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The city garden site constraints are typical of a low density urban area; a large house on a small corner lot, with much of the garden space exposed to public view. The front and side yards are narrow, less than 30' wide, and the ground plane slopes up to the house from the sidewalk. The challenge was to create a sense of space and privacy without building a screen. The garden is organized around a path that circles the house. The path moves through different landscapes typologies - a birch grove underplanted with ferns and woodland wildflowers, a mass of rugosa roses, a meadow in full sun - and flows into a sunken garden and up to a bluestone patio shielded from the street. The wildflowers and meadow die back to the ground in the fall, leaving the path as a line on the ground. The path reappears in spring, framed by drifts of narcissus and fern crosiers. Through the course of the summer, the meadow planting grows to over 4' tall, creating a private space for movement, a space not visible from the sidewalk until it is occupied. |
