Low-profile landscape plantings under the arching redbud create focus on the front entry while walking through the garden. Rectilinear containers amplify the mid-century modern lines of the home.

K. Dakin Design won the 2018 CARE award from the Custom Builder and Remodeler Council of Denver for the reimagination of the landscape around this classic organic-modernist home designed by Charles Haertling. The landscape design is inspired by the original home and it’s materials, especially the distinct, clean lines of the architecture and the natural, stone veneer found on the house and landscape walls. The outlines of garden beds, a small patio and a water feature reiterate the home’s straight walls juxtaposed against rough, irregular stone facades and details. This sensitivity to the architecture is clearly seen in the triangular shapes balanced with curved forms. The clients, a couple with busy lives, wanted a simple landscape with lawn for their dogs to fetch balls. The amenities they desired were a spa, vegetable beds, fire pit, and a water feature. They wanted to soften the tall, site walls with plant material. All the material, such as the discarded, stone veneer and left-over, flagstone paving was recycled into new edging around garden areas, new flagstone paths, and a water feature. The front entry walk was inspired by a walkway at Gunnar Asplund’s cemetary in Sweden. All plant material, aside from the turf, was low water, native or climate appropriate.

After! This space has been transformed and is once again alive. Beautiful stonewall adds the perfect touch to all the flowers and plants that have been added into this space.

メルボルンにある中くらいな、冬のミッドセンチュリースタイルのおしゃれな庭 (ゼリスケープ、日向) の写真

Because this property is a rural, riverside acreage, the plantings were designed to naturalize themselves. Grasses are the "hair of the planet," wrote Oehme & Van Sweden in their iconic "Bold and Romantic Gardens." Grasses will be the first to take over a garden. This property is designed towards this reality. A few intentional ornamental grasses set up design rhythms and repetition just for that eventuality. When - not if - it happens, the grounds won't look weedy and overgrown between maintenance visits. The other plantings are a melange of opportunistic yet complimentary species, with a focus on foliage: Engleman ivy, Corsican violets, golden currant, columbines. Using native shrubs and forbs such as these ascribe to the reality of volunteer plants. Birds will spread them far and wide, so why not start there? What else evokes Colorado as well as the plants that thrive here?

A happy 'Guacamole' hosta sits in the corner off the edge of the patio. Renn Kuhnen Photography
ミルウォーキーにあるお手頃価格の中くらいな、夏のミッドセンチュリースタイルのおしゃれな庭 (半日向) の写真

メルボルンにある中くらいな、冬のミッドセンチュリースタイルのおしゃれな庭 (ゼリスケープ、日向) の写真