Now, today we're looking at Sandras garden in Portland, Oregon. It's a charming, craftsman-style bungalow. And it looks like the exterior is done in white stucco. Now, there are a few things that I would suggest to help bump up the charm factor, which is exactly what Sandra says she would like to do.
First, I think that there's an opportunity to remove all of the grass and make this entire space, here and here, even out here, I assume that's the curb, garden and that's what we want to do.
The other thing is that you can see that we've got a flower bed from here to here and here to here and it stops and it's not on center with the house. So as we think about the design of this particular garden, I want to make sure that we try to create some symmetry. Here's the rail, the post, columns on the front. Here. So, we want to make sure that we're symmetrical with that line. So let's get started.
Alright. Now, to bump up the charm factor, I always like to lean on a classic picket fence and you can create just about any style you like, but it's fun to come up with a motif that fits a craftsman-style house. So, I would encourage you, Sandra, to look for a craftsman-style motif, but what I would do is bring it across to here. And I would bring it across... Here. And do some sort of gate and do it in the craftsman style. Pickets along here or do a nice simple post, simple post here and bring those pickets all the way down. This doesn't need to be elaborate. Come across like this. Now, it could be white or what might be more interesting would be to let this fence and gate be a really dark chocolate brown. Now, I can't tell the color of your door here, but let's just assume that it is a really dark chocolate color. You could bring that color out here to the fence, which would make it really interesting.
Then another hard scape component that I would add would be here. I would create the width of the sidewalk. Whatever that is. Let's call it four feet, perhaps. I would lay some flagstone right here. Maybe just a couple of flagstones and then you can see that we have really centered this up.
Alright, now let's talk about some of the plants we might want to use here. Not sure what's going on over here on this corner. Looks like that it might be, well, some sort of evergreen, but what about if we did some kind of a camellia over here, and I would love if there was enough room, it's a little hard to see, but a pair of Yoshino cherries with their pale pink blossoms. One on that side and one over here would be fantastic and pull them a little close to the street because you don't want them getting up into the eave of the house.
Let's remove all of the grass and create a path that comes around the side of the house and I would just do that and small gravel, maybe some flagstone, and use the inside of that as a way to plant or as a place to plant lots of different kinds of flowers.
There are opportunities here, of course, to do some kind of a rose that would grow across the fence here and here and maybe even one up this column and this column, come across here. If we went with sort of a peachy salmon color, you could use Colette. If you wanted to go with a more golden color, you might go for Polka. I grow both of those and love them. Then on the fence I would either use Colette or Polka. I wouldn't mix it up too much.
Then on the inside of the fence there's a wide range of perennials you can grow. Just think of some of the old classics such as iris, phlox, and peonies. For summer you could use purple coneflowers and then there's just no end to the annuals you could grow. For instance this whole bed along here, I would take out this deciduous material here and here and make all of this flower bed. I would do a pair of boxwoods or evergreens here on each side and then let this just be all low annuals. And here's where you could really have a lot of fun through the growing season, you might do a whole range of purples like that wonderful Royal, Velvet purple petunia. You might use a beautiful blue sage. There are many of those to choose from. Artemisia for silver tones and just think about all of these flowers being in the cool range and then these warm colored roses up against this white stucco.
We've got a real charmer here, Sandra. And I hope these ideas help you out.
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love the idea you give me some great idea's for my house thank you so much! wow
kiekie84 1 year ago