A rustic cedar arbor is host to a number of climbing vegetable vines. Raised planting beds edged with blue stone define gravel paths. Robert Benson Photography

This exquisite home on Philadelphia's Main Line underwent a total landscape transformation. Overgrown plantings and invasive species were removed to make room for a transitional landscape that functions for this family's low-maintenance lifestyle. Here, boxwoods are interplanted with native species and formal lines are combined with a rain garden. This updated landscape now supports the client's lifestyle as well as the surrounding environment!

Our homeowners were looking for a garden where they could sit by the fire, grow vegetable and hear the sound of water. Their home was new construction in a modern farmhouse style. We used gravel and concrete as paving. Board formed concrete firepit keeps it feeling modern. The vegetable beds supply season vegetables and herbs.

Joe Runde

A good garden keeps the critters out while allowing easy access when you want to go grab a few cherry tomatoes or head of lettuce. All of our gardens are fully enclosed with attractive fencing and have at least one gate for convenient entrance. Other great features include raised beds filled with nutrient rich organic soil, weed-controlled isles covered with quality pea gravel, and all-natural (untreated) lumber.

Modern Style Wall using Techo-Bloc's Graphix wall & caps.

rick abalos

Espelier pear trees, inground herb beds, raised vegetable planters, wood pergola

raised veggie beds, sun dial, concrete walls

W.D. Wells & Associates, Inc. https://www.facebook.com/wdwells.inc Project Entry: The Potager Garden at Stonebridge Mansion 2013 PLNA Awards for Landscape Excellence Winner Category: Theme Garden Award Level: Bronze Project Description: The Potager Garden at Stonebridge Mansion was completed as part ofthe Oxford Arts Alliance 2011Decorator's Showcase. The Garden is a fun and productive garden featuring culinary & medicinal herbs, vegetables, and sustainable gardening concepts. Many sustainable practices can be seen throughout the project such as a compost bin, a rain water harvesting system, and use of many native herbs and vegetables. A Potager is a French term for an ornamental vegetable garden or kitchen garden. We made sure to keep that in mind as we designed the space. By using a number of herbs that have both culinary and medicinal use we are trying to encourage the public to find more sustainable, home grown options for their own food and medicine. The project also features a vertical herbal wall which is a new idea taking shape in the industry. The wall allows you to provide herbs and vegetables with an optimum growing environment while saving an exorbitant amount of space. It gives people with limited space or poor growing conditions, such as people who live in cities an opportunity to grow their own herbs and vegetables. In addition to the herb wall, vegetables such as lettuce, spinach,beans,tomatoes, and many more can be seen throughout the garden. The garden is located adjacent to the kitchen of the residence to further enhance the garden to table idea. We hope that after seeing this fun themed garden people can both enjoy the space,but also try to apply many of the practices we show to their own landscape. We encouraged visitors to stroll through,or sit awhile in our garden, and learn about rain water harvesting, food crops,vertical gardening,and more! Plant List: Botanical Name (Common Name) 16 - Buxus microphylla 'Franklin's Gem' (Franklin's Gem Boxwood) 1 - Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo) 3 - Dicentra eximia (Bleeding Heart) 5 - Hellebourous orienta/is (Lenten Rose) 8 - Vaccinium corymbost"1J (Highbush B;ueberry) 4 - Hellianthus anuus (Sunflower) 15 - Calendula officina/is (Marigold) 30 - Assorted Vegetables 30 - Assorted Herbs Photo Credit: W.D. Wells & Associates, Inc.

The problem this Memorial-Houston homeowner faced was that her sumptuous contemporary home, an austere series of interconnected cubes of various sizes constructed from white stucco, black steel and glass, did not have the proper landscaping frame. It was out of scale. Imagine Robert Motherwell's "Black on White" painting without the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston's generous expanse of white walls surrounding it. It would still be magnificent but somehow...off. Intuitively, the homeowner realized this issue and started interviewing landscape designers. After talking to about 15 different designers, she finally went with one, only to be disappointed with the results. From the across-the-street neighbor, she was then introduced to Exterior Worlds and she hired us to correct the newly-created problems and more fully realize her hopes for the grounds. "It's not unusual for us to come in and deal with a mess. Sometimes a homeowner gets overwhelmed with managing everything. Other times it is like this project where the design misses the mark. Regardless, it is really important to listen for what a prospect or client means and not just what they say," says Jeff Halper, owner of Exterior Worlds. Since the sheer size of the house is so dominating, Exterior Worlds' overall job was to bring the garden up to scale to match the house. Likewise, it was important to stretch the house into the landscape, thereby softening some of its severity. The concept we devised entailed creating an interplay between the landscape and the house by astute placement of the black-and-white colors of the house into the yard using different materials and textures. Strategic plantings of greenery increased the interest, density, height and function of the design. First we installed a pathway of crushed white marble around the perimeter of the house, the white of the path in homage to the house’s white facade. At various intervals, 3/8-inch steel-plated metal strips, painted black to echo the bones of the house, were embedded and crisscrossed in the pathway to turn it into a loose maze. Along this metal bunting, we planted succulents whose other-worldly shapes and mild coloration juxtaposed nicely against the hard-edged steel. These plantings included Gulf Coast muhly, a native grass that produces a pink-purple plume when it blooms in the fall. A side benefit to the use of these plants is that they are low maintenance and hardy in Houston’s summertime heat. Next we brought in trees for scale. Without them, the impressive architecture becomes imposing. We placed them along the front at either corner of the house. For the left side, we found a multi-trunk live oak in a field, transported it to the property and placed it in a custom-made square of the crushed marble at a slight distance from the house. On the right side where the house makes a 90-degree alcove, we planted a mature mesquite tree. To finish off the front entry, we fashioned the black steel into large squares and planted grass to create islands of green, or giant lawn stepping pads. We echoed this look in the back off the master suite by turning concrete pads of black-stained concrete into stepping pads. We kept the foundational plantings of Japanese yews which add green, earthy mass, something the stark architecture needs for further balance. We contoured Japanese boxwoods into small spheres to enhance the play between shapes and textures. In the large, white planters at the front entrance, we repeated the plantings of succulents and Gulf Coast muhly to reinforce symmetry. Then we built an additional planter in the back out of the black metal, filled it with the crushed white marble and planted a Texas vitex, another hardy choice that adds a touch of color with its purple blooms. To finish off the landscaping, we needed to address the ravine behind the house. We built a retaining wall to contain erosion. Aesthetically, we crafted it so that the wall has a sharp upper edge, a modern motif right where the landscape meets the land.