Where Front Yards Collide: Property Lines in Pictures

We know our own properties. We labor over them, we clean them up and, if we have yards, we trim the hedges and plant the garden. We also know our neighbors’ properties. We jealously eye their manicured lawns or

6 Dramatic Garden Makeovers, From Backyard to Rooftop

A good landscape looks effortless, like it’s always been there and always will be. Although many homeowners fantasize about what their dark, cramped kitchen would look like with a wall removed, visualizing how t

Wild Gardens Bring Excitement and Beauty to Landscapes

Walking down any street in any suburban neighborhood, you can get the pulse of what’s fashionable in the garden. Seeing home after home, you can note how acres of treated lawns blanket landscapes and oddly shea

5 Great Garden Uses for Granite Millstones

Visiting an architectural salvage yard is one of my favorite things to do — old windows, porcelain claw-foot bathtubs from a bygone era and vintage textiles that can be repurposed in creative ways are just some

Explore Your Garden Personality: The Artist

A successfully designed garden should tell the story of those who inhabit it. Like the chapters of a good novel, a successful garden weaves a tapestry of adjectives and verbs that portrays its owner. With heirlo

Light Your Landscape for Drama and Function

In the spectrum of home improvement, landscape lighting might be the most overlooked. It is, however, one of the least-obstructive design projects you can undertake. You won’t have to move out or do without the

Explore Your Garden Personality: The Collector

We gardeners are as varied as the spaces we create. Some of us are artists, creating beautiful, balanced vignettes; some are philosophers, finding meaning in a sparse but thoughtfully executed space. Then there

Explore Your Garden Personality: The Philosopher

A successfully designed garden is one that reflects both the spirit and the needs of its owner. Some of us are artists, using plants, boulders and bed lines to paint pictures of ourselves and how we perceive the

A Family-Friendly California Yard Wises Up About Water

Like many American yards, this one in Menlo Park, California, spent much of its life as a lawn. And, as with many lawns in dry climates, it was time to leave this one behind. The homeowner wanted to remove the e

Upgrade Your Front Yard for Curb Appeal and More

Have you lived too long with an entry you don’t love, vowing that this will be the year of the new front yard? Before beginning your project, you’ll want to consider all the elements and how they work in concert

Nodding to the Coast in a Bainbridge Island Entry Garden

The coastal Pacific Northwest doesn’t conjure scenes of rolling sand dunes or swaying palms quite like sunny Southern California, Cape Cod or Florida does. But coastal is coastal, wherever it is. On Bainbridge I

Courtyard Comforts Make a Seattle Backyard a Joy

Before Tyler Engle renovated the backyard of this Seattle home, the owners had two ways of reaching their house: climb the 30 or so steps from the street to their front door, or traverse the muddy slope from the

Is Your Garden Cut Out for Matisse Inspiration?

Famed French artist Henri Matisse’s cutouts exhibition will be the highlight of the modern art world in 2014. The Tate Modern will be the first to host the show, before it travels to New York’s Museum of Modern

Explore Your Garden Personality: The Whimsical Gardener

Gardeners are as diverse as the gardens they create. The best gardens are those that reflect the personalities and passions of those who make them. Some gardeners are true artists, meticulously creating vignette

Stars and Myths Inspire a Contemporary London Garden

For many gardens the design starts with a problem. The client and designer work through the problem, which the new garden then solves. This garden in London’s Crouch End began with the stars and Antoni Gaudí. In

Creating a There, There in the Garden

Author Gertrude Stein is credited with saying, “There is no there there.” She wasn’t referring to a garden, but the saying is recalled by gardeners who desire to realize the full potential of their personal para

Explore Your Garden Personality: The Extrovert

We gardeners are a diverse crowd. Many of us are introverts, finding joy and solace in communing with nature. The private spaces of introverts tend to reflect their solitary nature, whether they are artists, phi

Orange in the Garden: Do You Dare?

Orange is perhaps the most contentious color to use in the garden — we tend to either love it or hate it. Yet in gardening it has a very good pedigree. Gertrude Jekyll, a Victorian gardener famed for her skill i

6 Basic Elements of Classic Garden Style

Classic gardens are essentially formal gardens. They are defined by clean geometry, symmetry and crisp lines. With roots in ancient history, they reached their pinnacle in formal French gardens such as the ones

Artful Salvage: Old Doors Decorate the Garden

My local salvage yard is brimming with building materials — lighting fixtures, kitchen cabinets, tile, windows and doors. On a recent trip, I was thinking how I might possibly use one of its old doors as an entr