If the aim of good landscaping is to make a space look "natural," to bring out the best in the great outdoors without making them appear too sculpted or fiddled-with, then a set of before and after photos will inevitably make that fantasy a little harder to sustain. Still, there's no better way to take stock of all that goes into a well-rehabbed backyard. Below, break down the metaphorical fourth wall of a dozen eye-popping contemporary garden projects, from the so-called "outdoor rooms" of Northern California to the backyard sanctuaries of Brownstone Brooklyn:
Photos via Houzz
↑ Looking for a landscape designer whose "portfolio lent itself to the contemporary aesthetic" of their new house, one Washington couple went with
Lisa Port, who
made the centerpiece of their backyard a curved steel wall wrapped around one end of an in-ground hot tub.
↑ This double-wide lot behind a brownstone in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn was
turned around by
Kim Hoyt Architecture. Now, to reach the backyard garden, one passes through an ipe wood gate and under a trellis connecting two matching sheds.
↑ Upon moving to New York City in 1995, actress, singer, activist, and
fabulous penthouse owner Bette Midler founded the
New York Restoration Project, which has since
acquired over 50 community gardens in underserved communities and rehabbed nearly half of them. Pictured above is Bed-Stuy's
Garden of Hope, which was adopted in 2006 by interior designer
Ellie Cullman and reopened in May 2008 after a
redesign that brought in travertine pavers, hedges of espaliered Euonymus, and a gazebo surrounded by sculptural concrete globes.
↑ Redone in 2003 by the NYRP with funding from a grant provided by the Tiffany & Co. Foundation, Harlem's
Family Garden was
reimagined by Tiffany & Co. design director
John Loring with a number of features referencing nearby Thomas Jefferson Park: cut-metal silhouettes of founding fathers, traditional brick planters with wide limestone caps, and a wrought-iron entry gate based on the facade of Jefferson's Virginia home, Monticello.
↑ Harlem's Los Amigos Community Garden got
revised by the NYRP in 2010, with the installation of weathered Cor-Ten steel planting beds and a new front gate lined with rows of wild grasses. A plum tree planted by one of the garden's original members was preserved.
↑ The NYRP design team
redid Bushwick's
Cooper Street Community Garden in 2012, clearing away a long stretch of broken concrete and adding in 19 new planting beds, a pergola, and a perimeter of vertical frames for climbing vines.
↑
Paxton Gate, a San Francisco-based garden store run by two landscape designers,
turned around this unkempt backyard by adding in raised sections of concrete and wood.
↑ Another unruly Bay Area backyard
reigned in by Paxton Gate, this time with the addition of dark stone pavers and wooden platforms.
↑ Husband-and-wife landscaping firm
Outside Space NYC reworked a quarry-like sunken backyard area in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights neighborhood with a waterfall running down the wall, polished concrete planters that keep with the aesthetic, and a circular lawn of artificial turf in the center.
↑ San Francisco-based
Growsgreen Landscape Design turned this backyard into an "outdoor room" by
situating a wooden patio at the same level as the threshold of the house.
↑ After their front yard was "all but drowned" in Hurricane Sandy, one couple in Redhook, Brooklyn,
hired landscape designers
Sean Lewis and
Jesse Terzi to turn it into a low-maintenance entertaining space capable of riding out another storm, with a lounge area paved in irregular flagstone and a spacious outdoor kitchen.
↑ Bay Area-based Pedersen Associates carved this "classic Northern California" outdoor room into a Marin County hillside while still leaving room for their client's "beloved agave." · From Concrete 'Jail Yard' to Lush Escape in Brooklyn [Houzz]
· Before & After: A Brooklyn Townhouse with a Double-Wide Garden [Gardenista]
· Bette Midler's Green Thumb Revitalizes Community Gardens [Architectural Digest]
· Before & After: 5 Gardens by Paxton Gate [Apartment Therapy]
· Divine Proportions Make for a Dream Landscape [Houzz]
· Before and After: 5 Favorite Garden Rehabs [Gardenista]
· A Front Yard Regrows in Brooklyn [Houzz]
· All Outdoors Week 2014 posts [Curbed National]