Minus the cigar clenched between George Peppard’s teeth as seen in the A-Team TV show back in the early eighties, I do use this phrase when a particularly challenging garden design comes to fruition. I love a good challenge. So when the goals of a customer and stretching the limits of design and pure functionality all come together…I happily exclaim: “I love it when a plan comes together!”
Such was the case with our recent garden patio construction at the Westside Stadium in Saratoga Springs. An outdoor dining patio was brought to life and given character with plant material and outdoor lighting. Most folks when thinking out a garden plan consider the linear. The flat plot and plant numbers. This garden design required some extra consideration. Vertical plant material from above and below were used to coordinate a visual that suggested warm garden space in a normally dusty parking lot perimeter. (and bonus, plants will actually minimize the dust and clean the air!) This was achieved with hanging mixed containers, trellises and vines and potted tropical plants. Oh and did I mention we only had a 2 foot perimeter width to work with? Function demanded no more for parking and winter plowing. And you know how valuable parking is in Saratoga Springs!
Good garden designs also use repeated themes and texture varieties. We were able to achieve this with varieties of leaves, variegated coloring, along with small and large blended color blossoms. I always apply the “thriller filler and spiller” concept to my container gardens, So this element brought extra life and interest. The introduction of culinary herbs provided a unique character to the garden and the functional signature for the restaurant and bar. Both cooking herbs and varieties of mints for specialty cocktails were planted…infusing “edibles’ into this unique garden patio…..been wanting to do that forever:)
And believe it or not…this also was a “transitional” garden. By transitional I mean it flowed from a full sun to part shade/shade environment. So this really presented challenges in selecting plants that were site compatible yet still remained consistent with the color and flow.
But a really fun element to this garden was adding LED low voltage lighting for evening allure. This too presented with perimeter restrictions and uncommon thinking in placement. We learned to use the lines of the plant material along with lighting placement and beams to create shadowy effects that again changed the environment after dark. Therefore creating both a daytime and night time garden space….two very different looks.
Want to check out this one of a kind garden space? Stop by the Westside Stadium on Congress Street in Saratoga Springs this evening Friday June 27th @ 6:00PM for the “Patio Party” . Or swing by for lunch or dinner anytime to see how form meets function in this new garden room!
