design & photos by Jean Marsh

Garden makeovers by Shirley Bovshow in Los Angeles. Homeowner wanted a natural style garden with Mediterranean and native California plants. An avid hiker, the homeowner now has her own decomposed granite "trail." Photo by Shirley Bovshow, http://EdenMakersBlog.com

The seating area in front of the fireplace features an intricate handcrafted pebble mosaic carpet. Photo by Todor Spasov.

Tiles by Latin Accents

Terrasse extérieure aux inspirations méditerranéennes, dotée d'une cuisine extérieure, sous une pergola bois permettant d'ombrager le coin repas.

A sunny, Mediterranean style garden with colourful features. With a grey porcelain tile patio, laid in stretcher pattern across the width of the garden directly outside the back door and to the right of this area, a wide raised bed constructed from treated softwood railway sleepers. A painted aluminium storage box at the end of the side return allows waterproof storage for kids toys and other garden items. The middle section of the garden features a wide yellow Balau hardwood deck stretching across the width of the garden, enclosed by a simple yellow Balau timber pergola at one end. This pergola will include a decorative panel along the back comprising horizontal slats of yellow balau decking. The rear of the space hosts a second grey porcelain patio with an L-shaped railway sleeper raised bed in the bottom left corner. The left hand boundary is clad with 150mm wide tongue and groove ‘Shou-Sugi-Ban’ Japanese charred timber wall cladding, installed vertically to create an eye-catching backdrop. The middle section of the left boundary is clad with yellow balau boards to match the decorative panel on the pergola. The left boundary wall at the rear is rendered and painted a vibrant turquoise shade. The rear right boundary beyond the pergola structure is clad with panels of Perspex ‘Naturals’. The rest of the boundary fences/walls are painted with Cuprinol Garden Shades garden paint. Two tall evergreen standard trees will provide screening along the back of the garden. Several GRP fibreglass planters will add an extra dash of colour to the design.

Photo : Adel Slimane Fecih

Vue sur Paris depuis l'appartement

A view of the cabana looking toward the house. Note the protected exterior outlets on the leftmost column, which could run string lights and chargers for use in the cabana.

Because the sunniest place to grow vegetables is in the front yard, custom Cor-ten steel planters were designed as an attractive sculptural element, their graceful curves complementing the organic flow of the landscape. Informal gravel provides stable footing to walk and work, while remaining permeable to rain. Dwarf citrus grow in pots, and foundation plantings of Ribes sanguineum and Phormium 'Guardsman', and Ficus pumila vine anchor the home. Photo © Jude Parkinson-Morgan.

Uber cool gated development in Epping. Our brief was to redesign the space to the rear of the house. We sited the pool, specified some gorgeous Italian pool tiling, re-shaped the decking adding in curves to what was a very ordinary rectangular deck. Following on with the curves we added a sandstone paved area and within that a dining terrace with a chunky oak pergola to support pendant lighting over the new dining furniture. We used a drought tolerant planting scheme with a mediterranean palette. The exception to this was the addition of Hydrangea panniculata for those beautiful big white flowers in the summer. Rabbits were a big problem and plants were also selected with this in mind.