Designing a functional outdoor space for dining, entertaining, relaxing, and enjoying the serenity of beautiful gardens is always a challenge. Try designing and installing one indoors in less than a week. That’s what 18 mid-Atlantic landscape companies recently did at the Spring Maryland Home & Garden show. Invited back once again this year to judge and present a special ChesapeakeHome Landscape Award, the magazine and local landscape professionals Sean Bullock and Chad Neal spent an afternoon touring the gardens, assessing quality of design, variety and selection of plant material, craftsmanship, overall beauty, and feasibility for reproduction outside in a typical mid-Atlantic backyard.
After hours of deliberation, the judges agreed that Carroll Landscaping’s outdoor living space deserved top honors. Designed and built by Carroll Landscaping President Bob Jones, designer Beth Burnham, and team, the garden featured fully functional spaces for outdoor cooking, dining beneath a pergola, or relaxing fireside.
But Carroll Landscaping’s garden functions on many other levels. According to Jones, his design goals were to achieve “casual elegance and something distinctive.” He played “with formal, casual, and rustic elements to create a unified space,” and developed a water feature focal point “that people could envision inside or out.” Flexing their hardscape muscles, Carroll Landscaping blended nine different kinds of natural stone into the space.
The high-end outdoor kitchen is outfitted with granite countertops and Bull appliances and includes a wet bar, grill with rotisserie, and under-counter refrigerator. The unique water feature is valve-controlled so that the rate of flow and level of sound produced can be regulated to set the appropriate atmosphere.
Working with Burnham, Jones cultivated a plant palette designed to create structure, and started with the large Japanese maple, which creates a focal point from any space within the landscape. Other plants were selected for color, texture, elevation, ease of maintenance, and deer resistance. Some of Burnham’s favorites include Osmanthus (false holly), Heuchera ‘Marmalade’ (coral bells), Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon’ (Japanese sweet flag), and Centaurea ‘Amethyst Dream’ (bachelor’s button).
Although the life of this temporary garden was only a little less than two weeks, the ideas that came together in its design are lasting. More than just a garden, Carroll Landscaping’s design incorporates the best of what your backyard can become: a place to unwind, a place to cook and dine, a place to make memories with family and friends.
Dennis Hockman is the Editor of ChesapeakeHome.
Contact:
Carroll Landscaping, Inc.: carroll-landscaping.com or 410-922-2416
