Designing a great garden space takes time, thoughtfulness, and knowledge not only of plants but of the wishes person you are designing for . To carefully construct a space that feels natural, welcoming, both relaxing and exciting at the time time, can be tricky business indeed. Those of you who have heard my design presentations know how much goes into each little space I design ;seasonal planting succession, fragrance, color, height variations, privacy screens, , this list of considerations goes on and on.
So for a few weeks I am going to show you some of the seating areas here and how the design was planned and has evolved .
Wil and I appreciate things in very different ways. without getting into a long dissertation on how we view the world and who is right, I will tell you that he judges a garden by it’s seats. Every garden, every tour, he sits in every seat and assess the view. They get a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and sometimes some added slurs depending on how bad it is and you would be very surprised at the people whose gardens he is dissapointed in solely based on how poorly they placed their seating. Being a non-gardener he is not ever judging the rarity or quality of the planting, just what he can see from each and every chair,chaise or settee placed within.
Therefore, many of my garden spaces are designed with views from chairs in mind. The other gardeners we visit are lucky in that he never shares his opinions with them, but with me he is , shall we say, pretty vocal, so there is pressure to get it right.
Today’s featured seats are two of my favorite. When we added on an addition to the house we were lucky enough to be able to include a porch off the side. I wanted a very wide staircase ( for photo-ops of course) and room for some seating. Although it is far from large it is perfect for morning coffee and afternoon naps. ( FYI the rug was one f the BEST finds from a thrift store nearby for $25)
From here you look out onto a long curved shrub border peppered with both evergreen and deciduous trees including my favorite evergreen, the concolor fir.
A crab apple tree (Mrs. Robinson’) is very close to the railings on one side to keep birds nearby 
and several clematis wind their way up and into both the shrubs and the porch railings.
Some even want to sit with you
A very large clematis terniflora used to provide shade and privacy .It was planted along with a few otherclematis vines but for some reason the area out front has proven difficult to keep them going so now a very large and sprawling akebia vine is filling the purpose
The most important thing for me when picking plants for this area was fragrance. Starting in the earliest part of the year we have viburnum carlessii planted very close as it’s fragrance will not carry in the cold air of April when it blooms .
Soon after it fades , the calycanthus florida takes over . It s placed pretty far into the shrub border as it can be cloyingly sweet and very strong in the strengthening sun of late May and June. It smells like a pina colada and drifts up to the porch quite easily
Quickly after that the New Dawn rose begins to bloom
Cue the heavenly scent of the summersweet .Both Clethra alnifolia ‘Ruby Spice’ and ‘Alba’ perfume the entire area for the late part of the summer.
Fall color form the viburnum, the summersweet, and the other shrubs in the border, late blooming hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ with it’s fading mauve flowers,the colorful bracts of the Seven Son’s Flower and viburnum berries and crab apples are the interest to both me and the birds and bees going right through the rest of the gardening season.
An old church pew adorns the area aside the door where i place little arrangements of things cut from the garden
There are usually a few containers on the stairs or on the porch itself including this bouganvilla that loves it’s spot at the top of the stairs where it gets indirect sunlight all day .
these guys like it a lot too (photo from 2014)
