Countryside Escape
A new build in the Scottish countryside was a blank slate for a biodiverse garden design. The design screens close neighbors and utilities and adds lush planting to a bare site, blending seamlessly into the surroundings with a carefully chosen plant palette. The main feature of the design are dry stone walls, bringing the language of the Scottish country landscape into the garden. They act as retaining walls, seats, thresholds, and even a water feature throughout the garden, punctuating the flowing landscape and setting off the naturalistic planting.
A pocket within an expansive Michigan backyard offered space for an intensive, native planting design. The owners share our focus on biodiversity and ecological plantings and requested a lush planting design with no ground exposed. The final design builds off existing structural plantings (evergreen pines and shrubs), providing a long bloom season for pollinators that bounce off the grasses and ferns which offer cohesion throughout the year. The layered planting is showcased in the palette collage. The final, micro-woodland design can be viewed from inside the home, in the screened in porch, or out on the patio.