On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Dan B
To the West of the house and front door is a garden fenced to keep deer out. This is the repository for the most special plants. It also sidles up to the parking area.
The gate seemed both flimsy and unable to compete with the shapes and vivid textures of the many plants. Vividly colored plants were strewn willy nilly among their less bold siblings making the more modest look drab and the vividly colored seem garish.
The parking area is to the left in this picture but fortunately is not visible from the garden.
The new broad concrete path to the front door fractures into rectangles veering to the west of the front door.
This garden’s layout is formed by simple rectangles and squares of crushed Basalt and stone, especially the steps to the small raised terrace. Yews at the corners have been clipped into cubes. There is a wooden fence in back with HardiPanel insets painted deep indigo. This fence conceals the utility area.
These clients cut down a large old conifer that was beginning to fail. It took time to figure out how to turn the wood slabs into a gate. Sometimes the biggest challenges produce the most satisfying results.
I believe this photo has the best view if the background fence. The blue pot in the foreground was selected to echo the indigo fence panels. The indigo fence provides a vivid background for the abundance of yellow and chartreuse leaved plants.
I love the combination of complex plant shapes and textures with very simple hardscape. It feels like the chartreuse leaved plants are poking fun at the plain, but strong, hardscape
sab
I liked the rustic before look of this property a lot, but as your traffic patterns show it wasn’t working as a place for sociable people, and the new version is working well.
The new version is glorious.
I am amazed at your imagination, ability to see the before and after, and an after that doesn’t make everyone wistful for the before.
stinger
A blue pot, a blue chair — but not all the pots are blue (which is the mistake I would have made). Beautiful garden and an educational post!
JPL
You have a gift and I appreciate your sharing your creations with us.
Argiope
This just seems like magic because I have no idea how a person can imagine these transformations before they happen, let alone actualize them. Just stunning. Thank you for sharing!
satby
@Argiope: Agree, Dan has a real gift in being able to visualize a design and carry it out.
@stinger: “A blue pot, a blue chair — but not all the pots are blue (which is the mistake I would have made)”. Me too 😆
WaterGirl
@Argiope: That’s how I feel, too!
It reminds me of one our artists who can not only visualize something, but uses individual threads (or maybe small pieces of material?) to create amazing art.
CCL
@satby: me three.
Beautiful garden design. Your explanations have me thinking out some ideas for some of my problem spots.
StringOnAStick
It seems that with all the large organic shapes of the plants, that the rectilinear nature of the hardscaping is and important counterpoint. Given the very large plants and so many that qualify as specimen plants, the effect is gorgeous and so very PNW! I love it.
When I designed the conversion of our backyard from half dead grass to curvy raised beds built with local basalt chunks, it seemed to offset the very linear privacy fences that enclose our large city lot, so it feels like a similar idea. This is high desert though, so plants that fit the water availability here are never going to be of the scale that can be used in the wet side of the Cascades. My goal was to fit the climate and scale of the space. At some point I’ll put together a post about it since this coming summer is year 3 and most of the perennials should reach full size.
pieceofpeace
And for the second day in a row, my jaw goes slack. Viewing and reading this is a treat. thank you, Dan. It also makes me homesick for the northwest, while imagining how much I would love to feel at home in this setting.
I think you possess some magic to envision and make all this.
Sister Golden Bear
Gorgeous!
Dan B
@StringOnAStick: My younger neice and her family live in Bend. My brother’s ex lives in Redmond and my nephew and his partner are building a house there. They showed us pictures of their huge backyard which was dead grass, a line at the property line followed by more of the same to the horizon.
I did the landscape design for the vacation / weekend home of the couple from Whidbey. It’s by Lake Wenatchee on the eastern slope of the Cascades. I sculpted the land to create water channels in case the reservoir above the lot overflowed. It did. All the plants were washed away. It was beautifully curvaceous for a few months.