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Our clients for this job have been working with us over the last few years to do a number of great changes on their backyard garden retreat. Last year we put in the long arbor and fenced off portions of the backyard for the chickens. Here is the before and after:
This year we returned to put in brick and flagstone pathways between the studio and the raised beds to help keep the area dry and walkable during the rainy season. The clients wanted to replace the original stone beds with something that looked a bit medieval, maybe with turrets, they said. This is what we came up with. These beds will last a very long time. Needless to say, we have two very happy clients.
 This house in North Seattle has been a great transformation. Our designer, Jackie Cramer, did a fabulous job on this design. Even with the smaller yard size, we were really able to pack a lot of wonderful features into this smaller garden space. The raingarden in the front will be full of edible plants, along with the fence line and arbor running across the front side of the house and the patio. The owners will be able to walk along on their newly installed pathway and pick all sorts of things including figs, kiwi, lavender, sage, rosemary, and huckleberry, just to name a few! We graded the yard and created the small rockery for the rain garden in the front, while also leveling the area behind the fence. We installed a 530 gallon cistern which will capture the roof runoff and flow into the rain garden. We installed the poured concrete patio and arbor which is a gorgeous place to be on a sunny day. We also put in a small patio in the back, and are completing the project by laying the front with a small grassy area for the kids to play, and finishing up with the final installation of the plants. Last fall we installed a new railing around a sweet, heart-shaped rain garden in Columbia City. The logs were cut and purchased at the end of last summer, and during the fall we installed the railing. The client happens to be a neighbor of ours, and as I walked by the other day I noticed something unusual. The logs were sprouting! It must be all this ripe soon-to-be summer weather we keep getting. Everything is itching to grow! Back in February we were working on a cute bungalow in Columbia City (see posts HERE and HERE). We installed a raingarden and swale in the front and side of the home, and took out a huge concrete pad in the backyard. One of the last projects the clients wanted to do was complete the fence. We'd torn out the old fence due to its crumbling ways while we were renovating the backyard, and the owners wanted to move forward with enclosing their cozy new backyard space. Here's a look at the backyard before the work started, and during the fence construction. Overall all it was a really great project. There is nothing more satisfying than getting rid of concrete and providing our clients with a wonderful yard space that they can enjoy for years to come!
It's a new year, and those of us at Stone Soup Gardens are right back at it. Before the end of last year we started on a challenging project involving a concrete backyard. The previous owner of our client's home put in a basketball court in the backyard, great for some, but not great if you are a lover of gardening or green space. In December we began jackhammering out the concrete and setting it aside. This is hard work on the body, so it was great to be able to finish that task and have a nice break over the holidays. Here are a few before pictures to give you an idea of what we were facing. Once the jackhammering began, things got messy and loud quick! We started by pulling out large chunks of concrete where the growing space would be, and set aside those pieces to use as a retaining wall around the raised beds. We also carved out a winding concrete path from the existing concrete pad rather than having an added expense of installing a walkway. Here's a few images of us playing with power tools. Now that the holidays are over, it's back to work! This week we are working on building out the raised bed area, as well as continuing to pull out concrete, installing grass, and sculpting the pathways. We've even planted a tree. It's shaping up to be a lovely space. Next, we'll be installing a small swale to catch the roof runoff in the front of the house, doing a bit of planting when the weather is more predictable, and finishing up with some lovely touches in the back. It will be a wonderful garden retreat once finished. Stay tuned for more images!
Fencing is a great way to keep things out or in, depending on your point of view. In many cases, we love to tear down fencing, as it helps create a more shared space between neighbors, which certainly builds better neighbor relations. However, sometimes we need to build a fence to help protect our friends, be they of the feathered or the four-legged variety. For this project we built a hog wire fence to help contain chickens in the backyard, which provides a much safer environment for them. The client also wanted to protect her plants from her scratching hens by installing an arbor. This approach allowed her to net out the chickens, while providing her climbing vegetables and plants with a bike wheel trellis and arbor to climb. It looks great and compliments her clapboard chicken coop.  Stone Soup Gardens is starting a trend. Rather than building fences between neighbors, we've been working to tear down neighborhood fences in order to create a shared atmosphere, a common space, and a sense of community amongst our clients and their neighbors. It started innocently enough. We had a client request to remove part of a fence to create a pathway between their home and the neighbors front porch in order to make it more accessible. We created that pathway, and took it several steps farther by including an adjoining trail along the sides of the homes, as well as between the backyards. This opened up the area to more garden planting space, a better view between the homes, and greater opportunities for neighbors to hang out with neighbors. We are excited about this project, and look forward to working in concert with other neighbors while building community. Stay tuned for more photos as we continue to work to completion on this project, and many others. Do you have a neighbor you'd like to share space with? Contact Stone Soup Gardens today to tear down those fences! |
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