An Easy Does It Garden
When this owner downsized from Broadmoor to Grace Lane she wanted a garden she could leave for half the year and come back to without needing to do mountains of work, so designer Gavin Younie drew up plans for a visually active garden with minimal need for tending and easy upkeep.
Repeated plantings of low shrubs and grasses outline a new, wide concrete front entrance and continue along the house. To the west, lines of hellebores flourish under flowering fruit trees shared with the neighbor. An original pink dogwood stands among a rectangular bed of ferns. The driveway rock garden is filled with spring bluebells, daffodils, cyclamates and peonies where she added an olive tree, rose and blueberry bushes. Hostas and ferns enjoy the shade beside the garage before the path opens to the spacious backyard.
In the back, Younie designed an “L” shaped space: house length concrete deck and right-angled patio to catch sunlight. Rows of slow growing rhododendrons border one side with grasses and sedges softening the edges. Three crepe myrtles in this bed mirror the three dogwoods in the west border. “Limelight” hydrangeas form a hedge along the back fence. These specimen plants produce white buds that flower with a slight green tint before fading to pink, providing summer-long color. The western border vibrates with multi-shaded evergreen shrubs.
A waist-high raised bed beside the house supplies kitchen greens and vegetables. Summer container gardening allows the “home-half-year gardener” to be creative and get her hands in the dirt. Entertainment comes from watching the not yet two-year old garden fill out and mature.
Repeated plantings of low shrubs and grasses outline a new, wide concrete front entrance and continue along the house. To the west, lines of hellebores flourish under flowering fruit trees shared with the neighbor. An original pink dogwood stands among a rectangular bed of ferns. The driveway rock garden is filled with spring bluebells, daffodils, cyclamates and peonies where she added an olive tree, rose and blueberry bushes. Hostas and ferns enjoy the shade beside the garage before the path opens to the spacious backyard.
In the back, Younie designed an “L” shaped space: house length concrete deck and right-angled patio to catch sunlight. Rows of slow growing rhododendrons border one side with grasses and sedges softening the edges. Three crepe myrtles in this bed mirror the three dogwoods in the west border. “Limelight” hydrangeas form a hedge along the back fence. These specimen plants produce white buds that flower with a slight green tint before fading to pink, providing summer-long color. The western border vibrates with multi-shaded evergreen shrubs.
A waist-high raised bed beside the house supplies kitchen greens and vegetables. Summer container gardening allows the “home-half-year gardener” to be creative and get her hands in the dirt. Entertainment comes from watching the not yet two-year old garden fill out and mature.