Landscape Details
Attention paid to the fine details can transform a ho-hum garden into a fabulous garden

A terra cotta face highlighted with low voltage landscape lighting dresses up a fence panel, and custom designed stepping stones add a personal touch to a garden path.

A vegetable / kitchen garden can be more than just a patch of soil or a simple raised bed. Thoughtfully chosen building materials and containers add interest and raise plants up to easy harvesting height. Tall pots can add immediate height to a young garden bed.

The warm colors of this flagstone patio complement the plum foliage colors and cedar fence.

Curb Appeal
First impressions are important. The entry to our homes can set the mood for our visitors; a great entry garden can make our guests think, wow, this is someplace special.

Re-installing an existing flagstone walkway and adding some inexpensive plants freshen up a tired front yard; the homeowner anticipates a quick sale.
 

Plants soften a new wheelchair ramp. This bed is designed to be seen from all sides and is comprised of all soft-textured plants, nothing to scratch as quests walk or roll by.

A little time spent fixing up the front yard may draw more potential buyers to tour a home for sale; but don't go overboard...keep the landscaping in scale with the homes value and style, and in scale with neighboring properties.

Award Winning Gardens

The Gardensmith's spring 2005 Portland Home & Garden Show silver medal winning garden, installed by Cornerstone Landscapes, featured Heritage Rock LLC's Columbia River basalt columns weeping water into a small pond.

The Gardensmith designed a bee friendly garden for the Portland Metro Beekeepers Association at the spring 2006 Portland Home & Garden Show. The design of the garden provided water, shelter, nesting spaces, and food for a variety of urban wildlife. The garden was awarded the Wildlife Habitat Award, and demonstrated to Home Show attendees how to incorporate wildlife habitat into a small urban garden.

Our Garden
We bought our home in early 1999; we chose the property because it had the largest lot with an acceptable house in our price range. Really, we were shopping more for a garden site than for a house! After living in many apartments and rental houses we were ready to plant some things in the ground. The home was previously used as a rental, and the landscape reflected that. There were neglected apple trees in the back, the front was hidden by huge rhododendrons and boxwood hedges, and the weeds were thriving.

As you work on your landscaping projects, take lots of pictures, and look back on them when ever you need a little pat on the back. The following are some photos that show the progression of our back yard form a weed pit to a relaxing, lush garden.

 The back yard in February 1999, this is what we started with. 

We dug in right away, removing the overgrown plants along the house in preparation for painting and replanting. We mowed the lawn. We hauled away pick up trucks of debris, returning with loads of compost or bark mulch. We battled slugs and weeds. We became overwhelmed…We had bitten off too much at one time; the front yard looked acceptable, but the back was a mess. As fast as we removed the weeds fresh ones sprouted up. We couldn’t afford to hire anyone to help us, we were discouraged; but then we pulled out our “before” photos. Wow, those helped to lift our spirits, the photos showed how far we had come, we really had made progress!

By spring 2000 we had cleared away over grown plants and planted a
climbing hydrangea to grow on the shed.

We still look back on those photos, comparing them year by year reminds us that although the garden is not done yet (it will probably never be truly “done”), it has come a long way since 1999. We are still waiting for the day we can afford to hire a mason to help us replace a rotting wood wall and railroad tie steps with a rock wall and flagstone steps; but until that time, the lush plants help to minimize the eyesore of a wall.

The above photos show the shed in the winter of 2005 and the spring of 2006. The new door is a huge improvement and the hydrangea adds interest both in and out of leaf. The small "pond", with a spitting frog, is in scale with the small building; it provides a little "curb appeal" to the entry of a simple storage building.

Here is the garden in August 2006. The plants have grown up enough to hide the neighbors, there is something in bloom nearly year round, and the weeds are (mostly) under control. The garden is always evolving; it is a testing ground for new plants, materials, and techniques. We want our clients to benefit from what we have learned through both our successes and failures.