Teach Your Landscape Rhythm: The Heartbeat of Garden Design

According to Marjorie Elliot Bevlin, author of Design through Discovery: The Elements of Design (my 1980s college textbook), there are six elements and seven principles of design. These universal rules are especially hel

Lay of the Landscape: Natural Garden Style

A natural garden reflects its surrounding landscape — Midwestern prairies, New England forests, Texas wildflower fields, or Southwestern deserts. Natural gardens arent formal; they feature free-form plantings and soft ed

Breeze Into Coastal Landscapes: Design for Wind and Waves

Coastal landscaping offers unique opportunities and challenges. Salty winds are tough on plants and people, yet the breeze brings anticipation and motion — an opportunity to bring the garden alive with flowing grasses an

Keep Your Garden in Lines: The Strongest Design Element

A line is the strongest visual element of design — but not necessarily straight. Diagonal, arcing, and S-shaped lines powerfully move the eye through a landscape. Lines signal: Look here. Move here. Follow me. I mentio

Formal Parterre Gardens: Timeless Elegance for Modern Yards

A kept-to-perfection garden adds undeniable charm and desirability to a home. The formal parterre garden, created by 16th-century French designer Claude Mollett, is a classic, gorgeous look for anyone with a green thumb

Garden Design Essentials: Texture

At least two senses engage when you bring texture into the landscape: touch and sight. Marjorie Elliott Bevlin wrote in Design Through Discovery: The Elements and Principles, Textures are so much a part of our environme

Vegetable Garden Lessons from Longwood Gardens

Join me for a trip to Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, to visit one of the worlds great gardens — Longwood Gardens, Pierce du Ponts showpiece. Its not just an exhibition garden; its a teaching and experimental garden. Case

Longwood Gardens Conservatories: A Plant Lover's Dream

You might think of carpet cleaners when hearing du Pont. Garden lovers envision lush plantings, grand greenhouses, and arboretums. The du Pont family crafted some of Americas greatest gardens, and Longwood, Winterthur, a

Garden Design Essentials: Shape and Mass

Im reviewing elements and principles of design from my 1980s college textbook Design Through Discovery by Marjorie Elliott Bevlin, exploring these classic themes through garden projects. Shape and mass are interrelated

Focus Your Garden Palette: The Power of Color Themes

Color surrounds us, and in the garden its one of our most powerful resources — a unique form of self-expression. When decorating homes, we follow color schemes. In gardens, we tend toward eclectic mixes of flower and fol

How to Work With a Landscape Professional

Even if you excel at interior decorating, landscape design presents unique challenges that may leave you stumped. It requires a totally different skill set and changes over time — flowers wither, trees mature, shrubs spr

Longwood Gardens Pathways: A Journey Through Design

In a previous ideabook, I introduced Longwood Gardens conservatories in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Now, lets explore the pathways of these magnificent gardens. Longwood Gardens challenges photographers — not just due

8 Ornamental Grasses for Stunning Coastal Gardens

Ornamental grasses are among the easiest plants for coastal design — nearly all tolerate salt spray and harsh ocean winds. They look magnificent massed, which helps wind move up and over plants without damage. But the nu

The Ribbon Driveway: Eco-Friendly Classic Returns

This week my husband and I present our ribbon driveway plans to the township zoning board. This classic design — green grass running between two parallel pavement strips — dates back to the 1920s, born before widespread

Modern Garden Style: Bold Lines, Clean Aesthetics

A modern or contemporary landscape is defined by its emphasis on strong structural and graphic elements, clean lines, and unusual materials. Its bold, often stark, with strong visual lines running throughout and hardscap

Mastering Positive-Negative Space in Garden Design

Space is a fundamental element of design, ever-present in the outdoor world through vast skies, endless horizons, and distant treelines. In our own landscapes, how we manipulate space can dramatically enhance a garden or

Climbing Plants Suit Small Gardens

21st-century lifestyle leaves many with smaller gardens where every inch is precious. Climbers and wall shrubs expand planting opportunity, giving wealth of form, color, texture through the gardening year. Besides decora

Topiaries Carve a Place Indoors and Out

Topiary gardens take years to grow and perfect (not for faint of heart). For those committed to maintaining a formal topiary garden, results can be magnificent. Join me for a look at inspirational topiary designs, from s

Geometry Roots Great Garden Design

Geometry may have been dull at school, but it significantly influenced garden design through ages. Use of geometry as a design tool journeys from ancient Persian gardens to Renaissance European parterres to contemporary

Lay of the Landscape: Mediterranean Garden Style

If you live where summers are dry and hot (or warm) and winters warm and wet, a Mediterranean-influenced garden thrives: lush, inviting, generally low maintenance, filled with drought-tolerant plants. These gardens invit