Garden Living Spaces

A recent post described moving this table and chairs to the garden and prompted me to expand on the idea with a post about outdoor living spaces.  We know we should spend time out of doors and better yet, work in our gardens, but do we know how to create outdoor spaces enhance our enjoyment?

Sitting here during a lengthy phone visit with my sister who lives in another town it occurred to me that simply sitting outside can be a mind-altering experience. To be sure, there are numerous places to sit in our garden, though usually for me sitting is a momentary break from moving rock to create gravel gardens or walls, or trimming native trees and recycling the brush.

While my sister and I talked together a black-chinned hummingbird darted from one tubular salvia bloom to another. Every few minutes it would hover about two feet from my face where it seemed to be studying me and deciding if we could co-exist in the garden. The hummingbirds come here daily and apparently if you sit or stand still without moving too much they can ignore you and continue feeding.  Time slowed for me and there was nothing more important in this moment than watching the hummingbird.

Before we moved here to the Texas Hill Country we lived in another city downtown in an historic bank building converted into lofts with a tiny, shared roof garden. With antique mirrors reflecting the city skyline and star jasmine creeping across the walls it was a lovely place to be outside in semi-private. One day while wandering in my favorite garden shop in the city, Thompson- Hanson, Scott Schrader’s book, The Art of Outdoor Living (Rizzoli) seemed the perfect purchase for a person about to own a piece of land.

These images are from the book and represent some of Scott Schrader’s projects in California. He writes, “Gardens should reveal themselves slowly That’s why creating spots for intimate moments and unexpected places to gather throughout the garden is so important. With seating, lighting, and a source of warmth, a secret garden can become another environment for living and entertaining.”

The idea of gardens revealing themselves slowly and the importance of gardens including places to stop and sit, look at nature, read, have a cup of tea, a glass of wine, watch the sunset and so on stay with me and fuel the work we are doing in our garden. Here are a few places for stopping and feeling joy in our garden so far!

This is our “character” oak. He has lost some branches over the years and is now shaped something like an oversized umbrella. I remember standing under this tree before we moved here, when we would visit the untouched land, trying to get a bit of respite from the bright sunlight and thinking about how to create a multi-layered garden here. The ground under the oak tree was once an enormous pile of clippings, now covered in topsoil, ornamental grasses, and dwarf yaupons which will form low mounds and keep the slope from eroding. The limestone boulder we unearthed using a metal pry bar and placing smaller rocks under the boulder until we could roll it out of the hole and onto some block limestone leftover from building the house. Everything takes time here, but this is good as it gives me time to “feel” what is right for the land and for us. Time to use what the land provides to form the structure of our garden. This is one of my favorite places to sit and look out across the land and the hills or back towards the house. It will be a grand place for an afternoon read!

Here is a table and chairs we bought to celebrate our third year here. There is another native oak tree behind the table. In the morning the tree completely shades it and provides us with a place to have breakfast and look out over the land to the surrounding hills. It’s a good walk to the table from the house and it is sometimes difficult to persuade others to join me here, but you must persist when you feel you have a good idea. Our kitchen now includes a set of metal plate covers similar to those used in hotels and it is my belief they will keep the food hot and securely on the plate while walking downhill!

You might also look at the land on the level below where we have made a stone wall and are building a terraced grotto with creeping juniper. Texas wine vine and the more dangerous poison oak also grow here, so my haz-mat suit comes in handy when working in this part of the garden!

This boulder hiding behind the salvia is a large block of stone we had moved from a lower spot on the and so we could stop and look out at the hills from within the garden. The garden itself we nicknamed the Road Garden because it was rutted with the tire marks of the trucks used to haul in materials while the house was being built. The first winter we were here a rare snowstorm hit and many of our plants were damaged. We moved them to this space where they could heal slowly. A few years later the survivors are thriving along with self-planted natives! The rocks beneath the plants serve as a “mulch” to prevent slow erosion, deter weeds and reflect the sunlight. They were harvested from earth moved to create stone steps to the lower areas of the land. My summer was filled with peaceful hours of sifting through the dirt piles scattered on the land for limestone rocks in a method much like panning for gold! The stones were carried in bucket loads up to the Road Garden and slowly the garden came to fruition and a to a point where it is self-sustaining.

This is a space within our garden I have named the Sanctuary Garden. A perfect place to enjoy a fruit, yogurt, and granola bowl in the morning while watching insects, butterflies, bees, and birds, and an occasional lizard enjoy the raised gardens or rest on the tuteurs made from cedar branches. It began as an herb and vegetable garden. It was rare to get to a tomato or some sage or cilantro before the local hares and gray foxes had their fill. We have now filled the garden with flowering plants appealing to the insects, butterflies, bees, birds, and lizards.  

One day while sitting on the stone bench we saw a Eupackardia calleta or calleta silkmoth just emerged from its cocoon and drying its wings. Several inches wide, it was a beautiful creature moving gracefully. There were quite a few cocoons in the same bush beside the stone bench!

Other people have created garden spaces for outdoor living which continue to inspire! Here are a few of my personal favorites.

(credit photo to annmdennis)

A garden can be a balcony shaded by a hovering tree.

(credit photo to gardenista.com)

Libby Russell’s Georgian rectory looks out on a rectangular garden filled with white daisies. She changes the plants by season  – always all white.

(houseandgarden.co.uk)

Who says a small narrow space cannot be fabulous. Imagine sitting at this table against the brick wall punctuated by pleached hornbeams and enjoying a moment with your journal and a glass of wine!

(aplaceofgardeninspiration)

The slightly rusting curvilinear metal chairs and table base on gray stone paving punctuated by tiny boxwoods all in a row makes me happy.

(Photo credit: aplaceofgardeninspiration)

A verdant and enveloping space with a peaceful reflection pond and topiary trees is a place you might never want to leave.

(Photo credit: Simon Watson)

Interior designer Isabel Lopez-Quesada created a romantic courtyard space for living outside her Madrid home. Can you imagine sleeping under the stars in the iron daybed!

Hopefully my thoughts about gardens will generate and interest in some of you to create such spaces for yourselves.