THE PROBLEM
A `shade desert’ made by trees
THE PROBLEM: An overgrown drab, dark and damp side yard and patio at the Lincoln Park home of Deb and Ron Clarkson.
THE SPACE: A 40-by-18-foot sideyard (and an entrance to the house) that flows into an 18-by-20-foot lounge area.
THE EXPERT: William Spiegelberg of Spiegelberg Landscape Design Inc., a residential design-and-build firm in Chicago.
THE GOAL: Revive the space and bring in more sunlight while maintaining privacy. “The trees made it a shade desert,” Spiegelberg says. “Nothing wanted to grow below them. It was a big shade tunnel.”
THE SOLUTION: Remove two hawthorn trees and a river birch, remove and reinstall bluestone in the lounge area. Install a brick path and create a semiformal courtyard that is based on the gardens of Colonial Williamsburg. Add color and texture with new plant material.
THE HARDSCAPE: Spiegelberg created a new brick path in a “running bond” pattern, which helps direct the eye into the rest of the garden. Spiegelberg kept the space level because it looks more natural.
THE PLANTS: In the courtyard, two willow-leaved pears (Pyrus salicifolia) with silver-gray foliage flank the new path. The ornamental pears are pollarded (pruned) annually to keep them growing as standards with a single trunk. Spiegelberg selected them to provide color, some height and texture. “The pears are like sentinels. We cut them back, or they’ll get huge,” Spiegelberg says. A row of `Green Velvet’ boxwood adds to the formal design and provides color in winter.
Five linden trees were added in the courtyard along the brick wall. They are pleached (pruned and shaped) to form an aerial hedge that provides privacy from neighboring windows but will not intrude into the narrow courtyard. In the shade below, Spiegelberg chose several perennials including thalictrum, bergenia and hellebores for a lush tapestry of foliage.
Heptacodium and fragrant Burkwood viburnum were planted on the brick wall in the lounge area. These shrubs were chosen for scent and for multiseason interest. “The heptacodium also is a great plant because the flowers smell like honey, and it has wonderful exfoliating bark in winter,” Spiegelberg says. “A garden is so much about the senses — tasting, touching, hearing and smelling. It should get all the senses involved.”
Six 2-foot-tall espaliered apple trees, trained horizontally and called stepovers, surround a rectangular cutting-and-foliage garden in the courtyard’s center planting bed. Along the house wall, three espaliered apple trees — two `Empire’ and one `Gravenstein’– produce large, tasty apples.
Three 8-foot-tall narrow `Fairview’ junipers screen the side yard and the rest of the garden from passersby on the street. “It creates a sense of mystery and invites you to explore what’s behind them,” Spiegelberg says.
The courtyard’s central planting bed, which receives several hours of sun each day, has evolved in the past three years from plantings of iris, coneflowers and hardy annuals to groupings of large-leaved tropical-looking elephant ears (Colocasia), which provide contrast to the fine-textured leaves of the pear trees.
BONUSES: Clematis vines, low-growing perennials, herbs and tomatoes thrive long into autumn along the home’s exterior wall where they receive full sun and heat reflected from the brick path.
What it cost
The budget: Less than $26,000
$10,000 to clear the space, install a brick path, remove and reinstall bluestone
$15,326 for plantings and mulch.
Total: $25,326
