The design concept for this garden was to create a “Mediterranean” style garden taking into account the features and style of the home, as well as the requirements of the homeowners.
The existing garden area was dominated by a well worn lawn area, a large expanse of concrete driveway, an old incinerator area and a cracked and faded patio. The patio was open and exposed to the full force of the elements. The garage was isolated and rather stark, separated from the home. There was an old lemon tree as the only plant in the garden.
The design concept took the garden from this unused stage to a lush planted and grassy green garden with focal points, features and locations and a “green driveway”
The existing patio was enlarged and paved with hand made saltillo tiles and a built in BBQ and bar counter was constructed as the feature of the space. A large wood pergola structure was constructed over the patio to provide shade and scale to the space.
A low seat wall extends from behind the BBQ around the feature pot fountain and around the built in fire-pit. The seat wall is toped with the same tile as was used for the patio. Feature detail tiles were placed randomly in the BBQ and seat wall and fire-pit.
A random size poured in place stained concrete path was laid through the garden leading from the driveway to the side door of the house, from the house to the garage and along the patio and surrounding the fire pit area. The path is laid through the grass. Around the fire-pit area Thyme and Gazania are planted between the path stones.
An Arbor matching the construction of the pergola over the patio was constructed along the front of the garage building and over the garage doors. Grape vines were planted to grow up the posts of the arbor and hang down through the arbor.
The existing concrete driveway was removed and replaced with a “green driveway’. We used grass-crete pavers and seeded the area with a high ware grass. This adds much needed green to the garden and gives the impression of a much larger lawn area.
A large mature Olive tree was planted as the feature tree of the garden and to bring the garage back to scale and add much needed form and shade to the garden. The rest of the planting in this garden was mass plantings of Mexican Saga and Buddleia. Rows of Italian Cypress were planted to screen the neighboring building and to add form behind the fire-pit seat wall. Bougainville was added for splashes of color and citrus trees to provide fruit.
Feature lighting was installed to highlight features and plants in the garden.
Take a look at the process photos of this job bellow.
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