Tag: landscaping

Landscaping around our house was moderately difficult due to the long, narrow lot layout and the steep slope. To help overcome these challenges, we hired a professional landscape architect. Our builder, Yuval, recommended ANR Landscape Design. Our basic request was something fairly low-maintenance which used native plants when possible. Anri came up with a great design that we are very happy with.

There did end up being a few challenges during the design process. The biggest one was providing access to utilities. Our front yard has a lot of utility boxes and lines running under the ground. The backyard has a drainage line running across it. We ended up rearranging the backyard, and changing a lot of the retaining walls from poured concrete to corten steel or basic stacked blocks so that there would be less cost and work if access was ever needed to the underground lines.

Front Yard

The front yard is what we present to the street, so we want it to look nice. It needs to have a pathway from the sidewalk to the front door that is distinct from the public trail on the side of our property. It also needs to accommodate the slope of the yard. With the great eastern and southern exposure here, the front yard is the prime place for growing vegetables.

The resulting design uses several retaining walls to provide a few terraces, including a level area for a vegetable bed. A simple stone path leads from the sidewalk down to our entry. Around the edges, larger bushes and a tree provide some privacy and shield some of the utility boxes from sight. Different types of ornamental grasses provide color variety in different sections. Strawberry and thyme provide low maintenance ground-cover for the remaining space.

The vegetable area has a raised bed with a separate drip sprinkler system. We decided to use hazelnut shells for a softer ground cover than gravel. We also added extra stepping stones in this area to mark and protect an underground utility that is very near the surface. This area turned out nicely; but with a new baby we aren’t actually growing any vegetables this year!

The entry needs to be screened to provide some privacy (especially with package deliveries) without blocking access to the trail next to our house. A simple wood-slat fence with a gate in the middle works well, taking material cues from other parts of our house.

We considered adding a fence and gate at the sidewalk. We later decided those probably weren’t necessary, since the landscaping provides a clear division between the walkway to our front door and the public trail down the hill.

Back Yard

The backyard had already been leveled out with a small retaining wall, so it was the perfect place to have some more interactive space. We want a bit of grass for kids to play in and some seating for enjoying the outdoors. Since there is a public trail to the south, we need a screen to provide some privacy.

A seating area in the south-east corner was built in a style matching our decks. This surrounds a small concrete firepit powered by propane. Next to this, in the shade under the main deck is a rock garden with just a few plants. A set of concrete steps connects the backdoor to the seating area. Most of the rest of the yard is grass.The outer edge has some bushes and ornamental grasses to separate the lawn from the retaining wall. A wood-slat fence matching the one in the front provides privacy along the south edge. The north part of the backyard has more ornamental plants and a tree, with a gravel trail leading to the stairs up the north side of the house.

Side Yards

The side yards have the steepest slope to deal with, so their designs were primarily based around terraces with some basic plants.

The south side has a narrow section of wood-supported terraces. There wasn’t a lot of space between the public trail and the edge of our house, so this was the most reasonable solution. Some bushes and bamboo are planted here to provide a bit of a screen from the trail.

Shade-loving plants were added to the existing terraces along the north side. The terraces and the stairs they line were added earlier. On the north edge of the driveway, we used the wood-slat fence once more to build a small enclosure for our garbage cans. This leaves them easily accessible, but slightly obscured, and out-of-the-way of anything else.

Patterns

There are a lot of patterns around designing outdoor spaces and gardens. Here are some of the ones we used, and how they shaped our design.

Positive Outdoor Space (106)

• Problem: Outdoor spaces which are merely “left over” between buildings will, in general, not be used.
• Therefore: Make all the outdoor spaces which surround and lie between your buildings positive. Give each one some degree of enclosure; surround each space with wings of buildings, trees, hedges, fences, arcades, and trellised walks, until it becomes an entity with positive quality and does not spill out indefinitely around corners.
• In our yard: We have two main areas for gathering, which is around the vegetable bed in the front yard, and most of the backyard. The vegetable bed area is defined by the retaining walls around it, along with a surface of hazelnut shells instead of dirt. The backyard is defined by a fence on top of a retaining wall, the house, and bushes around the edge of the lawn.

Half-Hidden Garden (111)

• Problem: If a garden is too close to the street, people won’t use it because it isn’t private enough. But if it is too far from the street, then it won’t be used either, because it is too isolated.
• Therefore: Do not place the garden fully in front of the house, nor fully to the back. Instead, place it in some kind of half-way position, side-by-side with the house, in a position which is half-hidden from the street, and half-exposed.
• In our yard: We don’t really have a side yard to use in such a way. But with a public trail going down the side of our house, the backyard ended up being a half-hidden garden, with some shelter from the trail, but some exposure, too.

Hierarchy of Open Space (114)

• Problem: Outdoors, people always try to find a spot where they can have their backs protected, looking out toward some larger opening, beyond the space immediately in front of them.
• Therefore: Whatever space you are shaping—whether it is a garden, terrace, street, park, public outdoor room, or courtyard, make sure of two things. First, make at least one smaller space, which looks into it and forms a natural back for it. Second, place it, and its openings, so that it looks into at least one larger space. When you have done this, every outdoor space will have a natural “back”; and every person who takes up the natural position, with his back to this “back”, will be looking out toward some larger distant view.
• In our yard: For us this mainly applies in the backyard. The sitting area with bench has a natural back against the retaining wall, and looks out onto the lawn. The lawn then looks out onto the wilderness around our house, and the distant view.

Terraced Slope (169)

• Problem: On sloping land, erosion caused by run off can kill the soil. It also creates uneven distribution of rainwater over the land, which naturally does less for plant life than it could if it were evenly distributed.
• Therefore: On all land which slopes—in fields, in parks, in public gardens, even in the private gardens around a house—make a system of terraces and bunds which follow the contour lines. Make them by building low walls along the contour lines, and then backfilling them with earth to form the terraces. There is no reason why the building itself should fit into the terraces—it can comfortably cross terrace lines.
• In our yard: This was an obvious one for us. Both sides of the house plus the front yard use terraces to provide flatter areas for landscaping and planting.

Garden Growing Wild (172)

• Problem: A garden which grows true to its own laws is not a wilderness, yet not entirely artificial either.
• Therefore: Grow grasses, mosses, bushes, flowers, and trees in a way which comes close to the way they occur in nature: intermingled, without barriers between them, without bare earth, without formal flower beds, and with all the boundaries and edges made in rough stone and brick and wood which becomes part of the natural growth.
• In our yard: We followed this pretty well, with most plants mixed together. We especially used different ground covers with larger plants like ornamental grasses and shrubs. The main boundaries we have are the retaining walls and a bit of hardscape to walk on.

Garden Wall (173)

• Problem: Gardens and small public parks don’t give enough relief from noise unless they are well protected
• Therefore: Form some kind of enclosure to protect the interior of a quiet garden from the sights and sounds of passing traffic. If it is a large garden or a park, the enclosure can be soft, can include bushes, trees, slopes, and so on. The smaller the garden, however, the harder and more definite the enclosure must become. In a very small garden, form the enclosure with buildings or walls; even hedges and fences will not be enough to keep out sound.
• In our yard: The backyard is enclosed by the building on the east side, and a retaining wall plus fence on the south side. The north side faces our neighbor, and the west side wilderness down the hill from us, so the busy sides are protected. Even the trail isn’t that busy, so just a fence should be enough protection for it.

Vegetable Garden (177)

• Problem: In a healthy town every family can grow vegetables for itself. The time is past to think of this as a hobby for enthusiasts; it is a fundamental part of human life.
• Therefore: Set aside one piece of land either in the private garden or on common land as a vegetable garden. About one-tenth of an acre is needed for each family of four. Make sure the vegetable garden is in a sunny place and central to all the households it serves. Fence it in and build a small storage shed for gardening tools beside it.
• In our yard: We are starting small for this one. We do have a dedicated vegetable bed that is protected and very sunny. In the future, we may convert other areas, especially the south side terraces into vegetable beds, too. We also have a space under the house we can enclose to make a nice shed for tools.

Sitting Wall (243)

• Problem: In many places walls and fences between outdoor spaces are too high; but no boundary at all does injustice to the subtlety of the divisions between the spaces.
• Therefore: Surround any natural outdoor area, and make minor boundaries between outdoor areas with low walls, about 16 inches high, and wide enough to sit on, at least 12 inches wide.
• In our yard: We didn’t make every division a sitting wall, but we do have a couple good ones. The retaining wall above the vegetable bed uses some interesting natural stone blocks, and is just about the right size for sitting on. The standard garden blocks for the lower retaining wall between our backyard and the wilderness also form a nice sitting wall if you want your back to the cultured yard, and to look out on the wild plants nearby.

Overall, we’re quite happy with how things turned out. It ended up being a long project, with a lot of stages to it. But we are excited to see the plants spread out and mature into a more established landscape.

Decks and patios can be just as important to a house as the main rooms. If properly designed, they too act as rooms of the house. Like interior rooms, they should connect logically to the rest of the house, and to attract people to them, they must be spacious and laid out properly.

The obvious place for a deck is outside the living room to the west. It is easily accessible from the main floor and looks out towards the view. We made it about the same size as the living room, nestled into the corner of the stair tower.

The second natural deck location is the roof of the garage. This temptingly large surface is roughly level with the second floor. Following the Roof Garden pattern, the space is divided into a green roof and a deck. A built in bench provides a nice sitting space. The deck portion was designed lower than the green roof, giving a sense of sitting in the greenery.

Outdoor Room (163)

• Problem: A garden is the place for lying in the grass, swinging, croquet, growing flowers, throwing a ball for the dog. But there is another way of being outdoors: and its needs are not met by the garden at all.
• Therefore: Build a place outdoors which has so much enclosure round it, that it takes on the feeling of a room, even though it is open to the sky. To do this, define it at the corners with columns, perhaps roof it partially with a trellis or a sliding canvas roof, and create “walls” around it, with fences, sitting walls, screens, hedges, or the exterior walls of the building itself.
• In our home: Both of our decks are designed as outdoor rooms. The main deck mirrors the living room in position and size. It has a railing that feels comfortably enclosing, but still leaves a connection to the wider outdoors. Its placement gives it some of the best views in the house, while directly connecting it to the main social spaces. It will be easy and attractive to move from the living room to the deck when the weather allows. It has a natural gas outlet available so we can use a grill out there in the future.
  
  The upper deck is a private room. It is enclosed by the building wall on one side and the back of the bench on the other. It has a bit of roof overhang to enclose it, too. The location off of the master bathroom and laundry room makes it easily accessible for the family. The bench and green roof make it an attractive place to spend time.

Six-Foot Balcony (167)

• Problem: Balconies and porches which are less than six feet deep are hardly every used.
• Therefore: Whenever you build a balcony, a porch, a gallery, or a terrace always make it at least six feet deep. It possible, recess at least a part of it into the building so that it is not cantilevered out and separated from the building by a simple line, and enclose it partially.
• In our home: The main deck off the living room is about the same size of our living room. It sits in two corners of the house to achieve a recessed feel.The upper deck is wider but not as deep as the lower deck. It is about 10′ deep, including the bench. Being above the garage, it feels tightly attached to the rest of the building.
  

Roof Garden (118)

• Problem: A vast part of the earth’s surface, in a town, consists of roofs. Couple this with the fact that the total area of a town which can be exposed to the sun is finite, and you will realize that it is natural, and indeed essential, to make roofs which take advantage of the sun and air.
• Therefore: Make parts of almost every roof system usable as roof gardens. Make these parts flat, perhaps terraced for planting, with places to sit and sleep, private places. Place the roof gardens at various stories, and always make it possible to walk directly out onto the roof garden from some lived-in part of the building.
• In our home: The biggest accessible roof space in our house is above the garage. We split that into a roof garden and a deck. The roof garden is a green roof system from GreenFeathers. Plants are grown in modules at the company’s nursery for several months. Once the plants are established, they are transported to our house. The modules are placed on the roof, and the liners are removed to connect the sections together. It is designed for our climate and should need almost no maintenance. During the hottest days of summer it will need a bit of hand-watering; but otherwise will take care of itself. We have the largest green roof in the development so far, and we went with some deeper modules. The deeper modules allow larger plants to grow, including some that will turn in to small bushes. There are a variety of plants to provide variation in height, color, and bloom time. The layout includes some terra cotta stones to provide access to all parts of the garden.
  
  The deck next to the green roof provides a sitting (and even sleeping) space. It feels tightly integrated with the plants, placing a garden at your back as you sit on the bench.

  The other major part of our roof is the butterfly top. It is not so easily accessible, so we did not add a deck or garden up there. To make it potentially usable space in the future, we ran a conduit from the electrical box to the roof. This will allow us to easily add solar panels on the roof when we desire.

From layout, we moved to materials. Ipe is a popular wood for decks. It is weather resistant, and turns a silvery color over time. Yuval prefers batu. It is also weather resistant, cheaper than ipe, and has a rich red color. The warm color provides a contrast to the cool colors of our house, and Seattle’s typical cool, cloudy weather.

No deck is complete without a railing — no safe deck, at least. Like the other houses, we chose a slatted design using the batu. The vertical posts are powder-coated steel. Originally we considered stainless steel. Eventually, we decided to use a darker color to match the interior window trim. That helps to make the posts disappear and lets attention be drawn to the view. For similar reasons, we went with a horizontal strip of batu on the top of the railing instead of a cylindrical steel tube.

We’re happy with how the decks and green roof turned out. They are warm, comfortable, and inviting places. We should make good use of both decks (when the weather allows).