Blue Planet Garden Blog

Garden Designers Roundtable: Creating an Entry Sequence

Have you ever heard the saying “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”? Not only does this wise advice apply to job interviews or the first day of school, but it applies to your home as well. A front yard is more than just a green area separating your house from the sidewalk; it’s a multifunctional space that marks the transition from the outdoors to the indoors, a place to great visitors and to say your good-byes and an opportunity to complement your home. This week, the Garden Designers Roundtable is talking about first impressions, and my contribution is a mini lesson on curb appeal.

Creating an entry sequence

A natural transition occurs when visitors come to your home. Designers use the term “entry sequence” to refer to the path from public spaces (the street or sidewalk) to the semiprivate or private space closer to your home’s front door. A well-planned entry sequence connects a house to the landscape and creates a cohesive space. Here are some tips to creating an effective entry sequence:

It’s all about the door

No matter how many plants, arbors and outdoor tchokes you add to your front yard, the door is still the de facto focal point. After all, you want your friends, delivery folk and Jehovah’s Witnesses to easily find their way to the doorbell right? (Okay, maybe not that last group). When I meet with a new client and have trouble identifying the entrance, I know I will earn my fee in the first five minutes, simply by sharing easy ways to make the door more visible.

Simple steps include painting the door in a contrasting color or flanking the entrance with pots or small trees. Or take it a step further and add an arbor or front porch.

Before: It's already confusing that the door is located on the side of this duplex. The fact that you can't easily tell the front door from the garage door just makes it worse.

 

After: A simple fix- paint the door red.

 

Before: A contrasting door isn't enough to get the job done here.

After: a porch and plants that won't obscure the view to the door create a much more welcoming sequence.

At a minimum, avoid blocking the view to the door. To take it to the next level, make the journey from the street to the house easy to navigate, comfortable and in the appropriate scale and style for the home. Which leads to my next tip...

 

No wait, it’s all about the path

If this blog post had a subtitle, it would probably be: Landscape Designers Are Obsessed with Pathways. And I’m no exception. Design a pathway that makes it easy to find the door, and you’re on your way to a home with curb appeal that will make the neighbors gnash their teeth in envy.

The first step is to ensure the path is wide enough. A path that is broad enough for two people to walk abreast is the gold standard here. That means a minimum of 4 ft. but for most houses, 5 to 6 ft. will be a better width. Let the scale of the house and the garden be the determining factor.

Having a primary path that is wide enough is also important to distinguish it from any secondary pathways, such as those that lead to a side entrance or even meander through the garden if you’ve chosen a no-lawn landscape design.

The primary path is 5 1/2 feet wide - a good scale for this traditional ranch. Photo by Tai Williams.

Same garden, where the secondary path is modest and scale and uses informal materials. No chance of getting lost on your way to the door. Photo by Tai Williams

What about shape? More formal designs favor straight lines, but often times a curve is an easy and effective way to break up the boxy shape of a typical front yard. But keep it simple and don’t exaggerate the curve – remember, your goal is to take your guests on a pleasant journey to the front door, not help them reach their goal of 10,000 steps a day.

 

A simple curve DO. As a design bonus, note the way the change in pattern helps distinguish the pathway from the driveway - a good strategy when a separate point of origin is impractical.

And finally, the most misunderstood part of the entry sequence is the beginning. We all know it ends at the front door, but avoid the temptation to start the path in the driveway. (Really, when did front yards become an homage to three care garages and oversized driveways - don’t add to the madness! But that’s a rant for another day.) If you regularly access the front door via a carport, then by all means provide a secondary, less prominent path, but a general rule of thumb is to begin the path at the street or sidewalk, so it is clearly visible and easy to access.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because some of these ideas are part of the first chapter of Garden Up! Smart Vertical Gardening for Small and Large Spaces (which I’m sure you’ve all read, right?). For some different perspectives, check out what other designers from the Roundtable have to say on the topic.

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

Christina Salwitz : Personal Garden Coach : Renton, WA

Shirley Bovshow: Eden Makers Blog : Los Angeles, CA

Book Review: Beautiful No-Mow Yards

In 2007, I designed my first no-lawn back yard. I would have welcomed advice on design strategies or plant options, but at the time, a book like that wasn’t even a gleam in a publisher’s eye. So you can imagine how thrilled I am to have the opportunity to review Evelyn Hadden’s newest book,  Beautiful No-Mow Yards: 50 Amazing Lawn Alternatives (Timber Press 2012).

Following a wonderful forward by fellow Lawn Reform Coalition member Susan Harris and a terrific introduction where Evelyn eloquently describes how our changing definition of beauty doesn’t necessarily include a lawn and further encourages us to “return life to our landscapes,” the book is divided into three sections. The first section makes up more than 75% of the book and focuses on design inspiration. You won’t be surprised to hear that this was my favorite part. Set up mainly as case studies, Evelyn reviews in detail various strategies both homeowners and professional designers have used to replace lawn with garden.

There’s something for everyone here, as gardens from all over the United States that showcase a range of cultural and lifestyle situations are featured: woodland gardens, rain gardens and kids' play areas, just to name a few. This segment ends with a section called “smarter lawns,” perfect for the homeowner who is ready to eschew a chemically propped up, water-guzzling version of a lawn, but for esthetic or functional reasons, still wants their own little patch of green. (Or even blue!)

Prairie garden, photograph by Saxon Holt

Pond and patio instead of lawn, designed by fellow APLD member Kelly Marshall and photographed by Saxon Holt.

No-Mow Lawn

The second section is practical, with advice on removing existing sod, as well as planting, irrigating and maintaining a lawn-free garden. The final section is a comprehensive plant list, arranged by design intent. Categories such as ground-filling plants, mat-forming plants and minglers let you go right to the plant list that fits your garden’s particular needs.

Looks time consuming, but in fact there's very little effort in maintaining a lawn alternative like this one.

 

Stunning example of a tapestry of mat-forming plants

What I like

• Evelyn is hands down one of the best garden writers I’ve had the pleasure of reading. I have a large library of gardening books, most with excellent content, but few rival the elegant and graceful prose of Beautiful No-Mow Yards.
• I appreciate the level of detail provided about the gardens featured in the design section. Many of the descriptions go beyond the lawn alternatives used, and describe interesting details about the design as a whole. For example, I enjoyed learning that the designer of a woodland shade garden designed a stream with waterfalls facing different directions in order to maximize water’s effectiveness as a “light catcher” in a shady space. Brilliant!
• The book is very comprehensive, with a soup to nuts approach that covers design inspiration, practical advice on removing lawn and a list of plant options. If you’re thinking about removing all or part of your lawn, Beautiful No-Mow Yards serves as a convenient, one-stop shop.
• Evelyn doesn’t sugar coat her case studies, but shares stories of gardeners who have had failures as well as successes. I know from experience that no matter how much I educate myself in advance, remaking a garden is an imperfect process, and the smart gardener should expect to hit a few bumps in the road.

Quibbles

• While the book is filled with excellent photographs, the majority are close-ups that don’t easily convey the effect of a lawn alternative vs. traditional turf grass. Having struggled to find photos to explain some of the concepts in my own book, I can appreciate this can be difficult, but the detailed descriptions of several of the design strategies in the first portion of the book left me wanting more, and would have benefited from either additional photos, or ideally, a plan view of the overall design.
• Not so much a quibble as an observation: many of the same plants are referenced repeatedly, such as creeping thyme, sedum and dead nettle. This isn’t really a negative as it reinforces that certain plants are particularly tough and well-suited for no-lawn gardens, but if you already have an extensive plant palette, this book probably won’t introduce you to many plants you aren’t already familiar with.
• I wish it had been written five years ago.

Whether you are a designer, home gardener, wild-life enthusiast or an environmentalist, Beautiful No-Mow Yards is a must-have addition for your gardening library.

 Looking for more lawn reform inspiration? Evelyn's made it easy by gathering the links right here.

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos by Evelyn Hadden.

Wordless Wednesday: Hiking the Marin Headlands

On Sunday, Nick and I joined my sister and brother-in-law for an eight mile hike beginning at the Marin Headlands visitors center and ending at Stinson Beach. Beautiful weather and incredible views, though my sore calves beg to differ with the guidebook's statement that this is a leisurely stroll. Here's a taste of what we saw.