Entryway lighting, meet your new best friend: house numbers. Whether they’re powered by LED or incandescent bulbs, lighted address plaques will beckon visitors into a warm glow at night.
Here are 10 lighted house number sets and address plaques to consider:
See more of this collection at Object of Desire: Housenumber Sconce from Belgium.
Want to improve your Curb Appeal game? See our curated Hardscape 101 design guides to Exterior Hardware 101, Pavers, and Exteriors & Facades. See:
At Remodelista, “spring refresh” is an oxymoron. See five of the editors’ favorite stylish (and budget-friendly) ideas to refresh the interior design of a home:
Made of paper (or wood-based fibers), natural pigments, and non-petroleum-based resins, paper composite kitchen countertops are low-maintenance, stain-resistant, and less expensive ($30 to $80 per square foot) than many other countertop materials. Are they right for your kitchen? See the pros and cons at Remodeling 101: Paper Composite Countertops for the Kitchen.
“Peggy Wang, editorial director at Buzzfeed, worked with a friend, designer Keren Richter of White Arrow, to renovate her Ridgewood, Queens, row house. The two wanted something brighter, updated, and cost-efficient. The kitchen checks all the boxes: bright blue cabinets (Ikea with custom fronts) and modern appliances,” writes Alexa. See more in this week’s Steal This Look post.
A new patio project can be daunting. If you’re thinking of adding a patio to your backyard or garden, you probably have a few questions. To get some answers, we talked to landscape architect Bay Area-based Pete Pedersen, whose company, Pedersen Associates, has been based in Marin County since 1983 (and is a member of the Gardenista Architect and Designer Directory. Pete’s had plenty of experience: he and his design team take on from 40 to 50 outdoor projects per year, most of them residential.
Here is everything you need to know about patios:
“People tend to use the two terms interchangeably,” says Pedersen. “You might say that a terrace is slightly elevated, but for most people they’re the same thing.” Whatever name you give it, he says, “it’s basically just a hard surface where you can put furniture without poking holes in the lawn and falling backwards.”
Obviously, if your lot is small there’s not much to think about. But if you have space to play around with, you’ll need careful consideration. A professional designer can help you find the best location for your patio, minimizing costs by selecting the flattest area, and maximizing the view (if you have one).
For ultimate convenience, your patio will be right next to your house in an area that’s as private as possible. “Thoughtful siting will increase the use,” says Pedersen. “Let’s face it, people can be lazy. If you have to go down two flights of stairs to have your coffee, you’re not going yo do it.”
On the other hand, there’s something to be said for an outdoor room that’s a destination. But, says Pedersen, you need a good enough reason to go there—such as a fire pit: “Like moths to a flame, people will just come to it.” And how you access the spot offers a design opportunity—“You can do fun things with geometry and circulation, with the paths that get people there.”
One reason you may need a permit is excavation. “If you’re going to be moving a lot of soil around, your town or municipality will generally want to know about it,” says Pete. And second, if you’re pouring concrete, local authorities will want to inspect the site prior to placement.
The Clean Water Act imposes other regulations. “If your patio is a hard surface, and large, you need to deal with the storm water draining off it,” Petersen says. The patio must be sloped away from house, and if there’s a drain, you may have to treat the water that comes out the other end, perhaps sending it through filtration soils before allowing it back into the environment.
Pedersen says that a sediment and erosion control plan is also required for most permitted projects in the Bay Area, and most likely in other areas across the country. If you’re installing a drainpipe, for example, you need to consider how water gushing out after a rainstorm will affect the surrounding landscape—especially if you’re on a slope. One way Pedersen solves this problem is by installing a perforated dispersal pipe to spread the water out.
Building codes allow residences to have up to a 30-inch change of elevation without the need for a guardrail. (And you should have at least three feet of flat ground below that 30 inches.) “I try to keep it less than that,” says Pedersen. “If you have 24 inches, it can function as informal seating.” Sometimes, after considering how the area will be used, they’ll add a guardrail even when there’s not much change in elevation—“You don’t want a kid on a Big Wheel doing an Evel Knievel into the shrubs,” he says.
Pedersen believes that the choice of materials should be driven by the architecture of the building and the patio’s intended use. “When the patio design takes its cues from the architecture, it gives you a more seamless look, especially when the scale is intimate,” he says. “With larger lots you have more opportunity to do different things, but I still like to tie my design to the framework of how the whole site is being developed, making it a team effort with the architect, and making it period-appropriate.”
Pedersen doesn’t have a single material he prefers: “I look at all the conditions and pick materials that echo throughout the property.” For a formal patio intended for entertaining, he likes to put in a hard surface that allows guests to wear high heels. “You can modulate that by adding bands or gravel strips running through it—as a design element that also help the permeability.”
Brick wouldn’t be his first choice for a patio, unless there’s brick on the building. “Because the modules are small, you have to handle a lot of pieces, and you’re paying a mason to do this work. Larger pavers go down faster.” Also, bricks need to be laid on a compacted base or set in mortar. “But you can do fun patterns and mosaic designs with them.”
Concrete matches well with contemporary minimalist architecture. “When we’re laying concrete slab, we use integral color to make the concrete look like natural stone, or color hardener concrete for more intense shades,” says Pedersen. And while there used to be few options for concrete pavers, “now there’s a huge array, including large-scale random-patterned pavers that are really attractive.” Pedersen recommends Hanover, Calstone, and Belgard.
His company designs a lot of patios in crushed rock and gravel, generally starting with compacted road base material and then top-dressing it with ¾-inch crushed rock. “That gives you a nice uniform look that’s easy to maintain and easy to walk on,” he says. (Not so much, however, for those women in heels.)
An all-gravel patio tends to give a little too much—“You feel like you’re walking on the beach,” says Pedersen. A better bet is decomposed granite (DG), which he describes as being like a baseball infield. “Binders will hold the surface tightly for foot traffic, and it comes in different colors. You can’t use DG on a slope, but it’s an inexpensive material for a larger level surface, if you want to, say, throw up a harvest table for entertaining.” And, he adds, the cost is much lower than other options.
As for the guardrail material, Petersen says this choice should also be driven by the architecture. “We’ll do glass for a house that’s sleek and contemporary, or maybe a cable rail with stainless steel posts,” he says. “For a more traditional house we might do wood pickets and have some fun with patterns.”
Patio durability depends on the materials used. Most stone has a long life expectancy, though some stone weathers faster than others—Pedersen avoids slate and Arizona sandstone for that reason.
“With gravel, there’s always a level of maintenance,” says Pedersen. “You can lay weed blankets, but that’s not a long-term solution.” DG also needs freshening up now and again. “But these surfaces can last as long as you want to maintain them.”
As for concrete, Pedersen repeats an old contractor’s joke: there are two kinds— concrete that’s cracked, and concrete that will crack. “Cutting it into pieces can minimize cracking and help it last longer,” he says. But any concrete surface will show more sand after from 10 to 15 years of being exposed to the elements.
If you know the shape and size because you have limited space, says Pedersen, you could probably lay it out yourself using string and stakes. But he feels it’s better to bring in a professional—“From day one!” he quips.
Hiring a pro will help you get the most out of your space. After all, you’ll be spending some money, and you want to be certain you’ve chosen the right spot for its intended use, you’re dealing with the drainage properly, you’re using the right materials, and you’re considering lifespan issues. Most important: a designer will be able to estimate the cost.
Whoever you get to design your patio, it should be someone who just does design. “There are lots of contractors who’ll design the project and also build it,” says Pedersen. “But to my mind, that’s like the fox watching the henhouse, in terms of your budget.” He also notes that design/build contractors tend to design for the things they do—if they have a good carpenter, for example, you’re sure to get a trellis and a fence in the design. “You want a designer who has no need to keep people busy.”
Is DIY a possibility? It depends on the scale of your patio project, what the site requires, and of course your personal skills. A small patio on a flat area can be fairly straightforward; online DIY videos will tell you how to do it.
But in an area with a lot of topography, it can be a challenge to find usable space. “If it’s going to be a raised patio,” says Petersen, “you’ll need perimeter footing—perhaps steel and concrete—and a way to address drainage issues.”
And if permits are required, you’ll need to generate a site plan, showing spot elevations so you know where the runoff is going. Building steps means more regulations to comply with.
Pedersen cites a range of prices (that include materials and labor) for building a patio in Northern California. Costs can be lower in other parts of the country, but possibly higher in more urban areas:
Pedersen advises keeping the materials and design simple. “Rectangles will help control the budget,” he says. “Doing soft radiuses and turns requires a lot of cutting, and that increases the labor. Keep the geometry simple and don’t fight your module—the reason houses are rectilinear is because wood is rectilinear.”
His second tip: Don’t dig too deep. “When you begin to move a lot of soil, costs go up. Site work and excavation are one of the most expensive parts of any project.”
N.B.: Planning a patio project? For design tips, layouts, and the best materials, see Decks & Patios 101: A Design Guide. For more projects, see our Hardscape 101 design guides to Fences & Gates 101 and Pavers 101. And browse our posts on materials:
Among the items on our (increasingly busy) spring garden calendars: a New York plant pop-up, a California succulents sale, and a festival dedicated to trilliums. Here’s a glimpse.
And elsewhere, on Remodelista and The Organized Home:
Recently in Obsessions:
The succulent string of pearls, with its small green bubbles along a slender stem, recalls the plastic pop-apart beads of childhood dress-up bins. It can’t help its quirkiness. Read on for everything you need to know about this slightly offbeat succulent.
Also known as “string of beads” or “rosary,” this succulent is a perennial vine of the Asteraceae family and is native to southwest Africa. Like most succulents, it requires very little hands-on care.
After you have one string of pearls plant, you can easily propagate new ones (or make your original look fuller) by placing cuttings into soil and allowing them to take root.
In addition to its unique foliage, string of pearls can produce tiny white flowers with bright-colored stamens. (Some say the blooms smell like cinnamon.) To encourage spring flowers, cut back on water and move the succulent to a slightly cooler area (around 60 degrees Fahrenheit) throughout the winter months.
A potted plant adds a dash of irreverence to a room. For more houseplants-as-focal-points, see our posts:
Finally, get more ideas on how to successfully plant, grow, and care for string of pearls with our String of Pearls: A Field Guide.
Interested in other succulents or cacti? Get more ideas on how to plant, grow, and care for various succulents and cacti with our Succulents & Cacti: A Field Guide.
Small space, infinite possibilities. Behind every city townhouse lies a garden. Some are long and narrow, others short and squat. No matter the size, a well-designed garden is an oasis in a city (especially in August.)
Welcome to Throwback Sunday: Readers’ Favorite Posts from the Past
Here are 10 classic layouts to accommodate dining, lounging, and play in a townhouse garden.
In London, a typically long and narrow garden is split up into three separate areas to create a sense of spaciousness. “Steps of painted concrete with brick lead from the area by the back door up to the garden proper,” writes Kendra. “The stairs are a focal point in themselves and support tubs of salad leaves and tumbling tomatoes in summer. A tree fern also adds to the sense that this lower part of the garden is not just a preamble for the rest.”
For more of this garden, see Designer Visit: The Black and Green Garden of Chris Moss.
In Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, New Eco Landscapes designed a clean and simple backyard, “laid with local bluestone pavers that require nothing more than an occasional sweep with a broom,” writes Barbara. Besides the shrubs, the beds are planted with drought-tolerant blue carpet juniper and Hollywood juniper; ground cover of ajuga and pine-bark mulch keeps the weeds down. The long cedar bench on the right has a row of spring-loaded lids that allow easy access to store cushions and other gear.”
For more, see Designer Visit: A Low-Maintenance Brooklyn Backyard by New Eco Landscapes.
A staircase seamlessly links a second-floor deck to a ground-level garden in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood. Designer Brook Klausing designed a new deck and staircase made of steel with ipe decking and stair treads. “We had to put in a concrete pillar big enough to support a four-story building,” he says “Literally when we were digging the holes for the foundation, the city required an engineer be there to supervise.”
For more, see Garden Designer Visit: Brook Klausing Elevates a Brooklyn Backyard.
Garden designer Lindsey Taylor (a Gardenista contributor) created inviting spaces for dining and lounging in a Brooklyn garden, specifying retaining walls be built to a height just right for guests to perch on.
For more of this garden, see Before & After: A Modern Townhouse Garden in Brooklyn.
The reason this Brooklyn backyard garden works so well is symmetry, says landscape designer Susan Welti of Foras Studio. She created the low-maintenance scheme a few years ago for a Brooklyn couple whose townhouse had a typical rectangular backyard (20 feet wide by 36 feet deep).
For more, see Steal This Look: Modern Brooklyn Backyard on a Budget.
Designers Anishka Clarke and Niya Bascom of Brooklyn-based Ishka Designs work with instead of against a big, preexisting Japanese maple tree that cast dense shade over a Crown Heights garden. “We liked the idea of creating contrast, with the very organic shape of this off-center tree and a uniform paver and stone patio,” says Clarke.
For more, see Before & After: A Modern Brooklyn Backyard on a Budget.
On the ground floor of a Brooklyn townhouse is a rental apartment. To provide privacy for both tenants and landlords, garden designer and Gardenista contributor Lindsey Taylor created soft screening with lightweight fiberglass boxes planted with Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’.
For more of this garden, see Before & After: A Modern Townhouse Garden in Brooklyn.
“Located on a quiet block in Brooklyn, the brownstone was designed so the entire back wall, on both the parlor and ground floors, opens to the yard,” writes Lindsey Taylor. For more, see Garden Visit: At Home in Brooklyn Heights with Artists Maria Robledo and Holton Rower.
In Manhattan’s West Village Alison Cayne eliminated a grade change in her backyard to create a garden that’s equally able to accommodate her son’s basketball-playing friends or 45 for dinner (and there’s even a boules court).
For more of this garden, see Before & After: A One-Month Makeover for a Manhattan Backyard.
Sean Lewis and Jesse Terzi, partners in Brooklyn’s New Eco Landscapes, designed a cantilevered wooden pergola to shade the dining table and define the space in a townhouse garden in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood.
For more, see Landscape Designer Visit: A ‘Showstopper’ Garden in Brooklyn.
If you’re designing a new garden or rehabbing an existing landscape, get started with tips and inspiration from our curated guides to Garden Design 101. From Shrubs: A Field Guide to our design guide to Decks & Patios, we’ve got growing and design tips tailored to your climate. Read more about landscape design for townhouses and city gardens:
One morning in 1854, after “thundering into New Orleans” on a riverboat, Frederick Law Olmsted had a bath and breakfast at his hotel and then wandered onto an intoxicating scene: “I was delighted when I reached the old Place d’Armes, now a public garden, bright with orange and lemon trees, and roses, and myrtles, and laurels, and jessamines of the south of France,” he wrote in one of many newspaper dispatches later collected into the book A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States.
What a seduction the landscape must have performed on a young man who had not yet designed New York’s Central Park or become known as America’s most famous garden designer. Olmsted had come to town to chronicle daily life in a part of America where it was legal for some humans to own others as slaves. But in New Orleans the future landscape architect also fell under the spell of perfumed flowers, untamed vines, and the spell of lethargic, heavy humidity that encouraged the resident tropical plants.
More than a century and a half later, I recently visited New Orleans and can report that its gardens still look like no others in the world. After thundering into the city by air, I went on a walking tour of the Garden District—with an amazing guide: Katrina Horning of New Orleans Architectural Tours, a historic preservationist with a special interest in Louisiana studies. For two hours, she led our group of a dozen tourists past the neighborhood’s grand mansions, blooming magnolias, and mossiest cemetery (where volunteer ferns sprouted in crypts’ cracks).
“We allow our gardens to do their own thing—to overgrow a bit rather than to manicure them,” Horning said.
Thanks to the city’s particular climate and geography and architectural style—not to mention its swamplands, floods, hurricanes, deposits of rich alluvial soil, and pestilential insects—you can look at a photo and know immediately: this is New Orleans.
Here are 10 garden ideas to steal from New Orleans:
You say jasmine, I say jessamine. By any name, the fragrant flowering vines can instantly dress up a wall, fence, or arbor. In New Orleans, star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) twines around fences and Asiatic jasmine (T. asiaticum) is a fast-growing ground cover.
“Because of the very warm and rainy climate, it’s better to let it vines do their own things rather than to try to make them look held back,” says Horning.
Ferns flourish in cool, damp cracks. In a shady spot, you can encourage them to grow in a wall or the crook of a stair step. See more examples in 10 Garden Ideas to Steal from Ireland.
The famous courtyard gardens of the French Quarter date to the mid-20th century (and stricter building codes enacted after catastrophic 19th-century fires were fueled by open airspaces between buildings). Emulate the look in a small courtyard garden: build raised beds to visually expand the plantings and add a fountain as a focal point.
From wrought iron fences to the fancifully ornamental cast iron designs that characterized Italianate architecture in the mid to late 1800s, the gardens of New Orleans are guarded by privacy barriers that are stylish without sacrificing security.
When cast iron was developed in the 1840s, it opened up a whole new world of fanciful possibilities. “It led to the ability to have all kinds of delicate and light shapes, from fences covered with beautiful flowers to fences that looked like corn stalks,” said Horning. Today custom cast iron fences, railings, and gates are still available from sources such as Heritage Cast Iron USA.
Edible gardeners in New Orleans plant two seasons of crops: the first in early spring and the second in late summer (the excessive heat of the hottest months is not conducive to growing edibles).
To follow suit, try growing citrus trees in portable pots (which makes it easier to regulate irrigation and exposure to the elements).
In the 1800s, “Italianate architecture was a reaction to the plain and boxy shapes of Greek Revival,” said Horning. “A lot of cast iron fences from that period were poured into patterns of plants, and a lot of them are painted green—maybe we’re trying to emulate plants with our cast iron.”
The southern live oak trees of New Orleans are Quercus virginiana, with generous canopies that grow horizontally to shade streets, gardens, and walkways. “In our climate, you want shade. It’s very hot,” said Horning.
Native to North America, southern live oaks thrive in USDA growing zones 7b to 10b and at maturity will have canopies that spread as wide as 120 feet. Plant accordingly.
A port city, New Orleans has become home to plants from . Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Asia.
“By the 1920s, local nurseries and seed houses were supplying vegetable seeds and ornamental plants to customers throughout the Gulf South region,” writes Lake Douglas in his book Public Spaces, Private Gardens: A History of Designed Landscapes in New Orleans ($29.95 on Amazon).
In a hot, humid climate, nothing is more refreshing than the cooling sight or sound of running water. If you’re considering a garden fountain, see Everything You Need to Know About Fountains.
If you’re designing a garden from scratch (or just rehabbing a hardscape feature or two), start with our Garden Design 101 guides to Perennials 101, Vines & Climbers, and Fences & Gates. Read more:
Recently an email landed in our inbox with only one line: “Revolutionary terra cotta pots suitable for indoor use.” It got our attention: While we love the look of terra cotta (it’s the linen of the garden: timeless, and even better when imperfect), we call it classic, not revolutionary.
But it turns out that the small pots by a 90-year-old Japanese manufactory called Izawa Ceramics have the ideal designs for 2018: small, modern shapes suitable for houseplants.
Headquartered in Hekinan City in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, Izawa Ceramics links tradition—the prefecture’s famous red clay, used “since olden times” for the making of tiles and pots—with the company’s new pots and planters for indoor use. “We feel that it is particularly necessary to have clay pots in inside spaces, which are different from the natural environment,” say the makers, Kenji Izawa and Nobuyuki Izawa.
Here’s a look at the two designs on offer:
“The excellent breathability and moisture control of the clay pot facilitates respiration, while the copper dish with antimicrobial action prevents bacterial growth and water corrosion,” the makers say. “Also, since the three spheres on the tray support the pot, proper ventilation will be ensured even as you tilt the bowl to any angle you like.”
“We love plants. Therefore, we are not interested in pots without holes,” say the makers, rather bluntly. “In a clay pot with holes, roots and leaves can breathe freely and thus grow healthier. We would like to continue making pots that breathe along with the plants and eventually become a part of the plants themselves.”
It’s inspired by, of all things, UFOs: “The hemispherical shape effectively improves drainage efficiency, while the horizontally protruding rim, the delicate mobile-like wires, and the simple minimalist structure make the plant stand out and produce even more of a floating effect,” the makers say.
Above: For all of the designs, the Tokoname red clay is fired at high temperatures, so “its water retention capacity is greater than that of a normal baked pot.” The wires are rust-resistant stainless steel.
N.B.: Follow Izawa Ceramics on Instagram @izawa_seito.
Are you trying to choose the best houseplant for your home? See our list of Best Houseplants: 9 Indoor Plants for Low Light and growing and care tips for our favorites including Fiddle-Leaf Fig Trees, Orchids, and Echeveria in our curated design guides to Houseplants 101. Read about more pots and planters we’ve admired:
“The wood anemone is so often seen in the woods that there is rarely need to grow it,” wrote the wild-gardening plantsman William Robinson in 1883. A rare exception, he noted, was the pale blue Anemone nemorosa ‘Robinsoniana’. Both originally from Ireland, the flower and the man were reunited in the Oxford Botanic Garden, where it was formally identified.
If the wood anemone is not often seen in your woods, or you’d like to create your own glade, plant them in the conditions they prefer: dappled spring sunshine, in ground that is damp in winter.
Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer, for Gardenista.
Wood anemone, or windflower, is a spreader, where it is happy. Since it prefers ground where there is plenty of leaf litter, generally among trees, this gently spreading habit should be welcome. Wild Anemone nemorosa is generally white, sometimes giving an impression of pale lilac or pink, when these colors appear on the petals’ reverse.
There are hundreds of anemone species, including the intensely colored florist’s flower Anemone coronaria (commonly called poppy anemone). The European wood anemone (shown here) has dozens of American relations; the most similar is A. quinquefolia, found in the northeastern half of the United States.
The daisy-like flowers of wood anemone open to the day, expanding their petals in the sun. Rain, heavy cloud, or nightfall cause them to shut up shop again. In the wild, wood anemone grows as a monoculture under hedgerows and in woodland but it can also be seen making a natural, perfect combination with pale lilac cuckoo flower or creamy yellow wild daffodils on road verges.
The Robinson windflower is wonderful for many reasons: deep-cut leaves, contrasting stem color, the aforementioned soft blue petals, with dove gray backs, and crowns of orange-gold stamen. It is a tough variety and carries a Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit.
• Wood anemones are cheery ground-covering plants in spring, with foliage that is just as interesting as the flowers. They are fully hardy, thriving in USDA growing zones 3 – 8.
• The flowers of Anemone nemorosa follow the sun, moving their faces from east to west during the course of a day.
• Wood anemone forms its own drifts but doesn’t mind further tinkering. It is also a good mingler between shrubs, in relaxed gardens.
• Wood anemone spreads through rhizomatous roots, which don’t mind drying out during their dormant period in summer.
• To establish them, it is easier to buy a plant in a pot in spring than to tease a plastic bag of desiccated tubers back to life (they need to be soaked).
• Divide clumps in late summer, so that they can gather strength over the autumn.
Planning a shade garden? For more growing and care tips, see Wood Anemones: A Field Guide and for more of our low-spreading favorites see Ground Covers 101. Read more:
Driveways are a great improvement over the rutted dirt paths that in centuries past connected houses to public roads. Modern-day suburbia has landscape architects to thank for the invention of the smooth, graded “approaches” that began to appear in the United States in the 19th century.
In the early 1840s, Hudson Valley landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing described how to design a comfortable driveway. “The best, and indeed the only way to decide the matter, is to go over the whole ground covered by the Approach route carefully, and select a spot or spots sufficiently near to give the most favourable and striking view of the house itself,” Downing wrote in A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening Adapted to North America; With a View to the Improvement of Country Residences.
This remains sound advice today. Are you designing a new driveway (or upgrading an existing one)? Use our brand-new design guide to Driveways 101 for inspiration and tips on everything from driveway paving materials—from poured-in-place concrete to decomposed granite—to designs for ribbon driveways, lighting, permeable surfaces, driveway gates, and landscape edging.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll find in our new Driveways 101 guide.
See more in 10 Easy Pieces: Grass Block Pavers.
“While a driveway may seem like an unglamorous aspect of the overall design (on a par with say, drainage), a driveway actually is one of the most important elements in a landscape. Why? Not only is it used every day but also a driveway is integral to creating curb appeal,” writes contributor Kier Holmes, a garden designer. Read more in Hardscaping 101: Driveway Paving.
See more in 10 Easy Pieces: Illuminated Pavers.
Driveway gates should swing into your property, not outward into public space, unless your walkway or driveway is on a steep slope. See more in Garden Gate Design: 10 Iron Entryways with Curb Appeal.
See more in Hardscaping 101: Ribbon Driveways.
See more in 10 Ideas to Steal from Desert Gardens.
See more in Garden Visit: At Home with Winemaker Rosemary Cakebread in St. Helena, CA.
In a Los Angeles garden designed by landscape architect Mark Tessier, simple elements connect the front garden to the driveway and garage. A board and batten fence echoes the clean lines of the garage door, and a stripe of concrete pavers in the driveway points visitors toward the entry path.
Our new curated Driveways 101 guide also covers Crushed Shell Surfaces, Pea Gravel, and Gate Latches. And don’t miss:
We like the idea of a multi-tasking outdoor lamp that goes anywhere: the garden, the park, the beach, and back indoors. Here are our picks for portable, rechargeable, and versatile outdoor LED lanterns.
It’s a steadfast evergreen shrub, undemanding and dependable. Often brought out in winter for seasonal displays, skimmia is then wheeled away again. This is a pity because the ultra discreet skimmia is only then preparing for its best moment—spring.
When the winter-long flower buds finally open, you might not notice at first. It’s the scent that is always astonishing, despite its annual regularity. Quietly shimmering by the door, skimmia can be relied on for flashes of brilliance, a bit like Jeeves.
Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer, for Gardenista.
A north-facing doorway is the perfect spot for a skimmia, so that it can provide year-round structure (in the ground or in a pot). Slow-growing, dome-shaped, it is adorned through winter with tightly closed flower buds. A combination of male and female plants will increase the possibility of brilliant scarlet berries. However, you need to have the right male and the right female for berries or, much easier, plant a new self-fertile hermaphrodite variety (not very Jeeves), such as S. japonica ‘Obsession’, ‘Temptation’, or S. japonica subsp. reevesiana.
Berries are borne by the female, benefiting from a male close by. Since the gender of a skimmia is defined by its variety, following is a handy list of some of the best:
Female, berrying skimmias: S. japonica ‘Nymans’ (Award of Garden Merit), S. japonica ‘Veitchi’, S. japonica ‘Tansley Gem’.
Male pollinating skimmias (all RHS Award of Garden Merit holders): S.x confusa ‘Kew Green’, S. japonica ‘Fragrans’, S. japonica ‘Rubella’.
A zestier variety—and designer favorite—is Skimmia x confusa ‘Kew Green’. Because of its citrus-and-green coloring, it is less associated with holiday arrangements and makes a good impact growing alone or with other evergreens. Being male, ‘Kew Green’ is also useful in pollinating female skimmias, for berries.
The white open flowers of Skimmia x confusa ‘Kew Green’ are similar to those of the regular varieties, except that the background of each flower is green instead of red. Both are magnets for bees, sending out one of the best scents of spring.
• Excellent structural plants in a small urban courtyard or in front of a house; skimmias are happy in dry shade.
• Skimmia berries are bigger and brighter than those of holly and it’s worth growing a male among females, or a self-fertile variety.
• Skimmias grow naturally into a loose dome and do not require pruning, except perhaps for minor adjustments.
• Skimmias are fairly indestructable, tolerating drought.
• They are not fussy about soil but are happy in acid conditions, making them good companions for azaleas, rhododendrons, and camellias.
• Skimmias tolerate life in a pot, although yellowing leaves is a sign of iron deficiency (in which case add sequestered iron).
Get ideas on how to plant, grow, and care for more of our favorite shrubs and hedges with our Shrubs: A Field Guide. To see how mature shrubs will look in your garden, read:
Though he’s a landscape architect known for designing gardens to complement large houses, Australia-based William Dangar often gets to work with only a little land. Time and again, he says, “the structure takes up all the space and the landscaping becomes mere ‘icing’ around the edges.”
When Dangar and his family built their own home near Sydney’s Bondi Beach, he got the chance to rectify the situation. They bought an unsalvageable California-style bungalow on a lot “shaped like a pizza slice,” tore it down, and started anew with a double-height house with a smaller footprint (to leave more land for the garden).
Dangar commissioned friend and architect Michelle Osazaczky to design the house in partnership with interior architect Romaine Alwill. It was to be simple and modern, inspired by photos of “modest little huts on the sides of glaciers in Greenland” taken by photographer Murray Fredericks, and imagery Dangar found of black barns in Queenstown, New Zealand.
For the generous backyard, Dangar was influenced by Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, “who was the master of mass plantings,” he said. “It is hard when you are your own client, but in the end I thought it best to challenge myself,” with a graphic scheme of new plant mixes such as “weeping mulberries, bamboos that originate from northern Asia, and Japanese blood grass which turns red in summer,” he said. “It’s my contemporary take on a Japanese native garden.”
Photography by Prue Ruscoe, courtesy of William Dangar.
The sliding doors open the northwest face of the house to the garden, “to allow for a genuine merging of inside and out.”
See more ideas in Hardscaping 101: Ground Covers to Plant Between Pavers.
Browse our Garden Design 101 guides for more planting ideas, including suggestions for Grasses, Ground Covers, and Tropical Plants. For more projects in Australia across our sites, see:
If browsing for houseplants at Leaf feels like shopping inside a Parisian greenhouse, it’s no coincidence.
Architects Hélène Pinaud and Julien Schwartzmann of Heju Studio, who designed the 700-square-foot interiors of the new houseplant shop in the 10th arrondissement, created “walls” with the aid of translucent polycarbonate panels typically found in greenhouses.
When owner Axelle Duflot first saw the retail space next to the Canal Saint-Martin, it was in need of a major remodel. “At the base, the room was quite dark, very partitioned, the walls and the floor were covered with stones. But the location and the big windows convinced her,” the architects said.
Post-remodel, Leaf has a relaxed atmosphere, with pale pink walls and friendly vines twining over shelves. Duflot, who presides over a diverse collection of specimens (houseplant prices range from €2 to €300), may even offer you a cup of tea:
Photography by Fanny Cortade courtesy of Heju Studio, except where noted.
Leaf is at 46 rue Albert Thomas (a five-minute walk from the République metro station).
Above: Photograph courtesy of Les Jolis Mondes.
Get more ideas on how to plant, grow, and care for our favorite plants with our curated guide to Houseplants 101. Read more:
If you’re lucky enough to have a garden in a big city, you learn to accept the fact that while you’re out there, you’re in full view of everyone whose windows overlook your yard. Hanging an awning over your entire backyard or planting a tree big enough to screen everything isn’t a good option, since usually, getting the light you need to grow things is already a challenge.
So what are the best ways to make a small urban garden feel more private—or at least to create the illusion of privacy? For advice, we asked landscape designer Susan Welti, a partner in the Brooklyn-based Foras Studio. Susan has designed countless urban spaces; two of her gardens appear in our new Gardenista book.
Here are some of her ideas to create privacy in a small city backyard:
Photography by Matthew Williams for Gardenista except where noted.
Let’s admit that it’s almost impossible to create as much privacy as you might want. “There are so many buildings surrounding you, and they’re so much bigger than you,” Susan says. “But while you can’t block out the buildings, what you can do is to create something beautiful and compelling that will hold the eye within the confines of the site, and make you feel enclosed and secure.”
“You can’t just throw in a big tree to block the view, because that also blocks the light,” says Susan. “In most city gardens there are trees in your sightline, but they’re often really big—such as oaks or maples or ailanthus. It’s nice to put in a tree that’s a more human scale. We use a lot of fruit trees—crab apple, dwarf apple, even pomegranate and fig. These all flower, which is always nice.”
Susan also recommends small understory trees like Chionanthus virginicus, known as “old man’s beard”; Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Autumn Brilliance’ (serviceberry); and Magnolia virginiana—native magnolia, or sweetbay. And if you’re not going for bloom, consider a Japanese maple—“They fit beautifully into a pared-back grassy landscape.”
When space is at a premium, Susan often uses trees that are pleached—trained and clipped to grow on a flat plane, like an espalier.
“Pleached trees are a powerful visual element, and you can control where they canopy out,” she says. Susan’s choice is hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana), a native tree that takes well to pruning; she buys them already started off from Brooklyn’s Urban Arborists. “Pleached trees don’t bloom—it’s more about the shape and the beauty of the foliage.”
“Vines are great for adding a green layer to a fence or pergola,” says Susan. “For an airy look, you want plants that have some visual porosity. We use Wisteria frutescens ‘Amethyst Falls,’ a native plant that’s less vigorous than Chinese or Japanese wisteria, and has a nice bloom.” For other flowering vines, she recommends clematis, honeysuckle, and crossvine, such as Bignonia capreolata ‘Tangerine Beauty.’ To create a wall of green, Susan suggests the vigorous, shade-tolerant Akebia ‘Shirobana’—but be aware that it’s considered invasive in some areas, so check with local authorities before planting, and be prepared to monitor its growth carefully.
“A beautiful fence is a great thing—that’s your perimeter statement to the world,” says Susan. “When it’s thoughtfully designed and made of good materials, your eye goes to appreciating that rather than looking beyond it.” While a fence that’s fully opaque (that is, the slats touch each other) obviously gives the most privacy, Susan prefers a more delicate fence that allows air and light to pass through. “You can layer some climbing plants on it to give yourself more privacy, or add a row of narrow shrubs just in front of the fence.”
You can use shrubs to create privacy within the garden, perhaps subdividing space to make the yard more interesting, or screening off a section. Shrubs can also hide a fence, or create a sense of the natural world along one side of the property. Since they generally branch out to the ground, they offer a sense of solidity.
“When space is tight,” says Susan, “we use a number of fastigiate shrubs—that is, narrow and upright—such as ‘Graham Blandy’ boxwood, Ilex crenata ‘Sky Pencil,’ and Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata.’ And when we don’t need shrubs to be narrow, we often use camellias—they’re evergreen, lush, and shade-tolerant, and they bloom in spring or fall. Others we turn to include vibernum, high-bush blueberries, and boxwood—always, whether it’s pruned or not pruned, sculpted or not sculpted.”
“We use grasses a lot,” says Susan. “They’re generally narrower than a shrub, but can be just as high—and their bloom makes them even higher. Besides the shape, we also prize them for their movement—with all those big buildings around, things can be very static. We like Panicum ‘Northwind’ (switchgrass) a lot—if it gets enough sun it can grow to seven feet. Another is Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster.’”
Finally, when even more height is desired, there’s Fargesia nitida, a fountain-shaped clump-forming bamboo that can reach 12 feet. “Bamboo has a lot to recommend it in the city—it’s evergreen, tall and narrow, and it grows quickly. More importantly, it gives a sense of movement and sound.” Phyllostachys bissetii bamboo can be used to make a human-scale hedge of bamboo—“We just whack off the top and sides.” (Before planting Phyllostachys bissetii, always check to make sure it’s not considered invasive where you live. You’ll need to install a root barrier before planting, and watch closely for breeches and runaways.)
Most front gardens in the city are narrow and close to the sidewalk. Susan favors a small tree whose canopy will screen the parlor floor windows. A deciduous tree works best for this purpose, since it will allow in more light on dark winter days. “Underplant the tree with an evergreen layer so the tree will look great even without its leaves,” she says.
Susan’s projects are generally in Brooklyn or Manhattan, where fences can’t be higher than six feet. She sometimes bypasses that rule by building a narrow pergola parallel to and just inside the fence, as close as 6 inches. “It’s a way of cheating, because the height of the pergola isn’t restricted—it can be eight feet if you want. It gives you some green height if you grow vines on it, and people can sit under it. Plus it doesn’t take up too much growing space.” Check local regulations to find out about permitted fence heights in your community.
In the suburbs, your neighbors’ houses probably aren’t as tall as the surrounding buildings in a city, and there are usually more trees. “That gives you more to borrow from,” says Susan. “If the yards around yours have a lot of maples, for example, you might put a small maple on your property, as a way of working the surroundings into your theme. Gardening is never as difficult in suburbs—you have more light, and all sides of the house to work with. City gardens are a much bigger challenge.”
For more ideas to create privacy in a garden, see our curated guides to Garden Design 101, including Fences & Gates and Shrubs: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design. Read more:
New York-based ceramist (and florist) Aviva Rowley creates Wet Vessels: vases, planters, and pots with moody, gun-metal glazes. But be warned: each piece is one of a kind, so when it’s sold, it’s gone.
Read on to see some of our favorites … and a peek at a new collection Rowley is working on with LA-based florist (and Gardenista contributor) Sophia Moreno-Bunge.
Read about more pots and planters we’ve admired:
The best cottage gardens look like they planted themselves. They didn’t, of course. But the design principles they follow are simple.
The English invented the cottage garden, probably in the 1400s when even the humblest plots of land were pressed into service to produce food for families. Every inch of earth counted–with herbs, fruit trees, and flowers (which attracted bees to pollinate crops) jammed close together. Aside from being practical, the effect was charming.
Today’s modern cottage gardens look just as lovely–a spill of color as edible and ornamental plants mingle and flop over the edge of a walkway. Roses engulf a trellis. Hollyhocks lean casually against a brick wall. Here are 10 ideas to steal from English cottage gardens:
Above: From David Austin, Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ (Ausboard) is $28.50 in the US and £17.50 in the UK; here is it planted alongside Epilobium and Geranium ‘Brookside’. Photograph courtesy of David Austin Roses.
English gardener Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) is the patron saint of modern cottage gardens, having popularized the informal, blowsy herbaceous borders we associate with country houses (in England) and picket fences (in the US).
In reaction to the fussy, formal plantings the Victorians championed, she advocated a more natural look, with plants arranged by color, height, and flowering season. For more of Jekyll’s ideas and advice, see Gertrude Jekyll and the Country House Garden ($88.79 from Amazon; prices vary based on availability).
Above: William Robinson, a Victorian iconoclast who invented the idea of the “wild garden,” developed his naturalistic approach at Gravetye Manor. For more, see The Ultimate UK Getaway: An Hour from London and a World Away. Photograph courtesy of Gravetye Manor.
To create the quintessential cottage garden, plant flowers at the edge of garden beds and allow them to spill over onto paths. Bonus points for fragrant flowers that brush against visitors’ ankles as they pass by.
Above: Photograph by Justine Hand. For more, see 10 Easy Pieces: Perennials for a Seaside Garden.
Install sturdy arbors and trellises so you can train vines and climbers (particularly fragrant roses) to grow into billowy shapes against walls, next to gates, and above doorways.
Above: Remodelista co-founder Sarah Lonsdale’s sister installed a bench to make it easier to regard the garden at eye level. For more of her English cottage garden, see Ruth’s Garden: Playing Wildflower Roulette. Photograph by Sarah Lonsdale.
Place benches, chairs, and chaises strategically in the garden to lure visitors to spend time sitting among the bees and the blossoms. Consider adding seats to a hidden corner, a knoll with a view, or smack in the middle of an especially pretty flower bed (provide stepping stones to guide the way).
Above: Hollyhocks grow against a wall in a cottage garden in Germany. For more of this garden, see Garden Visit: At Home with Katrin Scharl in Brandenburg, Germany. Photograph by Justine Hand.
In the earliest English cottage gardens, there was no room for error. Tried-and-tested plants known to thrive locally were favored because they produced the best crops. In England–or a similar climate–common cottage garden flowers include hollyhock (shown), nicotiana, poppy, foxglove, nasturtium, and cosmos. If you live in a different sort of climate, you can plant native wildflowers to get a similar effect.
Above: For more, see Dream Landscapes: 10 Perennial Garden Designs Inspired by Piet Oudolf. Photograph by Sophia Moreno-Bunge for Gardenista
Plant shrubs and small trees among the flowers to add height, structure, and visual interest to garden beds.
Above: If you have fruit trees, berry bushes, or vegetables, you need pollinators to produce a harvest. When planting flowers, choose varieties bees can’t resist: lavender, yarrow, black-eyed Susans, and asters are good choices. For more ideas, see Helping Bees Survive, One Garden at a Time. Photograph by Jim Powell for Gardenista.
Above: Photograph by Clare Coulson for Gardenista. For more, see Garden Visit: Colorful Flower Borders in an English Garden, Tattenhall Edition.
Cottage gardens often are a dense mix-and-match jumble for a practical reason: if you have small clumps of many kinds of plants, you will limit loss to pests and diseases.
Above: Photograph by Clare Coulson for Gardenista.
Lay out irregularly shaped garden beds and allow paths to define perimeters and spaces in the garden. A meandering walkway is better than a straight one because it will force passersby to slow down and see more of the cottage garden.
Above: A pairing of Echinacea Purpurea ‘White Swan’ ($11.95 apiece from White Flower Farm) and Stipa Tenuissima in my own garden.
Don’t be afraid to mix old-fashioned flowers with other varieties–depending on your climate, your cottage garden could have succulents, jasmine, or perennial grasses growing in it. For more, see Leaves of Grass: 9 Ways to Create Curb Appeal with Perennial Grasses.
Are you designing a cottage garden? See some of our favorite flowers for cottage gardens in our curated guides to Perennials 101, including Hollyhocks, Coral Bells, Spurge, Foxgloves, and Lamb’s Ear. For more English gardens, see:
Middle-age sag is the sort of universal problem that even afflicts garden gates. Lucky gates, though—for them there’s an easy fix.
Metal braces, brackets, and anti-sag hardware can improve posture instantly for gates, returning them to their younger, stronger selves. What’s the best fix for your sagging gate? It depends on a gate’s height, width, and style. We’ve rounded up ten options—from tension kits with turnbuckles to steel braces—to counteract middle-age sag in garden gates:
So much to know about gates, so little time. Learn how to successfully design a fence for any landscape or garden project with our Hardscaping 101: Fences & Gates guide and 10 Easy Pieces: Wooden Garden Gates. Ready to choose a gate latch? See Hardware 101: Gate Latches and our earlier posts:
The scent of Daphne precedes it, like the reputation of Daphne, the wood nymph. In Greek mythology, she was so appalled by the lechery of Apollo that she became a tree, and stopped him in his tracks. Daphne the shrub does not always behave as expected either.
Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer for Gardenista.
A modest shrub with leaves that bear a passing resemblance to those from the laurel family (which Daphne joined when she became a Laurus nobilis), Daphne is hard to miss in other ways. Gardeners yearn for its powerful spicy fragrance in late winter, while passersby are pleasantly surprised, when a daphne is planted near the street.
Daphne does have a reputation for being tricky, and will show its displeasure by dying. Soil of the woodland type is ideal, with leaf litter naturally added during the year’s cycle or added purposefully as a mulch. Drainage must be good while most varieties will not tolerate dryness. Speaking from experience, a container is not a good idea.
• Daphne has many recommended varieties but you may as well go for those with good leaves and berries, as well as scent. They are generally quite expensive.
• Like other evergreen or semi-evergreen scented shrubs, daphne is not a thrilling plant in summer. Plant it near a path but not in pride of place; it mingles well with scented sarcococca and skimmia.
• For the best spring scent, there is Daphne odora but also D. bholua. Of the latter, ‘Jacqueline Postill’ is a respected hardy evergreen.
• Daphne tolerates shade but welcomes sun; its soil should be more or less neutral and always free-draining. For heavy soil in shade that sometimes dries out (f0r instance under a tree), Daphne laureola is more accommodating, but in exchange the scent is less pronounced.
• Daphnes are native to Europe and northern Africa and tolerate different levels of cold; even within one variety the hardiness levels vary, so check carefully.
• Downsides include yellowing of leaves due to nutrient deficiencies, aphid damage, and virus infection. Establishment can seem like a long journey; daphnes are toxic.
The Royal Horticultural Society lists the difficulty level of daphne as “moderate.” And yet they are well worth a try if you have the nurturing instinct. It might be wise to look for daphnes that have been awarded the AGM (Award for Garden Merit) as they will have been rigorously trialled. These include: Daphne x Burkwoodii ‘Somerset’, lightly variegated D. odora ‘Aureomarginata’, D. bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’, and D. cneorum ‘Exima’.
Grow daphne by a much-used gate or door for the full benefit of its exotic fragrance.
For more growing and care tips, see Daphnes: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design and for more of our favorite flowering shrubs, see our curated guide to Shrubs 101, including Boxwood, Hydrangea, and Rhododendron. Read more:
There is a kind of cult around Fritillaria meleagris—the snake’s head fritillary—to do with its looks and its name and the fact that the kind of garden in which it thrives is not necessarily the kind of garden you’d like to have. Ideally, everything would be underwater for at least part of the winter.
Fritillaries look fine in a little collection under the dripping eaves of a house but for the full spectacle, with a lot of atmosphere thrown in, prepare to pay £5 for entrance into Magdalen College, Oxford.
Photography by Jim Powell, for Gardenista.
Through the Porter’s Lodge and past some medieval cloisters and Gothic Revival quads, a bridge crosses a tributary of the River Cherwell. Magdalen is one of the most formidable as well as most welcoming of Oxford colleges; tourists are not herded around being told where they can’t go. Instead we are left to wander, observing discreet notices about private stairs or libraries.
There is an enormous amount of green space in this city and Magdalen College is surrounded by its own meadows and a deer park, while rubbing shoulders with the Botanic Garden across the road, which in turn looks on to a cricket pitch. All of this is gently intersected by water.
Addison’s Walk, which encircles an island of fritillaries known as the Water Meadow, is named after Joseph Addison. His time at Magdalen writing Latin poetry was eclipsed by a glittering career as a man of letters, politician, and energetic member of the intellectual Kit-Cat Club, co-founding The Tatler and The Spectator along the way.
The fritillaries themselves are part of a series of water meadows along the rivers of Oxfordshire and Wiltshire that are traditionally managed with grazing in summer, while the fritillaries’ bulbs are dormant. At Magdalen, the deer come in from the Grove, adjacent to the college. The meadow is entirely fenced off.
Addison’s Walk is pleasantly wooded and makes for an unhurried, mile-long wander. A more recent alumnus of Magdalen College was C.S. Lewis, author of the The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. In his atheist days, he went for an evening stroll around Addison’s Walk with J.R.R. Tolkein and another (not-so-famous) friend, Hugo Dyson. During the course of the night, if not the walk, the beginnings of a religious conversion stirred.
“I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear…” C.S. Lewis wrote in a poem later in life (What the Bird Said Early in the Year). The next line is pertinent to anyone who continually lives in hope, in the English climate: “This year the summer will come true.”
On the day of our visit, temperatures were pushing 80 degrees, which is not only unusual in spring but quite at odds with the sultry looks of the chequered tulip, leper’s lily, guinea-hen flower, call it what you will. Fritillaries do not need the glare of a mid-day sun: they suit a slightly overcast sky because then they show up.
The “snake’s head” part of the common name clearly refers to the bud stage, while meleagris alludes to the flower’s pattern when fully open, resembling the spots of a guinea fowl.
A meadow of fritillaries can be difficult to establish because the petals are attractive to pigeons and pheasants, and the bulbs are carried away by mice. Safety in numbers will eventually prevail (in soil that does not dry out in summer) with extra depth in planting.
In a slightly grumpy allusion to fritillaries in her epic poem The Land, Vita Sackville-West complains of their “staining” the ground, with looks that are “sulky-dark and quaint.” This only adds to a mysterious allure that contrasts with the bright yellow and clear blue of spring.
Magdalen College is generally open from 1 pm until dusk, except from the end of June until the end of September, when it opens at 10 am.
Read about how to plant a fritillary meadow in Gardening 101: Fritillaria and see more ideas for meadow and woodland plants in our curated Garden Design 101 guides to Bulbs & Tubers 101 and Ground Covers 101. Don’t miss:
