Janet Butler
If you envision your back yard with individual outdoor spaces for meditation, relaxation, or entertaining, you’ll love the inspiration you get from these images of the best gardens we’ve seen in 2013 at Stylish Eve. Love velvety green lawn? It’s prominent here, bordered by stone retaining walls — some covered in ivies — high native grasses, or even putting greens. “Just plain green” is the star of formal gardens with stone paths, fountains, fire bowls, modern sculpture, and outdoor seating or pool areas as their major “color” features. In these, you’ll find trimmed boxwood and other shrubbery, low-level ground cover, or topiary that wraps you in verdant gradations and smooth, serene textures. On the other side of the coin, however, some of our favorites also have what most of us think of when we think “gardening” — flowers.
Bursts of hydrangea, snowball, lilac, rose, geranium, heather, lupine, and rhododendron edge walks and porches in these bright and fragrant gardens. Garden gates are less parts of fence than landscape; covered in greenery and all the hues of the rainbow, arches provide gorgeous passages from one part of the property to another. Floral color gives homes great “curb appeal,” as you can see on several concrete stairways and inclines dotted with flowers and ornamental grasses. This holds true even for less flamboyant, more “traditional” or formal gardens — the entries to some of the most dignified estates in the world are decorated with climbers of all colors. Absorb all these effects, use some of them in your own back yard, and who knows? Your garden might be in this show sometime soon!
