These homeowners include an architect, who designed their family home here in SE Portland. The design is modern and includes concrete & steel softened with wood, and already had landscape boulders in place. They know they want a wisteria vine to grow across the front of the porch, and have built the necessary support for that, and their aesthetic is influenced by Japanese design. They also wanted to use ornamental grasses to divide the driveway from the rest of the space.
Both homeowners are plant lovers, and want big pops of color in a low maintenance landscape for full sun. They enjoy plants that don’t get too big, and move in the breeze & provide different views through the landscape at different times of year. Balancing those kind of plants with plants that have more structure means their garden won’t fall flat in winter.
They already have some timber bamboo growing near the front door, which I balanced by including a small tree on the opposite side of the porch. A hidden gate to the side yard creates a small garden space that’s viewed from the front porch, and they want to act as a jewel-box space to be viewed from above without impeding access to the gate.
