally: gardens) may be slower to take hold, but it’s been around for nearly two decades, starting with Depave Portland in Oregon and spreading to communities across the country.
In Somerville, Massachusetts, Depave Somerville organizes “depaving parties” for homeowners. Landscape architect Sara Brunelle, one of the founders Lu La Studio, was selected for one of these volunteer-run events. So, one April day, an asphalt recycling dumpster and a crew of about 10 volunteers showed up to tear up the parking lot behind Brunelle’s house with crowbar and sledge hammers.
Brunelle and her business partner, landscape designer Katie Smith, had dreamed up a new permeable landscape for the yard, but they didn’t anticipate how gratifying the actual depaving would be. “It was truly joyful—like the best of a CrossFit gym and an awesome wild community,” says Brunelle. “It really was electric. Katie and I both have a background in urban gardening. This was an awesome moment of direct action.” It was also a little emotional: It began to rain right after the depaving was complete, and they realized the soil had not felt rain for at least 70 years. “That smell of rain on earth was so poignant,” Smith says. “That’s our responsibility as landscape architects to rehabilitate.”
Brunelle and Smith’s goal was to create a multi-functional, re-wilded garden for all the residents of the multi-family building. They managed to fit in an eating area, a play lawn, a permeable parking space, and a vegetable garden on the 30 feet by 40 feet lot.
Photography by Haley Dando, courtesy of Lu La Studio.
Before
Above: The gray-on-gray view of the parking lot from the street. Above: The yard behind Brunelle’s home was nothing but asphalt and a few conifers.
For those familiar with Los Angeles, the words “Santa Monica” will likely conjure up a very Californian version of the all-American idyll: an iconic pier and long stretches of boutiques surrounded by tree-lined streets and quaint homes with tidy lawns and the occasional shrub or agave. The scene is so picturesque that you can’t blame most homeowners for choosing to simply cut and paste these same elements onto their own landscapes.
So when Molly Sedlacek, the founder of ORCA, was contacted by two prospective clients seeking a Mediterranean-inspired garden for their Santa Monica property, she was intrigued. And when they mentioned the idea of ripping up the existing driveway and replacing it with more garden, she knew immediately she would accept the job. In the world of landscape design, it’s typically the designer finding, and sometimes fighting for, more green space—not the other way around.
What proved problematic was the site itself. A relatively small footprint meant that every square inch, including the aforementioned old driveway, had to be put to good use, especially since a new outdoor kitchen would also be required. So Sedlacek went about designing programmatic areas that would blur the lines between each other and the home’s interior. “The client needed a garden that is connected to their everyday lives: an art room that spills into the entry courtyard, a living room that opens up onto the dining patio, and a dining room that overlooks the pool.” To better define these areas, Sedlacek leaned heavily on the home’s existing white stucco and Spanish-influenced exterior to select hardscaping elements that would feel “naturally weathered” and right at home on a Balearic island.
Her inspiration: Potter’s House Mallorca, the retreat made instagram-famous by European garden designer Luciano Guibbelei. “We studied it for plants colliding with the water’s edge, groundcovers feeling very effortless, and also the use of fruit trees, bees blossom, and Ligularia dentata.” But while the resulting garden may look just like an arid landscape pulled from the coast of Gibraltar, it is primarily composed of U.S. natives and nativars, with a sprinkling of Mediterranean species for effect. Sedlacek and team brought in deep-green species like Ceonathus ‘Snow Flurry’, Frangula californica and Dryopetris arguta to contrast with the lighter palette, while Oenothera lindheimeri and Carex pansa create languorous drifts in sunnier areas.
The whole effect is of something wild and slightly forgotten. Sedlacek’s favorite element is tucked in the back corner of the garden, next to the site of a brand new pool, where the native Rosa californica clambers up a brick wall from the early 20th century to form a near-perfect simulacrum of an old European villa. “Seeing something built in 2025 that highlights something that has [already] lived here for a century is very special.”
Above: Sedlacek carved out new beds and added permeable paving in what used to be the entry driveway. The new space functions as a courtyard where kids can play, and still has enough hard surfaces to squeeze in a car if necessary.
In the first decade of America’s post-war boom, a million and a half new houses were built, creating vast tracts of suburbia and giving young families their first opportunity to own a home. Nowadays, however, homebuyers who stumble on a 1940s relic in vintage condition often wonder if it’s worth it to buy a house that needs a major remodel?
For Raleigh and Michael Zwerin, the answer was yes. In 2004 they bought a circa-1944 cottage in Mill Valley, California. From the moment they moved in, baby in tow, they started thinking about the house they wished they had. Nearly a decade later, after having a second baby (and learning firsthand that the charming creeks that crisscrossed the neighborhood were prone to flood in winter), they asked architect Kelly Haegglund for help.
For Haegglund, who lives just a few blocks from the Zwerins, the challenge was to design a modern-family-sized house that didn’t loom like the Hulk over the rest of the neighborhood, where one-story bungalows and cottages were built on narrow lots. The result? A modern three-bedroom bungalow with pleasing architectural details borrowed from the Arts and Crafts era. A low-water landscape, designed by Mill Valley-based Bradanini & Associates, surrounds the house in year-round greenery.
Photography by Mimi Giboin.
Above: After searching for months for just the right dark stain color, Raleigh Zwerin suddenly saw it by accident when she drove by a house under construction in nearby San Francisco.
“I went back to that house in the city several times until I met the lead contractor and asked him for the color, but he said the owner of the house said it was proprietary information and he didn’t want to give it out,” says Raleigh. Luckily, though, the contractor took pity on her plight. “He said, ‘I’ll meet you somewhere and give you a shingle so you can match the color.’ We ended up in a rendezvous by the side of the road. He brought two shingles in his truck, I brought a box of cookies, and it was great.”
The custom trim color? The Zwerins also gleaned it from the same side-of-the-road exchange.
Above: A curtain of cape rush (Chrondopetalum elephantinum) will reach heights of from 4 to 6 feet, creating an airy screening layer behind the picket fece.
We’ve long admired the work of New York architects Messana O’Rorke, so when we inquired about the glass-wall extension and surrounding landscaping of an impressive project in London’s Tufnell Park, we were led to the work of landscape designer Joanne Bernstein. The project is Bernstein’s own property and when she took it on, the garden was an abandoned mess. The 120-foot south-east-facing garden is shaded by the large London Plane trees in the grounds of flats behind as well as a group of established trees within the garden. The challenge was to create a natural progression from the sunlit section to the shaded section towards the rear of the property. Bernstein designed three garden “rooms”, each with a slightly different atmosphere and texture but unified by hardscaping material and a single sensibility towards planting.
With a previous career as an art historian and curator, Bernstein holds an interest in modernism and strong geometry which continue to translate into her garden layouts along with a reduced palette of hardscaping materials. This is all balanced with “exuberant textured planting of both perennials and shrubs with a naturalistic, slightly wild, feel to soften the hard lines of the layout,” she describes. Join us for a walk through Bernstein’s garden.
Above: The garden walls are the original Victorian walls dating back to 1870s when the house was built. Says Bernstein: “The first three to four meters of the walls nearest the house are taller than in the rest of the garden to provide more privacy. The trellising adds more privacy and the climbing plants now cover the walls and trellising both.” The pavers throughout the garden are Sawn York stone from Stone Heritage in Derbyshire. Photograph by Sarah Cuttle for Joanne Bernstein. Above: Messana O’Rorke played a key role designing an extension to support the transformed landscape. They extended a wall with a transparent cube made a glass steel frame and flat roof. The dining area is set on a two-level platform that steps down to a small terrace with pavers leading to a second terrace, defined with transitional planting and then into the back-most, shaded section of the garden. Above: The flat roof of the extension functions as a living roof. Above: Here, two perpendicular glass panels create a seamless corner that slide open creating, as Bernstein explains “a direct and continuous relationship with the garden experienced inside the extension.” Above: The grasses are Miscanthus sinensis “Hermann Müssel”. Yarrow planted here was Achillea “Mondpagode” but only lived a couple years due to the heavy clay soil. It’s since been replaced with Sanguisorba officinalis “Red Thunder.”
A couple months ago, I wrote a story for Remodelista about a modernist landmark Brooklyn Heights townhouse restored by Starling Architecture. The post focused on the sophisticated midcentury-style kitchen, but I was equally enamored with the verdant backyard, cleverly laid out as multiple outdoor “rooms.”
The goal, says landscape designer Nishiel Patel, the mastermind behind the exterior overhaul, was to forge a better connection between the inside and outside. “Previously overgrown with non-native shrubs, the garden acted as a barrier between the two ‘living rooms’ (interior and exterior), discouraging use of the garden completely,” she explains. In addition, the path from the home to the rear pergola (the main living space in the backyard) was awkward, requiring “two sharp turns to even enter the garden.”
Her solution: “We designed the garden to re-orient the home and the exterior deck [the rear pergola] towards a central and usable verdant courtyard, unlocking new views and connections between the two.”
Here’s how Nishiel reset the landscape design on the right path.
Above: “The facade of the house is landmarked, including the integrated large plant beds and entry stairs, so we treaded lightly,” explains Nishiel. “We did, however, add a Hollywood juniper and two Japanese maples to the front with a shrubby understory of rugosa rose and ‘Pee Wee’ oakleaf hydrangeas. The junipers and maples were selected for their twisted and gracefully open forms, respectively, as a contrast to the monolithic cube form of the house. Both trees are commonly found in the neighborhood which, over time, will make them feel as if they’ve always been there.” Above: Nishiel redirected the path from the interior living room to the exterior living room (the raised deck with pergola in the rear) so that it was more straightforward and easily accessible. In the middle, she added a fire pit area with Adirondack chairs (left) and a hot/cold plunge station (right). Above: “While the garden’s primary exposure is from the south, the light is filtered through two existing and large honey locust trees on the adjacent street. Naturally, the light is dappled, and the pockets of more direct and intense light change throughout the day. So we chose to create a matrix of plants that do well in the shade (oakleaf hydrangea, Pennsylvania sedge, Japanese anemone, Actaea, and Brunnera), and then a lot of perennials that prefer varying levels of direct sun (Amsonia hubrichtii, Sesleria autumnalis, Echinacea pallida, Echinacea ‘White Swan’, Martagon lilies, Verbascum, and Penstemon), with the goal of letting nature take over at some point. The plants will do well if they find themselves in a location that allows it!” Above: The cedar hot tub is from Northern Lights with the all-electric pumps, and the cold plunge is the Cold Stoic from Renu Therapy. “Both are intentionally recessed into the new deck so that they appear almost like pure shapes carved into the deck rather than stand-alone objects. This meant that we needed to excavate and retain the earth below by almost four feet to maintain airflow around them and provide subgrade drainage (in the form of a dry well) when the pools needed to be drained. We took advantage of the space below to also hide the hot tub equipment and provided a secret hatch in the deck for access below.”
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.
