On this episode of Garden Home, host P. Allen Smith will show you the best tips for designing Garden Rooms! From creating garden walls to adding mystery and containers to the garden, Allen visits some of the principles of gardening to turn your exterior space into a garden home.
Topics Include
Visit to Marlsgate Plantation in Scott, Arkansas
Tips for designing garden rooms
Creating Garden Walls
Care Tips for Garden Walls
Enclosure in the Garden
Garden in Holland
Mystery in the Garden
Container Recipe Design
Ideas for Small Gardens
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P. Allen Smith is a landscape and garden designer, horticulturist, preservationist and television host. His passions span the subjects of community, health, sustainability and history. He has designed the grounds at many of the nation’s most notable estate properties, townhomes, and commercial complexes. And, for over 19 years, he has shared his green knowledge and insight with the public via ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, his own PBS television, and six book titles. Currently, Allen is focused on residential, commercial and community designs that are beautiful, improve our contentedness, and our social and physical health.
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…Allen’s Garden Home-inspired intergenerational community in Monroe, LA, see https://www.gardensofsomerset.com/
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Let’s take a look at why enclosure is so important in creating garden homes over the past 20 years as a garden designer I’ve enjoyed helping homeowners create private sanctuaries full of beauty and wonder I find each garden to be a fresh opportunity to explore ways to create uniquely personal spaces these are just
A few of the gardens I’ve helped transform into garden hose Hi I’m Allen Smith you know when I was a kid I enjoyed creating little play areas like forts or tree houses where my brothers could play little secret hideaways I think we all desire our own personal space for either reflection or enjoying time with family or friends and
You know that’s just not a kid thing even today I find myself continuing to create these spaces but on a much grander scale here we are at morals gate plantation where the gardens I design are a prime example of creating intimate garden spaces or garden rooms as I like
To call them you see these are the first steps or the building blocks of creating your garden home today I’d like to give you a glimpse of the 12 garden design principles that I apply in creating a garden home and it will focus on the most important enclosure there’s some
Key points to enclosure that I want to tell you about but first a lesson in garden design When I create a garden I try to think of it as an extension of the home quite literally a garden room take morals gate plantation as an example now that’s an impressive residence both in terms of its scale and formality well the garden really should reflect
These qualities let me show you what I mean here inside one of the garden rooms you can see how the formality of the house is reflected in the garden these tall stately holly hedges create the walls of the Garden Room and you have this chat path or gravel Pat that makes
Up the floor the sky makes up the ceiling and the embellishments well there are many we have a beautiful bust of Zeus on axis along the entire length of the garden and there are also containers with boxwood there are arches and benches all of these are formal and
Reflect again the style of the house well you might ask the question why do you need a sense of enclosure in a place like this well you have to consider the landscape that morals gate sits in it’s the flat Delta plain rich agricultural land swept right up to the house and
There was really no transition from the house into that landscape and that’s what the garden helped serve to accomplish whenever I’m designing a garden home whether it’s in the flat Delta farmland or the busy inner city I always use the same 12 principles of garden design you see I find these to be
Timeless and universal now I’ve divided those into two categories the first dealing with structure and framework and you can bet that enclosure tops the list but there’s also recognizing shape and form now what I mean by this is recognizing the shapes of plants like this columnar shaped Cypress or this
Globe shaped boxwood or the natural form of landscapes and Gardens a rolling hillside a natural curving path you see what I mean another principle is framing the view think of this one as framing beautiful garden picture entries into and through the garden are also important you should accent your entries say with
Ann Arbor or roses or a clipped hedge even containers to point out this is the way last but certainly not least in this category on structures is utilizing existing structures a beautiful garden in California that I’m really fond of has utilized the backs of many buildings and garden structures to create the
Walls for its garden rooms in my vegetable garden I use the side of my tool shed to create walls and the side of my garage well it lends a wall to part of my shade garden now the next six principles of design deal with embellishments or decorating your garden
Rooms and certainly right up at the top would have to be color everyone gets excited about color and who doesn’t enjoy going into a garden room and recognizing that the color theme has been carefully selected it can be a monochromatic garden like this gray garden or full of vivid colors like this
Whimsical kitchen garden along with color themes comes the opportunity to create texture pattern and rhythm in a garden the herbaceous borders at our Lee Hall are a great example of creating texture in a garden what a lush tapestry of bloom and foliage a pattern occurs when plants are used in a grid this
Italian style country garden has a beautiful slightly curving Greek key pattern crafted from boxwood and coleus the Chicago Botanical Garden also used this boxwood in a checkerboard pairing boxwood with Artemisia and as for rhythm just take a look at how these colossal home Oaks have been clipped into
Cylinders to establish a visual rhythm as you walk through this garden another way to embellish the garden rooms in your garden home is by simply being generous a wide drift of tulips explode with color in the spring this is an area where I find beginning gardeners feel a
Great deal of frustration they ask how do I get my fledgling garden to look like this well annuals are ideal for making an area feel full in a single season while perennials shrubs and roses require more to mature as you create your garden home don’t forget about mystery a simple way
To create mystery is with curved paths and plantings that don’t allow you to see what’s at the other end the path then pulls you through the garden to reveal the surprise that awaits the visitor this Charleston Gardens special surprise was a pool next to a cottage-like toolshed yet another
Surprise could be found when returning back down the path where church spires jetted through the skyline capturing your eye and allowing you to see something unexpected this is a great example of taking advantage of borrowed views one of the elements of design that’s abstract is this concept of time
When I say a garden should embrace time what I mean is that plants that change throughout the seasons like these crabapples had their own special character in every season or how something as simple as moss can make garden ornament and paths reflect great age now I know that’s a lot to take in
All at one time I mean after all I’ve been designing Gardens for over 20 years and I still have to think through all of the principles when I begin a garden design project Now I’ve talked a lot about hedges as walls so let’s take a look at some varieties you may want to think about and some care tips to begin with if you want a tall hedge for screening or creating a garden room you might consider planting Hollies or Cypress hemlock or ligustrum for evergreen
Plants then for good deciduous hedge candidates consider beach or hornbeam data create low walls and borders I’d like to use boxwood in the garden if you spend any time traveling to great gardens around our country you’ll see that boxwood has been used in American Gardens for centuries let me show you
Some of the enclosed garden spaces in my garden home in the round or rondelle garden box woods for mallow slightly curving wall surrounding the space this evergreen hedge makes an ideal background for showing off blooms another garden where structures played an important role is the service yard
The side of my garage serves as one wall I’ve built the lath house for sheltering plants in the heat of summer and cold of winter a privacy fence and the pleats hornbeam arch completes this rooms walls and finally the most obvious enclosure is my fountain garden the walls are made
Up of needlepoint Holly which I sure twice a year I found that pruning is something that always shakes people up the big question seems to be what and when to prune well late winter and early spring is an ideal time to prune many of our favorite things like this hedge most
Evergreens like this Holly or Leyland cypress or boxwood should be pruned in the early spring before they flush with growth when you prune a hedge like this you always want to use sharp shears you see otherwise the end of the tips will be left blunt and ragged when you
Start always cut a hedge on a slight bevel where the bottom limbs are longer than the top you see if you let these top limbs grow out they will shade the bottom and your hedge will become leggy old-fashioned flowering shrubs like forsythia quince and spire real will be blooming soon so you’ll
Want to wait until after they bloom before you start cutting and the same goes for azaleas if you prune them now you’ll cut off all of the blooms you’ve worked so hard to get when pruning these types of shrubs I always remove dead or diseased wood and I also try to maintain
The natural shape of the plant you may be wondering why prune at all well for certain plants like roses it stimulates and directs new growth for a hedge like this it maintains its shape and causes it to grow thicker and denser you’ll probably never kill a shrub by over
Pruning but it’s important to take care otherwise it can be like a bad haircut that takes a while to grow out Today we’re focusing on just one of the 12 principles I use in creating a garden home enclosure now there are six points that I want you to remember about using enclosure in your own garden enclosure as a vital element in defining garden rooms enclosures anchor a garden to its
Location giving both the house and garden a sense of permanence and lasting beauty enclosures unify the house and garden into a cohesive whole creating a virtually continuous living area enclosures set the stage for a variety of moods and experiences enclosures add a sense of security and comfort by providing familiar structures
Of walls floors doorways and ceilings and enclosures establish order by creating manageable size spaces this garden here at marls gate is certainly a good example of a garden room all the elements are here but it’s on such a grand scale let me take you to the Netherlands where I met a couple who
Used enclosure on a smaller scale for many of the reasons I just named If you have seen Holland’s we have only a few square meters per person we the number two in the world by the way after Singapore or Hong Kong we have the most people living on hundred square meters so it means that you have a little room around yourself and it also means that
You want to protect it and don’t want to have your neighbors looking into your garden or into your house although we are very good relation by the way with the neighbors but you needs to have small place for yourself one of the amazing things about this garden is that
It is relatively small but the way it’s designed it looks quite large I went with the gardener into the house and I said Albertville that the garden comes through the home and she said there is no depth in it well to create the different layers yes with small highs in
The beginning of course and then if you look through the layers then you see depth in your garden and that was DB idea yes it’s interesting how layering can increase the perception of depth in a garden and of course I like the way you’ve related the inside of the house
To the exterior the the garden rooms in the rooms of the house all work together in concert yeah I like that in the house and in the garden we feel ourselves our characters back yes the lines the strong line did the sharp lines this meat and the the harmony that’s Maya Deren
Marge’s Dutch garden certainly helps us understand the principle of enclosure much better and we can see it what a more manageable scale but you know there’s something else that I find fascinating about enclosure it seems to work hand in hand with another principle of design when creating the garden home
And that’s mystery mystery can lead us to a surprise in the garden for instance a path can carry you long to a destination you can’t see at first glance eventually revealing a surprise an enclosed garden can conceal the view of what’s inside I always say that the
Key to creating mystery is not to bring everything into full view all at once I enjoy working out here along the side of my garden because sometimes I see visitors in the neighborhood looking across the street at this hedge you see this evergreen hedge affords me privacy and a sense of enclosure 12 months out of the year now several years ago when I
Took my crew to England for the first time to see our Lee Hall I ran ahead of them I wanted to go around the hedge first that opened up to these beautiful herbaceous borders one after one they came into the garden spaces their mouths dropped open at the
Side for a first-time visitor the borders at our Lee are beyond words and no offense to our fine photographer beyond these brilliant pictures and you see this idea of creating beautiful pictures is really what garden design is all about now think about it if you’ve got something really special or
Beautiful you want to frame it and that’s where the principal frame the view comes into play and it actually works hand-in-hand with enclosure it can be as simple as creating a doorway with Ann Arbor creating a window by cutting an opening in a hedge here’s a simple example from the Chicago Botanical
Garden in their walled English garden they’ve cut a window from one garden room looking into another garden room framing the view can be as simple as a doorway or entry leading into and through our gardens I framed the view of this shady path using a cypress arch in
This garden that I helped design views of this mountain range of framed by Italian Cypress sweetgum trees and the stucco arches of the porch once you’ve established the enclosure of the garden and created doorways and windows to frame the view now it’s time to decorate your garden room Kathi Worthen an artist
Friend of mine asked me to design a garden for her that would give her privacy and provide an area to relax and paint this enclosure has become a beautiful garden thanks in large part to many of the embellishments Kathy and I’ve added over the years I caught up
With Kathy one sunny afternoon to see how the garden is progressing the way the garden now works is it’s a series of guard rooms which are an extension of the house that’s right that’s correct and it’s nice when you have parties outside at night and you know you can you use
The downstairs of the house and then you can walk out onto the porch or you can walk out into the garden and with the furniture in the garden it feels like you’re walking into another room that’s just an open era room it’s really nice when the weather outside is just perfect
Especially in the spring in the fall and I just don’t want to work inside anymore I can bring everything outside I can I can sit with nature with animals with you know even the sound of the traffic and I work a lot alone so it’s really
Nice to come in I can watch people walk by and the other thing is that I read a lot and so this is a perfect place to come and just sit and study some of my books I study a lot about Tibetan art and to be able to sit for hours and and
Study and not be bothered Kathy thank you so much for the walk around the car it’s just a knockout well thank you Another way to embellish your garden rooms is to make colorful containers full of seasonal annuals when I design a container I follow this simple rule I use something tall and spiky as a centerpiece plants that are round and full to fill out the container and last but certainly not least the finishing
Touch is cascading plants in this container I’ve used some of my favorite annuals to get this effect for the tall and spiky element I’ve used a Dracaena or sometimes called a spike it’s certainly living up to its name don’t you think super sonic purple New Guinean patients are providing a round and full
Effect these are real showstoppers during the summer in shady areas another New Guinean patient I’ve used is sonic light pink I love the contrast of the two colors then I added the dark foliage of heuchera Palace purple which provides some depth to the color composition rounding out the round and full is a
Coleus from the stained glass work series called kiwi fern look at its feathery foliage it’s hard to beat for Sun or shade lightly spilling over the edge is a plant I really enjoy using in a variety of settings it’s called helichrysum or licorice plant the gray foliage is a great
Harmonizer gray goes with just about everything now we’re getting close to the end of the show but before we go on and make sure that you understand that you don’t have to have a large amount of space to create a sense of enclosure in fact smaller spaces are easier to create
A sense of intimacy and privacy how many times have you said I just feel like I’m living on top of my neighbors while you’re this complained all the time from friends and clients who live in apartments or condos or in neighborhoods where the houses are just a little too close for comfort
Well if you believe in this idea that good fences make good neighbors I’ve got a project that you can put together in a weekend that will provide you just enough enclosure to create some privacy just take a look at the finished product who wouldn’t enjoy this on their deck or
Patio let’s break this project down into two parts first building the trellis a star with eight six foot two by twos and four four foot two by twos lay down the first row spacing each board about a foot apart now we’re ready for the second row
You’re going to also lay these a foot apart and fashion them to the bottom row with wood screws and as you can see here I’ve treated the trellis with a dark outdoor stain now this is the phase of the project where the containers come in
What you want to do is place the PVC ends of the trellis into two 24-inch terra cotta pots use an eighth inch piece of PVC pipe to extend the drain hole now help for the messy part you’ll need to mix a couple of bags of ready mix or quick-drying concrete now just
Mix the concrete according to directions with water and shovel it into the terra cotta containers just to the top of the drain hole after the concrete dries you fill the rest of the container with soil and plant a fast-growing vine like this sweet autumn clematis I’ve just come up six stories to a beautiful rooftop garden in the heart of Chicago now this design was created by Douglas hare Landscape Architects and project manager Kathleen ghulam is going to show us around and give us a tour hi Kathleen hey Alan how are you nice to
See you this is such a beautiful space thank you well tell me about it um well at the beginning we started with just a very one dimensional space we didn’t know we had a few freestanding planters but other than that we didn’t have any drama not a lot of texture and
Absolutely no color and no color of course you had the existing walls of the building and I guess the parapet around the edge and that was it and that was it and this Arbor carries out that garden room theme even further absolutely what we tried to create here was not only a
Very interesting privacy feel but it also obviously offers a little bit more shade because of the west exposure we’re still trying not to completely closed off any views of the city but it definitely frames what you want to see and then adds to that the whole ambiance
Out here which is a nice softened garden it makes it very intriguing these little vignettes and pocket vistas through the foliage and so forth and I really like the oculus or the or the portals that you have cut into the screening again it offers great detail at make sure I
Definitely follow one axes so you you focus on one thing well the design feels so natural it just it really works well thank you we try and achieve that with obviously with all of our gardens and in the end it usually does look effortless but there are many challenges to
Overcome let me show you one sure this was a challenge yeah it’s amazing we just had this West exposure this brick wall with nothing on it so what we had to do was obviously make it more interesting and what we chose to do is again pick up with the same wood
Material and place three shelves and attach them to make it look like they were floating to break up the monotony of the wall well I can feel the heat from the Sun so yes trying to grow anything on that wall would be a challenge yeah
We also trying to start some IV to also go up the wall and instead of having just another set planting we added a water feature at the base of the wall it’s just like a wall in a house I mean you you hang pictures on the wall you
Hang bric-a-brac shelves and so forth and you’ve just carried that idea outside okay let’s talk about plants have been dying to get to that you have so many beautiful things growing out here I see the structure is made up of some shrubs and trees and then all this color with perennials annuals and
Tropicals exactly what we tried to do here was not only use nice structure plants such as evergreens birch ginkgo a lot of specimen trees but also use perennials that do overwinter right so you don’t have to replant every year exactly we try and keep the cost down to
A minimum and just highlight some areas with daniels the color we wanted this tears to be really bright hot colors very interesting and also welcoming so you can come out have a seat and just enjoy the flowers we know the grid that you’ve created across the back or the
Backdrop for all this color really works well you can see through it but at the same time it gives you a sense of enclosure and intimacy exactly and with that again trying not to block off the views of the city completely but also bring them into the garden so you can
Enjoy them just the same well Kathleen you’ve just done a magnificent job with this garden thank you so much for sharing your time and giving us a tour thank you Thanks for watching today’s show on that important principle of design enclosure remember it’s the first step in transforming your garden into a garden home until next time from the garden home I’m allen Smith more information about today’s topic and other topics covered in this series can be found at P
Allen Smith comm on an upcoming episode of P Allen Smith’s garden home hi I’m Allen Smith we’ll take an artistic look at the garden as we explore the design principle frame the view I’ll show you how I frame the views in my garden plus we’ll travel to a grand English estate
For a look at how to frame focal points and in the heartland of America see how screening out views can give your garden the privacy you crave You
2 Comments
Great ideas for my garden! I definitely need enclosure from the neighbors. Thank you!
Beautiful garden spaces