Finding your Garden Style
Traditional Gardens
If you have a formal aesthetic and strong architectural features, you may want to take a formal approach to your landscaping. Traditional gardens go well with colonial, Italian and French inspired architecture. These gardens are known for their wide expanses of perfectly trimmed lawns, rows of orderly clipped hedges, framed views of stone fountains, cleanly edged walkways, and masonry exteriors of brick and stone. In most cases, traditional garden styles focus on symmetry and balance.
Garden Elements
Symmetry through the repetition of the same plantings on either side of the yard or walkway.
Straight lines, straight paths and bold geometric forms
Horizontal expanses of green manicured lawn.
Formal hedges pruned into repetitive shapes
Pea Gravel: surfacing walks, drives and terraces with inexpensive pea gravel will create a “crunch” when you cross it.
Plants To Consider:
Boxwood Hedges
Lavender
Rose Bushes & Shrubs
Peonies
Tulips
Yew Shrubs
Cottage Gardens
Cottage gardens are often known as the relaxed and sometimes unruly offspring of the traditional garden style. While cottage gardens use many of the same plants as traditional gardens, they are typically colorful and diverse, and have a tendency to spill over lawns and paths, creating softer edges. These plants utilize every available space, creating a feeling of charm and “organized mess.”
Garden Elements
Mixed plants that spill over walkways, walls, and containers
Clay Pots, White Picket Fences, and Window Boxes
Informal plantings that appear “randomly placed” with very little open space.
Natural materials like brick, gravel, decomposed stone and mulch used for pathways.
Plants that spill or climb over fences, garden arches, trellises, walls, fences, and pathways to “soften” the edges.
Plants To Consider:
Flowering perennials
Creeping jenny
Creeping Flox
Ivy
Shasta Daisies
Modern Contemporary
In modern and contemporary gardens, the traditional plants are often replaced by drought tolerant plants, and often focus more on hardscape than softscape. Modern and contemporary landscapes utilize curves, clean-lines, wooden accents, and industrial elements to create a minimalistic feel. The design focuses heavily on the function of the materials rather than nature and the overall focus of these gardens is on leisure and entertaining; outdoor living is at the heart of this garden style.
Garden Elements
Geometric-shaped concrete stepping stones are common in modern and contemporary garden styles because they’re highly versatile and inexpensive.
Architectural sculptures or planters made from concrete, resin or ceramic in solid colors
Metal or wood elements that create lines and dimension can help to carry out the modern look of this garden style.
Water features like ponds and fountains with clean lines and geometric shapes are a staple in modern garden styles.
Garden Walls are a contemporary version of vegetable gardens that allow homeowners to grow produce while maintaining their aesthetic and saving space
Plants to Consider
Tropical Plants such as: palm trees, Myrcianthes fragrans, Aptenia 'Red Apple, Carissa macrocarpa, Clusia guttifera, Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower).
Drought tolerant plants such as: blue fescue grass, Mexican Feather Grass, Quercus agrifolia, Ceanothus 'Concha', Arctostaphylos, Cercis occidentalis, Cistus, Rosmarinus officinalis and various cactus varieties.
Stick to a neutral color pallet
Planting trees, such as Japanese Maples, help create a structural element in modern gardens. Their canopies are not too large, and there may be several in a row to create a hedge effect.
Note: When choosing hardscape materials, keep in mine the style you want for your garden. More rustic, distressed and bumpy materials make a natural or cottage style, whereas more refined materials will learn toward traditional and modern.
