To show the range of what I do, here is a landscape design project in Longmont, Colorado, that is much more subtle than much of my work. This open, spacious garden has a large arrival plaza that also serves as a paved play surface for kids. There’s a nice [...]]]>

Entry to Longmont Prairie-Style Landscape Design

To show the range of what I do, here is a landscape design project in Longmont, Colorado, that is much more subtle than much of my work. This open, spacious garden has a large arrival plaza that also serves as a paved play surface for kids. There’s a nice combination of precast concrete cobbles and concrete flatwork.  A row of trees give a touch of formality, both accompanying the driveway and framing the arrival parking plaza opposite the house and garage.

View of Plaza, Perennials, Low Wall in Background

Another feature that is not very noticeable in the photos is the use of a lot of stone walls to echo the architecture of the house and give definition of the arrival plaza area. These walls form a circumference around the arrival plaza on the north and west sides, set back from the plaza the same distance as the house is set back from the plaza.

Longmont Garden: Dry-Stack Pillar, Wall

These walls are of dry stack sandstone, picking up the architecture of the house. Perennial beds below and on top of the walls add to the subtle yet strong spacial definition of the entry garden area. I’ve incorporated perennials that bloom in a progression, spring through fall.

Gate with Perennials

This garden makes broad, sweeping gestures, with some big boulders of the same materials as the walls here and there in the rest of the landscape. I’ve used more low, long stone gestures of rock rather than upright, vertical ones to fit the lay of the land. The home is a prairie style home with low, sweeping roofs and an open wraparound porch. Just as the architecture picks up the prairie setting with the mountains in the background, the landscape picks up these gestures of the architecture, relating them even more to the gestures of the given surrounding landscape. Taking my cue from these forms and colors, my aim was to further harmonize the architecture with the setting, using the landscape design to accentuate and weave them together even more.

I was describing this landscape design in these terms to a friend of mine, who commented, “You know, Tom, if I were actually sitting in that garden, I believe I would just have such a peaceful, contented feeling and have no idea why. I could pick out certain plants or rocks that I would think are pretty, but I really wouldn’t have a clue about how the whole thing flows together to create this sense of harmony. Now having your explanation of how the various elements all work together, I can get a little glimpse of how you understand and appreciate the landscape, the building architecture, and the surroundings.”

I was gratified to receive this email recently from Pam Prescott, a landscape design client in Boulder, Colorado:

…. I can’t tell you how often I am stopped on the street by people telling me that our landscaping is drop-dead gorgeous. I always give them your name and say that you [...]]]>

Pam Prescott's garden design

I was gratified to receive this email recently from Pam Prescott, a landscape design client in Boulder, Colorado:

…. I can’t tell you how often I am stopped on the street by people telling me that our landscaping is drop-dead gorgeous. I always give them your name and say that you deserve all of the credit. You clearly have much bigger, more spectacular projects, but the fact that you used your creativity and artistry to make our small project a thing of beauty speaks to the spirit with which you design.

Thank you again, for making our property beautiful.

What is particularly interesting is that this was the first of about five or six residential projects done with a team of people, including a developer, an architect, a builder, and landscape contractor. It is an example of the wonderful new homes that can be created when a great team of professionals works in harmony with one another. I think that Pam would make a similar statement about any member of this team. It’s a real tribute to great teamwork.

Prescott garden design: dry stream bed with bridge

Essential to this garden are the wonderful perennials, in juxtaposition with beautifully scaled rock formations. A man-made dry stream bed provides grading and drainage, and becomes the focal point of the garden.

Equally important, the walkway from the sidewalk to the front door features a combination of natural sandstone slabs and precast concrete pavers which have been tumbled for an antique look. We utilized several drought tolerant groundcovers, including an extraordinary native called “pussytoes” between the stepping stones. Part of the walkway is a bridge crossing the dry stream bed.

Following the stream bed further into the property, we see it suddenly becomes part of a group of beautifully wild naturalistic rock formations, set into a plethora of flowering perennials and ornamental grasses. This landscape design project involved a great deal of shaping of the earth, with berming for privacy. As the dry stream bed runs into edges along the berm, it carves away at the base of the berm, exposing a ledge outcropping, as would happen in nature. A beautiful flowering, fruiting multi-stemmed tree on top of the berm provides additional privacy, blocking out both houses across the street, as well as the traffic.

Prescott patio

Prescott garden design: side view

It is the front yard that is the primary garden space. It’s an entry garden. We put most of our strong intention and creativity into beautifying the experience of approaching the front door, as well as looking out from the dining room. Often enough, people put so much of their effort into a more private rear garden, and here this is a garden that greets visitors, establishes the ambiance of the property and the house, as we had hoped that this entry garden would do. Even with the privacy features, it is still quite open to the street, so it adds to the whole neighborhood. It’s no surprise that a lot of people stop to talk and to compliment Pam on her garden.

An entry landscape design that draws the eye to the front door making use of both a small water feature and  a spiraling paving pattern constructed out of both a precaste concerte paver and slabs of sandstone, in a context of boulders, perennials and other plantings.