Year: 2022

Location: Park Slope, Brooklyn

Scope: design, project management, masonry, planting, irrigation

A full-color bluestone patio fills the front of the garden from edge to edge, providing a clean foundation for gathering and lounging. A corridor of the same, full-color stones, interplanted with fragrant Thymus praecox (Creeping Thyme), leads you to a second patio and dining area. 

A cedar pergola in a classical style offers a bit of old-world elegance and creates a geometric play of light and shadow that moves across the garden with the sun. Lonicera periclymenum (Honeysuckle) vines climb its legs, reaching for the uppermost beams.

A diverse and layered planting includes an offset pair of pink-flowering Lagerstroemia Tuscarora (Crape Myrtles), a trio of rose bushes retained from the original garden, three species of Boxwoods in different shapes and sizes, Abelia grandiflora (Abelia), Caryopteris (Bluebeard), bush-sized Rosemary, showy flowering perennials including Irises and Alliums, and big grasses including Miscanthus sinensis (Silver Grass) and Pennisetum (Fountain Grass).

A custom cedar fence creates a luxurious sense of privacy, complementing the wood of the pergola and providing a backdrop for the contrasting textures and colors of stones and plants.