The North Fork, Long Island, NY
A pool meadow garden
Above: The existing meadow-like grasses (Prairie Dropseed, Sporobolus heterolepis), outside the client’s art studio as well as an adjacent meadow, provide the painterly-feel they desired of the new pool garden meadow.
The pool is in while adjacent landscape calls for a naturalized design of native plants and native cultivars. (Photo here & Portfolio page: Anne S-P.)
A fabulously bright-colored palette nicely mimics a Mod Squad-like ’70’s pair of bellbottoms.
Final plan drawing with planting details.
Final color plan.
Design Vision: Pools of water; pools of green, waves of blue
Design Narrative: I set out to design a comfortable, welcoming, ‘less is more’-based pool garden with multiple seasons of interest for this wonderful client on The North Fork, Long Island. Ultimately, the design includes several colored ‘pools’ of green intermixed with waves of blue and lavender, interspersed with pockets of interesting flowering wonder.
The thought was to amplify the large stunning pool as focal point, yet add the sensation of even more pools of water, in effect ‘pockets’–that is, pools of wave-like movement created by plants and the elements.
In support of this vision, the ‘pools of water‘ theme arose from serendipity when the visual idea became the theme: wave-like motion providing a design opportunity emanating from the planting beds and from the stone patterns of the two seating nodes, the circular stone ‘rifles’.
The ‘jumbled-look’ of the original stone pattern of the rifles, as drawn by the pool’s architect, provided the perfect inspiration to me as landscape designer: find a way to use plants to mimic the look and feel of all that is tangible in a breaking ocean wave–flowing plant patterns placed in wave-like groupings, enhanced by their ever-changing colors and textures, the time of day or season.
The final design honors this original idea.
A ‘wildflower pool’ in the form of an oval-shaped pollinator cutting garden became the perfect punctuation mark in the garden’s northwest corner, adjacent to the deep-end.
The Design Goal: Thus, the design goal was born: create multiple, undulating waves of planting patterns by placing plants of varying texture and flower colors, that mimic the look and feel of flowing water, breaking waves, and pools of water–all enhanced by the elements, especially wind and sunlight.
The Color Palette: The client provided their oh-so-well coordinated and vibrant color palette of lavender, yellow-gold, white, pale pink, and blue-purple…think a pair of the most fabulously bright-colored 1970’s ‘Mod Squad-esque’ bellbottom pants you can imagine. Such natural flare!
The Garden Proper: A naturalized garden is the result: a meadow-like (tamed, but still natural feeling) area surrounding a large salt water pool. By grouping and patterning native plants and strong performing and attractive native cultivars in free-flowing forms, pools and waves of plants will provide the layout scheme.
In total, twenty-two species of evergreen shrubs, flowering perennials, sedges, succulents and bulbs were selected, ranging from the familiar ‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum, Hylotelephium ‘Autumn Joy’ to a back drop of Catmint ‘Walker’s Low’, Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ further backed by Lavender ‘Phenomenal’, Lavendula ‘Phenomenal’. A pool of Wild Bergamot ends the feast of Lavender.
In what is planned as the heart of the garden, adjacent to the southwest seating rifle, a whimsical play-on insects interacting with nature comes to life with the use of a partial ring of Blue Grama Grass ‘Blonde Ambition’, Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’ whose mosquito-like seed heads bob in the slightest breeze, seemingly dodging one another, or perhaps allured by the magnificent (seasonally-placed) flower blooms of Angel’s Fishing Rod, Dierama pulcherrimum nearby, or the equally glorious Lily of the Nile ‘Blue Heaven’, Agapanthus ‘Blue Heaven’.
‘Blonde Ambition’ is also interspersed with the lanky stems and pinky-white blooms of Tall Verbena, Verbena bonariensis. Other native grasses include Indian Grass, Sorghastrum nutans ‘Indian Steel’, Little Blue Stem, Schizachyrium scoparium and Pennsylvania Sedge, Carex pensylvanica.
Workhorse shrubs such as Northern Bayberry, Myrica pensylvanica and succulent groundcovers of Woolly Thyme and Stonecrop, Sedum rupester ‘Angelina’ were incorporated as foundation and border plantings to further enhance seasonal interest while providing structure.
The final plant count of 385 units was reduced by twenty-five percent from an initial plant count of 514 to ensure an established look yet not to overwhelm or overburden.
Garden Narrative: The visitor approaches the pool garden area from one of two entries: either via the bluestone meadow path from one of two gates located either side of the cabana, or from the side utility entrance path located along the north side at the northeast end of the pool’s fenced enclosure.
Entry from the meadow path offers both a first glimpse or a broader, fuller view of the pool and the garden expanse. One’s eye is easily be drawn to the focal point being the prominent size and rectangular shape of the pool and the calm water.
The eye may than be drawn to several ‘pools’ of garden color and plant textures, interspersed with and against a background of evergreen shrubs and trees, both inside and outside the pool fence enclosure, blended by meadow grasses also both inside and out.
The small groupings of native grasses are meant to echo the natural meadow the visitor left behind while not creating too much plant cover nor leaf litter so as to minimize attracting tick-borne animals.
The site of the shaded pergola seating area and the two circular stone seating circles beyond–each immersed in a sea of garden color and texture, encourage and provide places to relax.
Grey-white pea gravel encircles the stone seating circles as a further buffer against ticks while helping to create the feeling of breaking ocean waves–the stone ‘rifles’ and their blue stone centers serving as the barrel of the wave.
Plants of yellow-gold and green surround the brick walkway edge to mimic the color of sand and even seaweed. Pools of color created by the layout pattern of the same plant rather than using edging in the planting areas.
Sunflowers have been included at the southeast and northwest corners of the garden to meet a request of the client’s daughter. A set of four raised beds at the eastern end will contain kitchen herbs to satisfy the culinary habits of the stay-at-home residents.
All the while, as the visitor walks the brick surrounding pool deck, the intent is to physically and mentally bathe in pools of water–pools of green, waves of blue.
Lacecap Landscape Design
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Lacecap Landscape Design 