By Dorothy Foltz-Gray,
HGTV Ideas magazine
When JoMei Chang moved to Palo Alto, California, 10 years ago, she found a house with a 100-year-old oak tree on the lawn. The tree and sunny climate inspired Chang: she would create outdoor living spaces--an office wired for the Internet, a breakfast room and a formal dining room.
Although Chang, the president and CEO of Vitria, an e-business infrastructure software company, had never before seen an outdoor room, her vision anticipated a now flourishing trend. No longer are Americans content to plop a grill outside the back door and call that a patio. Why? Garden designer Gilly Love, author of Making the Most of Outdoor Spaces, believes that pale indoor lives drive the new outdoor creativity here and abroad. "We're an office lot," she says. "Everything is done on-screen. So we appreciate the outside. We're moving away from gardens that are just beautiful things for the wealthy. The outside is now a place to escape to."
A Tradition Reborn
Of course, outdoor rooms are hardly new. They've been around since the first gardens. Still, some of us feel at a loss when it comes to competing with Babylonia. "We aren't really a nation of gardeners yet," says garden designer John Greenlee, the owner of Greenlee Nursery in Pomona and Malibu, California, who creates living--as in alive--rooms out of plants, grasses and vines. "We're at an awkward teenage stage." We may warm to the idea of outdoor rooms, but where to start?
For starters, quit thinking about the neighbors and have some fun. Greenlee recommends outlining your new outdoor room with grasses or trainable trees such as willow and apple. Shingle the roof in trellises of grapes, pomegranates or roses. His own favorite: a 100-foot circle of giant Chinese silver grass. Mowed to the ground in February, it's 12 feet tall by September. "It's a living piece of art that becomes a private space as it grows," he says. "When the meadow grows, I cut a maze of trails to the circle. To get in, you have to pick the right path. It's wild."
Consider Form and Function
Says Gilly Love, "Think of the outside as a place for people, not plants. Do you want a private space where you can light candles and chill out? Or do you want something functional like a second dining room? Do you want it lively with splashing water and lots of scents that arouse the senses?"
As you decide on form and function, you also have to consider practical elements. Will you need lighting, walls, fencing? Is yours a shady spot? If so, sun-hungry plants are out. What's your budget? Once you assess possibilities and limitations, you can decide on decor. If you're working with a covered patio or porch, Kitty Bartholomew, host of HGTV's Kitty Bartholeomew: You're Home, suggests starting with cotton throw rugs or olefin, a color-safe, moisture-resistant indoor/outdoor carpeting, to create borders and a sense of the room. Of course flooring can also be grass, brick, flagstone, pine needles or wood. "But," says Gilly Love, "don't think, 'It's a garden so it has to be lawn.'"
Apply the same creativity when you think about lighting, advises Daria Price Bowman, the author of Pleasures of the Porch. String lights in trees or inside umbrellas. Try candles and torches. Put lights along paths and in ponds. "It's inexpensive to have an electrician run wiring in a garden," she says. "Just make sure you know where the wiring is, and turn the electricity off whenever you're digging." Or simply set candles in iron candelabra hung from tree branches.
Another magic addition to outdoor rooms is water. JoMei Chang hid an ugly shed on a neighbor's property by building a brick wall, a lion's head spitting water at its center. "It transformed the ugliest part of the yard into a Tuscanlike setting," says Chang. Yet water projects needn't be elaborate. Many garden catalogs advertise small pump fountains that can be hung on a wall.
To furnish your room, again think inside. "If the space is safe and covered, why couldn't you put up a mirror?" asks Bartholomew. "Or hang a hammock in a covered space with lots of pillows and a comforter. You're adding interest and comfort." If your space is small, think vertical. "Buy a skinny iron baking rack where you can set magazines, books, plates or potted plants," she says. "Or hang a bookshelf on the wall."
Tips for Getting Started
What you spend--in money and time--on outdoor rooms is up to you. But experts agree that certain approaches can make the outward voyage easier on both the nerves and the pocketbook.
- Immerse yourself in research. The English snoop in other gardens, private and public, whenever they can. That's part of what makes their garden rooms so great, says Daria Price Bowman, the author of Pleasures of the Porch: "The more we go see great gardens and get ideas, the more we will add to our landscape design vocabulary."
- Enjoy the process. It takes time for vines to grow or plants to fill in. But as garden designer Greenlee says, "Gardening is about the trip, not the destination."
- Indulge your whimsies. "In Italian gardens you press on a plate, and it sprays you," says Greenlee, who filled in a bed frame with growing grass to inspire outdoor lovemaking. "Most garden rooms are too buttoned up. They're no place to put a smile on your face."
- Extend inside taste outside. Whatever gives you joy inside will translate to the outside, says Urban Arts and Ecology's Jane Weissman. "Combine things there that are useful and fun, like a birdhouse, a chair and chimes."
Resources Garden Rooms
by Catriona Tudor Erlee (ISBN: 0737006013)
Order this
title.
Making the Most of Outdoor Spaces
by Gilly Love (ISBN: 0847821358)
Order this
title.
Pleasures of the Porch: Ideas for Gracious Outdoor Living
by Daria Price Bowman (ISBN: 084782005X )
Order this
title.
Spiritual Gardening: Creating Sacred Space Outdoors
by Peg Streep (ISBN: 0737000600 )
Order this
title.
)
)
)
)
)
