Low Water Urban Gem

This three year old garden literally sparkles with light and life. The owner had a talented local artisan (Lyndon Johnson) custom create the planting beds and walkways in cut stone, while her extremely handy husband hand-built the craftsman-style dual facing street side benches, as well as the fence and entryway deck.

More than almost any other garden we've ever helped to create (and thanks to the keen benches) neighbors seem drawn like magnets to lounge in front of the garden and simply enjoy a friendly chat. With such a beautiful, practical selection of plants complementing the avaunt-garde walkway & planters as a backdrop, who can blame them? This garden is ultra relaxed, effortlessly natural and yet still manages to express a firm modernity reflected in the eclectic hardscape design and low water garden plan. Talk about curb appeal. This garden is, we daresay, tres chic mon ami!


The Front Garden

The Plan

Visit this garden at our website:
http://taprootgardens.com/garden_landscape_design_mg_garden.htm

View this garden design process, from mapping to drawing:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.229288725548.176252.221024455548&type=1

Vegetable Gardener's Paradise

This forward-thinking homeowner worked with us to transform unused and rather conventional looking back yard spaces into a sprawling vegetable garden replete with multiple types of fruiting trees, scores of different (and exotic) veggies, wires for grapes, custom made raised beds, even copious lavenders to ensure ample pollinators - all using standard low-water drip irrigation methods. A bonafide vegetable garden lovers paradise!

The Plan



The Garden

See the M-Brace raised garden bed brackets used aesthetically in this design: http://www.ufpi.com/product/outdooressentials/mbrace.htm

Moden Minimilism, Low Water, Asian Flair

A great project and beautiful plan melding low water practicality with serene aesthetic balance. This garden was created for a stylish couple looking to capitalize off the previously designed interior with modern Asian highlights. We took the opportunity to tie in many of the colors & textures occurring inside to the hard-scape (pavers) and plant materials outside lending the entire unit an established, serene feeling that definitely sets it apart from its surrounding environment.

More than many small gardens, this space highlights abundant evergreen screening, which helps to visually "seal" the colors, textures and natural rhythms of the landscape to the house-structure itself without too much outside scenery (or the neighbors view) creeping in. All in all, a beautiful front & back garden project with an ideal aesthetic-to-practicality ratio. Low water,modern, evergreen - Bravissimo!

For more info see the Garden on our website:
http://taprootgardens.com/garden_landscape_design_rs_garden.html

Peninsula Building Materials Quartzite pavers used in this project:
http://www.pbm1923.com/natural-stone/idaho-quartzite-charcoal.html

Effortlessly Elegant, Evergreen Low Water Retreat

  

Its not often that you overhear a gardener glowing about how s/he wants badly to return to a specific garden for maintenance if only just to be back in the garden itself!

Well, this is just one of those magic gardens which strikes an ideal balance of form and texture, movement and foundation, open spaces and softly directed, natural views.

We added a few small detail elements which together give the garden a sense of time & place:

We added locally harvested rock of various sizes, anchor-stones intersecting the boarder in many places and a neat bit of custom yet affordable garden art that makes this one of a kind retreat truly unique.

Its hard to believe that 90% of this area actually started as a conventional turf lawn, which never really performed well in the open and often hot environment. To minimize water usage across the board we opted for fast spreading evergreen trees and shrubs which are hardy, easy to prune and once established necessitate a very small fraction of the water it would take to maintain a typical lawn, to state it mildly.

This entire garden is run off of conventional, profe4sssional grade drip equipment of our specification. We use 360*  0-20gph drip heads on each plant to maximize water delivery to the exact root area, in the precise amount without switching valves or water-zones between plants, saving a substantial amount of both economic and environmental resource in the forefront through logical design.

To view more pictures visit this garden on our website.

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