Contemporary Garden

What distinguishes a contemporary garden?
There is an emphasis on hardscape and geometry. Plant life is minimized to support a more Mentalist view of the world. Water, sculpture, art, and special materials are all carefully arranged around select plantings of vegetation to support the idea of a world where Man dominates and controls his environment.

What types of plants are to be used?
Plants that have a strong shape, texture, or color are preferred. The idea is to communicate a feeling of stark absolutes in everything we do. Some species that may be useful to this purpose include bamboo, fruitless olive, wormwood, blue fescue, and Crimson Pointe Flowering Plum.

Shrubs should be darker in color to compliment the gray and white hardscapes that are common in a contemporary garden.

Should it have water fountains?
It does not necessarily need a water fountain in the traditional sense of the term. Modern and contemporary art are by nature highly abstract. There are a number of things we can do in such a setting that using running water as a decorative element in its own right. Again, this does not require creating a typical fountain with a visible bowl or spout. A pump can be placed underground to make water emerge mysteriously out of gravel. Or, it can pour over a mirror or stainless steel back plane like an avant garde, artificial waterfall.

If the area is large enough, a small stream can be created that will cut through rocks, hardscapes, or vegetation in a geometric pathway that contributes dimensions and fluidity to the scene. Remember, the whole point of using water as a landscape element is to generate a state of mind where freedom of consciousness is conveyed through the movement, and tranquility of emotion are established through the sound.

Both attributes of water features lend themselves very well to contemporary gardens for this reason.

Does it have rocks or gravel?
Absolutely. Rock and gravel function as replacements to grass. They also help break up larger segments of the hardscape like concrete pavers or large stone blocks without giving way to the temptation to overplant vegetation in areas where portions of the hardscape have to be removed.

What we wind up with instead are sections of gravel where plants are growing out of the rocks rather than grass. There is a sense of life here, but a very controlled sense of life due to the absence of an entirely “green patch” of vegetation, per se.

Should it have art?
Yes. There are many forms of abstract art that can be integrated into a contemporary garden. Metal sculpture lends itself well to this style because it can be worked so many different ways. Mirrors can garden elements with a trick of the eye. Installing a single planting of vegetation and several mirrors can set up an illusion where the amount of visible greenery is completely relative to position and point of view.

Is masonry design part of contemporary gardens?
Yes. Many times we use bricks, concrete blocks, or cut stones to build architectural walls or planters. These structures add vertical impact when constructed within the boundaries of the garden. In cases where we are installing a contemporary hardscape and softscape as part of a courtyard, we use masonry contractors to create architectural walls around the seating area, water features, sculpture and plant life within.

Simple Garde Design

Why is it called simple?
Simple garden design is so called because it is based upon the awareness that less is actually more. The intention in this particular element of landscaping is not to create grand outdoor living experience or a peculiar sense of the exotic. It focuses instead on establishing basic sensory experiences of sight, sound, and smell that create a desired state of mind. The geometry is very basic as well—sometimes even being deliberately plain. Colors are attractive but not overdone so as to suggest an experience to the eyes without overwhelming them.

What style or theme can you use in a simple garden design?
We would base the style on that of your home’s architecture. This does not necessarily mean that your garden will look like an identical geometric compliment to your walls and rooftop. It may work better as a counterpoint to architecture than a direct, reflective correspondence. It may also provide a vital focal point for your landscape master plan.

What is a focal point?
A focal point is something that you use a landscape element to draw attention to. For example, if you have outdoor buildings, focal points should be established near the entrances of each so people can see where these structures are and how to enter them.

Some other very important uses of focal points include attracting attention to outdoor art and special monumentation like custom fountains. Focal points are also very important in large yards that have to be divided into zones of interest in order to prevent guests from being overwhelmed by a feeling of too much space.

Simple garden design can be used in all of these settings to establish perspective and boundaries.

What do I need to be careful about?
You need to be careful of people that promise you the moon for low costs.

Many people think that simple garden design means they can simply build themselves by going to a nursery and picking out some plants they like. What happens, though, when they get to the nursery, is that well-intentioned people offer them advise on installation that is almost never apropos to the homeowner’s needs.

If you go this route, you will probably end up with a collection of pretty plants and flowers, but that does nothing to contribute to aesthetic of your home and yard.

It is better to have a design created by a professional who can develop something that provides you with an experience in its own right, but whose size, geometry, texture, and sensory experiences builds aesthetically expansive relationships within the context of a larger landscape master plan.

Can simple garden design be a part of a patio?
Yes. This is often done with fireplace patios outdoors. For swimming pool patios, however, this is not practical. People step in the plants, and the plants would get too wet. Around these hardscapes, it is better to install garden materials that add accent and form to the surface and that work to blend the inorganic structure of the patio into the surrounding lawn and general landscape beyond.

Contemporary Garden Fountains

What is a contemporary garden fountain?
By definition, it is a custom water feature characterized by stark geometry, superior construction materials, and mechanical sophistication. They operate on remote, silent pumps that circulate water silently so that all you hear is the water itself.

Contemporary water fountains are highly customized to fit the unique parameters of an individual residence. Designs are based on linear forms and radial arcs. Decorative flair is deliberately minimized out of an eclectic passion for the abstract.

Does the presence of a contemporary garden fountain add any curb appeal to my landscape?
Yes. If you have a fountain like this build in the front of your yard, it will draw the viewer’s gaze directly in line with your front door. If you add a fountain to a backyard landscape, it will suggest a sense of outdoor living to prospective buyers.

What functional contributions can a contemporary garden fountain do for my yard?
One thing it will definitely do for you is drown out the sounds of the city with the peaceful sounds of running water. Contemporary landscape design is all about Mentalism. Adding an island of tranquility to the challenging geometry of the landscape is an excellent way to balance sense and sensibility throughout your yard.

A contemporary garden fountain is often built as the centerpiece in a courtyard garden of some sort. When lit with underwater lights, it can illuminate the immediate seating area around the fountain and serve as a focal point for conversation.

What aesthetic contribution does a contemporary garden fountain make to the landscape?
For one thing, it adds a very unique and dynamic form of vertical impact to a contemporary garden. Water suggests the essence of life but is non-organic in its own right. Its lack of form is ideal for a landscape shaped by abstract conceptual that challenge the comfort zone of the five senses. However, since water is the foundation of life itself it paradoxically works to soften a contemporary landscape just enough to make it appealing.

What materials are used to construct contemporary garden fountains?
Any material that catches the eye and provides a stable structure will work, really. Cut, finished stone is a favorite among many contemporary Houston homeowners. Resin and fiberglass also make excellent building materials for smaller fountains used to decorate small courtyard gardens or private patio gardens. This is done to emulate stone or concrete in an environment that cannot support a great deal of weight.

Another very popular construction method is to blend either copper or steel with some kind of stone. The combinations of texture and color that result from such blends are nearly infinite.

How large are these fountains?
They can range in size from very small, simple structures surrounding by a few stepping stones and boxwoods to sizes large enough for children to play in. Contemporary design is one of our favorite styles of landscaping, period; because it is so subjective by nature that customization is never a problem.

Whatever you want your fountain to look like, we can build it to order, and we can make it work with your landscape master plan either as the central hub of attraction and outdoor living, or as a supportive, minor element in a more complex and grand design.

Contemporary Garden Design

What is contemporary garden design?
Contemporary gardens are immediately recognized by their stark sense of geometry. They are characterized by clean lines, unpredictable angles, and unique geometric shapes. Contemporary garden design styles are highly variable due to the abstract nature of modernesque expression. We build your garden to be more of a direct reflection of your mind than of anything else.

Why is the design important?
Contemporary garden design is best handled by a professional who knows how to balance the subjective expression of your personality with the practical demands of residential landscaping. Your garden has to be built to a scale and scope proportional to your home and surrounding landscape elements. In respects to home architecture, it should complement the materials and architecture of the house. It should also present a scene that appears connected to its surroundings. Since contemporary landscape design is so abstract, it must create its own relationships rather than presuming on relationships between more ordinary forms that exist.

What are the goals of contemporary garden design?
Low maintenance is the foremost goal. Due to its heavy emphasis on geometric forms and relationships, the contemporary garden cannot afford to ever look unkempt or untidy. Vegetation is therefore minimalized, partly to reduce the need for constant trimming and pruning, and partly to emphasize a Mentalist reality where natural life forces are subject to the realm of pure thought.

This emphasis on the mind is intended to challenge the senses, which are by nature attuned to Nature itself, no pun intended. The body always seeks its own form and sense through its experiences. One thing that contemporary garden design always does is move you out of this world of familiar experience and comfort into the world of the unknown.

The garden must give you a feeling of transition or passageway as well. Since the mind is always working, there is no standing still in a contemporary landscape. Either you move through it, or your eye moves through it. Contemporary garden design experts will therefore either build the garden with some form of pathway through it that you and guests can walk through, or they will build it with shapes and materials that move your vision through it on to the next landscape element of interest.

What type of hardscape elements do you use in contemporary garden design?
Pavers are very popular because they interlock together and come in all colors and sizes. We can build a mini-patio with them or create a small stepping stone walkway through the sparse vegetation and unique forms. We can even find you pavers that look like bricks so you can have your own modernesque version of a brick walkway.

What are some of the more unique materials you use in building these gardens?
There are definitely more manmade materials in a contemporary garden than there are organic elements. Like we mentioned earlier, vegetation is minimal. Sometimes, even, fake grass is used to suggest the organic rather than directly experience it. Other materials that we often build include stainless steel and glass. Posts can be erected, then a wire be run between them. Hanging plants can be suspended from this mirror and backed by a translucent piece of glass or mirror that adds vertical impact to the scene.

What is the art of water?

What is the art of water?
It is the use of water features to beautify a landscape

What features make water art and not just water?
The art of water depends partly on movement. When mobile and fluid, water gives the mind a feeling of being freed from form and rigid constructs. To maintain a sense of artistry, however, fluidity must be focused. Some type of geometric boundary or structure is necessary to lend aesthetic to the scene at hand. When these two elements are combined proportionally, the art of water then functions to compliment and reflect both organic and inorganic landscape elements. Vegetation looks more supported by the very stuff of life itself, and architecture becomes more dynamic and preeminent as it is reflected from a variety of angles that magnify its preeminence and sense of proportion.

How does the art of water support architecture?
Fountains are very important elements to landscape architecture. As masonry forms, they mirror the geometry of homes, patios, and outdoor buildings. As water moves out of these structures, it gives life and emergence to these forms. Putting lights in a fountain adds an even greater dimension to the scene.

Reflecting pools and infinity ponds create mirrored surfaces that actually reflect the forms of buildings. Structures then take on new significance, and smaller landscapes can be made to look much larger and complete with this effect.

How does the art of water support softscape?
The art of water is essential to creating a landscape that looks like Nature, so to speak. Even in the driest parts of the world there are rivers, oases, and beaches, so few topographies exist that do not have water somewhere in the scenery. When we create a backyard landscape to represent a wilderness area, elements like natural pools play a very critical role in establishing a sense of getaway from the big city. Streams and waterfalls are two other designs that can be added to a backyard to add a sense of movement and freedom.

More refined European garden designs can be customized by adding water features. Fountains can be placed at the heart of small parterre gardens, for example, in order to magnify their sense of proportion and aesthetic impact. Koi ponds can occupy the central positions of entry garden courtyards. Waterfalls can actually be built to act as lighted walls at night and separate one portion of the landscape from the rest, or even one property from adjacent yards. The art of water in these landscape designs always helps to create a sense life energy that is emerging, dynamic, organic, and diverse.

What landscape designs benefit the most from the art of water?
While the art of water is used in every landscape master plan to some degree, its greatest benefits are seen in contemporary and modern landscape designs. In contemporary landscape design, we find an aesthetic that is extremely mentalist, mathematical, and abstract. Vegetation is scarcer in this landscape style than in any other aesthetic. Consequently, since organic life is minimized, the stuff of life itself—water—is often used as a substitute for vegetation.

Custom fountain work is therefore very important to both commercial and contemporary residential landscapes. In patio design, it adds vertical presence to a horizontal plane. In other areas of the yard, such as the central entryway to the front yard, or in a special seating area in the back yard, contemporary fountains create movement and a feeling of vitality without having to deviate from an essentially inorganic design form.

Modern landscape design is not quite so abstract or inorganic as contemporary landscape design. There is more vegetation, particularly in styles like modern tropical gardens. The art of water here not only adds a sense of life, but it also provides linkage between living elements and nonliving structures. Modern garden décor will often call for a blend of high-grade material constructs, such as glass walls and steel columns, surrounding by plants of various species. Turning the glass wall into the backdrop for a waterfall fountain is a good example of what we mean by water becoming more than water, transforming itself aesthetically into the literal art of water.

High End Modern Landscapes

High end modern landscapes can be developed around both residential and commercial environments. What makes these landscapes so sophisticated is their deliberate use of geometric forms, high-grade materials, and particularity in plant species selection to create an ultra-modern presence around a building or a home. Whereas modern landscape design seeks to support architecture from a complimentary perspective, high end contemporary landscapes almost act as mirrors to the home or building and transform the entire landscape into something of a structure in its own right.

The commercial clients that we work for in various industries often need a specific type of exterior presence to establish the sense and sensibility of what they represent. Art galleries, museums, colleges, and modern buildings represent just some of the commercial arenas in which this exceptional style adds value and attraction factor.

Most of our work to date, however, has been in the residential arena. Exterior World builds high end modern landscapes mostly in residential environments throughout Houston neighborhoods such as Tanglewood, Royal Oaks, Hedwig Village, Memorial, and River Oaks. Any contemporary or modern home can be made to look virtually brand new with a high end contemporary landscape that extends its geometric uniqueness into open space. Clients looking to add property value to their home investment should consider this as one excellent means to this end.
High-grade materials and sophisticated forms are essential to the success of high-end modern landscapes. Water features play a significant, if not predominant role, in many of our designs. Reflecting pools and negative edge pools can be built on both commercial and residential landscapes. These highly geometric water features create dimension and movement wherever they are added. Stainless steel structures can be installed to magnify the reflectivity of the water. Glass can be used to create windows into special points of interest or prismatically bend light into water. Special concrete forms and gravel patterns layer the landscape with a blend of natural stonework and planned, deliberate hardscape.

Indeed, the use of paving is very important to the overall aesthetic of any high end contemporary landscape. Paving creates large spaces dedicated to alternating patterns of stasis and transition. Patios and walkways can be built at slightly different elevation to convey a sense of journey. Steps can be constructed to mimic the exact rhythm of a natural footstep so guests hardly know they are walking up or down stairs. Small architectural walls can then be built along these walkways to connote special importance and a sense of controlled, focus movement. Arches can also be built where patios meet walkways to create a sense of entrance into either an open space or a special space set apart for specific uses.

Vegetation is typically kept to a minimum in high end contemporary landscape design. The old literary adage “less as more” is the modern landscape developer’s motto as well. While we do not want the landscape to look sterile, we want to create the sense that Nature as a force that supports the apex of man’s evolution, not as a realm that grows randomly on its own and stands to possibly compete with human structure. Vegetation that is very tall and can grow in compact spaces is typically preferred over lush foliage. Species of low-growth trees and bamboo can be installed in the tightest of spots to add rich, organic presence to any scene. Ground cover that is dark, and special grasses that grow well in shaded areas and graveled areas, are preferred to hardier species that tend to spread.

Modern Outdoor Garden

The modern outdoor garden is many times the most important feature of the modern or contemporary landscape. This type of garden downplays the role of organic décor in landscape architecture and look instead to geometric forms, relationships, and sophisticated materials to communicate a mentalist and highly subjective aesthetic that emphasizes human thought over natural life.

The geometry used is always that of familiar geometric shapes or derivative forms thereof. Quadrilaterals are favored linear forms that allow gardens to follow the property line, architectural walls, contemporary koi ponds, infinity pools, and the walls of a house or office building. Triangular forms are often built to compliment avant garde contemporary sculptures. Circular forms are frequently used as focal points within the landscape, or as aesthetic foundations for contemporary fountains.

The materials that are used to build the garden must always be highly reflective and catch the attention of the viewer. This is because inorganic elements will frequently constitute over 90% of the entire modern outdoor garden. It is therefore very important that we choose something that will remain reflective at night as well as during the daytime.

A good many rock surfaces and masonry elements will work superbly for this task provided they are sufficiently polished. Granite or marble can be used to build ornamental walls that frame the garden. Or, a patio-like effect can be created with polished limestone or stepping stone. Portions of this surface can then be removed for selective planting of small trees, grasses, and white flowers. Concealed landscape lighting can then be installed that will generate a reflective glare that makes both the hardscape design and the vegetation stand out at nighttime.

Steel is also a favored construction material for modern outdoor garden design. Steel posts can be used as centerpieces in gardens where there is no fountain. Or, we can build two steel posts to either side of the center and build a glass wall between them.

Glass makes an excellent frame for a fountain in the background. It also provides one of the most interesting and interesting surface areas for outdoor landscape lighting. These lights can be positioned behind the wall to shine through it. If we want to create a prismatic effect, we can use opaque or beveled glass and position concealed lighting fixtures to shine at an angle through the wall.

If we want to reflect white light upward toward the sky, we will use clear glass and mount concealed ground lighting fixtures either at the base of the wall or just behind it.

If minimal vine growth is desired due to the fact that we are building a very small modern outdoor garden, a cable can be substituted for the glass wall. This steel cable can hang suspended between two posts, or it can be stretched taught between them and used to hang chimes, ornamental objects, or even small potted plants.

Modern Garden Décor

When we talk about modern garden décor, we are literally talking about décor. Décor is a phenomenon; the ground and center of a garden’s aesthetic. The modern garden is no different than any other garden in this respect. What makes it unique is the type of décor we find within it. It departs from the organic aesthetic that we normally visualize when we picture a garden in our minds, and it ventures instead into the realm of the unknown and the abstract. Using modern materials and basic geometric forms, its seeks to establish a purely mental awareness of itself as a uniquely human realm overshadowing the former realm of Nature.

This does not mean that modern garden decor departs from the principles of beauty and proportion. On the contrary, it seeks to establish beauty and form with accoutrements that function like jewelry on the landscape. Any number of materials can be used to create complex forms out of geometric shapes. Simple shapes are the building blocks of simplicity which help convey the impression of beauty in latent form. The rest is up to the designer to create new realities of form by skillful combinations that represent new or innovative points of view.

While the materials vary widely and the potential number of forms is only limited by the extent of the designer’s imagination, there is an attribution consistent throughout that can be immediately recognized as modernesque in its intention. Clarity and light are consistently represented in all of the many types of modern garden element by the polish and sparkle that appear on the surfaces of the forms themselves. Either the landscape designer chooses a material that by its very nature shines, or the designer polishes its surface and positions it in such a way that it always brings light to the occasion in some respect.

Some of the shapes we find here originated in ancient times and have been expressed in new ways to reflect our current world. The old image of the pillar or obelisk is something we have all seen in films and stories about the distant past. Such monoliths are often depicted rising up from the earth out of places of stone, fire, and rock, or at other times, water and greenery. It is no different in today’s modern garden décor.

We can take a steel post or stucco column, polished and gleaming, and position it in the midst of gravel beds, hardscape structures, or Spartan plantings of dark green ground cover.. Steel walls can be used to frame a garden or to hang objects. Such an image conveys a sense of magnitude, or even possibly suggests that which is monumental. Placed in relationship to a contemporary style home or modern office building, it commands attention an attention and focus that in turn is transferred to other forms.

Steel can also be used as a fountainhead that feeds a disappearing fountain or infinity pool. To magnify the reflectivity of water we may also work the steel in with other forms made from glass, granite, or marble. This provides a more appropriate compliment to the multi-dimensional aspects of water and better feeds awareness with a stream of pure abstract consciousness that is selectively supported by the organic, yet strangely free from dependence on it and unique vibrant with an energy of its own.

Modern Water Gardens

Modern water gardens create a feeling of life in the realm of the abstract and mathematical. The intent of anything modern and contemporary is to emphasize the preeminence of man above the forces of nature. Since Nature is associated with greenery in collective consciousness, the presence of greenery in a modern water garden must be very selective—or even minimized—in places. Hard straight lines, abrupt intersections, and linear movements that fan out at times into radiuses (half circle constructions) establish a stark, Spartan view of the world. Water reduces the sense of life to its most raw and elemental base, and outcroppings of greenery strategically placed within the form indicated potentials of emergence more so than lush realities of organic comforts.

Modern water gardens are ideal centerpieces for courtyards and atriums. They create a focal point of fluidity within form that captivates attention and lends itself to tranquility and relaxation. In commercial environments, we build a lot of these in break areas. Colleges and universities will also hire us to build study areas around these gardens to give their students an alternative to the cloister of cubicles and library walls. Fountains are very commonly built within these structures to complete the feeling of a meditative environment where time has been removed from the present moment.

Water features are often constructed of natural stones like granite that have been quarried, shaped, and polished to a high degree of sophistication. The shells and copings around modern gardens often gleam as brightly as the water they contain. Quarried slabs of granite can be laid in symmetrical patterns to create any number of geometric shapes. Rectangular gardens can be built alongside of homes, architectural walls, or as “visual bridges” between major landscape design elements. Functionality can be built into these structures in the form of patio seating areas, sidewalk structures, and stepping stone walkways that move across the surface of the water. Linear modern water gardens in these instances can actually define progressions of physical movement as well as the movement of the eye.

This opens the door for the modern water garden to be the focal point of events in a modern landscape design. By bringing the gathering to the edge of the water, one defines the tone of the activity with the sophisticated aesthetic of polished stones, flowing water, gravel, small trees, and geometric plantings of dark green vegetation and sprinklings of coloration produced by controlled plantings of flowering plants. The most popular color in these gardens is white because it provides an excellent complement to the colors of stones and gravel and a superb contrast as well to the dark greens of boxwoods, mondo grass, and other dark green colors. Light green vegetation is normally avoided because it is a bit too lively for the controlled setting we are looking to create in these environments.

Water features always have a streamlined appearance. Flow is quite thanks to silent pumps and hidden mechanisms move the water in a linear progression from one end of the structure to the other. This keeps the modern water garden from appearing too forced in its mentalist, absolute design. Water that flows like a stream or waterfall softens the surrounding features of rock, gravel, polished coping, and custom fountain design with a soothing fluidity that brings a sense of harmony to the mix of hardscape and accent softscape elements that surround it. This, again, makes for an ideal gathering place on any contemporary landscape where conversation, celebration, and appreciation all flow together into the same emotional stream.

Contemporary Koi Ponds

Contemporary koi ponds are deliberately manmade forms that follow established rules of geometric order. The landscape does not so much determine what size or shape the koi pond takes, but rather the architecture of the home and to a certain extent surrounding hardscape elements. Contemporary koi ponds have been built throughout River Oaks, Rice Village, Memorial, and Hedwig Village near homes that feature all sorts of architectural themes, but have one thing in common.

The traditional koi pond is built in a more freeform style that mimics natural ponds and lakes. Typically these ponds are built near trees or gardens to create a park like or even wilderness theme within the landscape design. It is not so with contemporary koi ponds. As with all contemporary styles, organic presence is minimized and abstract conceptualization is elevated through the forms of geometry. Rectangles, squares, triangles, and radiuses (semicircles or half circles) are the preferred shapes that landscape architects tend to work with.

The minimal organic presence does not mean that the contemporary koi pond lacks all feeling of life. Quite the opposite is true. Life is simply more subdued within the form. Vegetation being minimized, it is the water that creates the dimension and the sense of life. The combination of the hard absolutes of straight lines and angles and the soft fluidity of clear essence adds a calming aesthetic to the abstract element of mind. Instead of trees and shrubs lining its banks, you see ornamental copings made from high grade materials. Instead of colorful flowers hanging into the water, you see colorful fish rising up to the surface. The fish bring movement to the pond, and sometimes gifts of attention. Koi have been known to let people feed them by hand.

Contemporary koi ponds are sometimes built like swimming pools as separate elements in the landscape design. When we build them in this fashion, we normally place them along a trail or walkway that guests will stroll down and pause for a moment to look at the forms and the water and the fish. At other locations we may build a pond as part of a modern garden. A rectangular or square design works best in this environment with a radius arc that moves the water and the fish partly into the perimeter of the garden. This works exceptionally well in modern tropical garden design, where the minimalist planting of vegetation is offset first by the use of exotic plants, and second by the introduction of geometric abstracts into hardscape design and semi-organic space.

Other clients of Exterior Worlds simply love water and fish so much that they want their contemporary koi pond to be the center of attention and activity. For these clients, we can design the pool as a quadrilateral element with a radius arc on one side. This will in turn allow us to wrap a custom patio or high-grade wooden deck around its perimeter, softening the contemporary design just enough to make it comfortable and peaceful to sit by. A waterfall can be added at the opposite end to enhance the calming effect that water has on the mind, and lighting can be placed under the waterfall to convey a sense of living presence and vitality in what originally began as a simple, and rather sterile, geometric form.

Small Modern Garden

The benefit of a small modern garden is you put one virtually anywhere on the landscape as an accent to architectural forms or to create a small, special environment dedicated to a special purpose. Space is never an issue with these forms because they are built to scale with smaller scaled items. Smaller stones and center profile materials are employed to create the illusion that there is actually more room within the garden than there actually is.

Small modern gardens are found everywhere around townhomes, schools, and commercial environments. We see this a great deal in office parks where buildings are crowded together and there is very little open space available for break areas. Property managers will hire us to build atriums and courtyards in the corner areas that form between the exterior of a building and the adjoining sidewalk.

Many atriums will have a custom fountain in the center of converging radii decorated that is decorated with a layer of dark gravel. Lights are installed in the fountain to add beauty to the grounds at night, and vegetation is used to round out corners and line the exterior wall of the building. Vegetation here is also utilized as a compliment the geometric structure of the building with a focused living presence that actually provides a very realistic reflection of the professional mindset of the business cycle.

In school yards and community colleges we often will build small modern gardens as entry gardens. Entry gardens are ideal transitional spaces that help move the mind from the hard interior structures of the school building itself into the more open campus areas intended for recreation and relaxation. Entry gardens can also be built on the sides of school buildings to provide transitional movement away from parking areas.

Larger campuses and office parks typically want more than one small modern garden. In many of these settings, we are working between multiple buildings that are connected by sidewalks, patios, and even parking lots. There are plenty of opportunities for gardens in all of these places. Linear gardens can be planted along the length of the sidewalk. Sections can be removed from patios, and the resulting space can be landscaped and planted accordingly.

In the more open, roomy spaces, courtyards can be built that feature complex geometric hardscape designs, strategic and minimalist plantings of vegetation, and trees in the center of converging radii. As we do in all modern gardens, we use very dark colored shrubs, ground cover, and grasses to provide complimentary organic accent to rock, concrete, and gravel formations.

In townhomes where space is limited, we may build two small modern gardens in the front of the dwelling, one on either corner of the yard. We can either build these within the driveway area itself (in the case of a motor court), or we may utilize empty space between the arc of a small circle drive and the exterior of the house. One very popular design is to develop these areas as gravel patios with a single tree planted in the center.

Modern Home Garden

The modern home garden is a contemporary style intended to work as a direct corollary to modern or contemporary home architecture.

The complimentary power of a modern home garden is multi-dimensional. It is a blend of reflection and contrast. Without this juxtaposition of opposing aesthetics, the garden would appear too minimalist and lose its innate power of attention and magnification. However, when opposing corollaries are fused into a focused synthesis, a modern home garden can appear to be as complex and structurally robust as the house whose form it works to enhance.

Lines in the modern home garden are used to reflect linear forms in the home architecture. By lines we mean any hardscape structure or design within a hardscape that moves in a straight progression along a horizontal or vertical axis. This includes the boundaries of the garden as well as decorative elements within it. Some of these designs call for the construction of small architectural walls that loosely resemble a courtyard or entry garden. Others utilize stones or brick laid out in sharp linear patterns and right angles to convey a sense of horizontal and vertical movements. Such progressions mirror the edifice of the home exterior and help create a subconscious sense of framing in the mind of the viewer.

Radii also play an important role in today’s modern home garden. This is because modern architecture often features curves that soften and connect the otherwise harsh and separatist elements of rigid angles and stark linearity. Radii that are either designed into the hardscape itself or generated by a creative planting of dark green, low-level ground cover provide direct visual correspondence to these curved spaces and give the entire edifice a sense of extension.

Keep in mind that we are not talking here about the typical circular forms and compound curves you see in traditional architecture. These are more like arcs and cut-out segments of circles than a truly round geometric design. They are more like fluid line segments that arcs diagonally juxtaposed against intersecting perpendicular lines that create right angles. In architecture, these arcs often add a visual flare to the areas along rooftops and portions of the wall adjacent to windows. In modern home gardens, they can occupy one or more quadrants of a quadrilaterals-shaped planting, or they can shoot off the end of a linear planting to create the illusion of multi-dimensional geometry.

As complex as it sounds, modern home garden design is not so much a complex garden form in and of itself, but rather a collage of simple geometric patterns in vegetation and hardscapes whose near infinite number of combinations compound into images that are representative of the abstract qualities of mind and independent from any recognizable form beyond that of the simple circle, line, angel, or arc.

Modern Garden Ideas

On one level, all modern garden ideas are based upon a common set of core values. Like other components of modern landscape design, they consist primarily of inorganic elements. Structure is a symbol of conscious thought; plant life symbolizes the energies of life and mind. A tendency to use hardscapes as containment fields for Spartan plantings of vegetation is clearly evident. This works to thematically express the belief that man has mastered the forces of his own mind and is capable of controlling his own destiny.

The geometric patterns that constitute the foundational aspects of modern garden ideas are very basic inn and of themselves. There are four essential forms that can be used in this discipline. Linear lines and structures are very often used to decorate iron fences, stone walls, or the exterior of a home. Quadrilateral constructs are used to extend the architectural themes of outdoor buildings and custom swimming pools designed in rectangular form. Triangular designs can be very effective in introducing abstract sculptures to the eye. Circles represent both feminine form and spirituality and are often found around trees and fountains.

Due to the fact that inorganic elements form the basis of all modern garden ideas, it is necessary to begin the planning phase of every project with a detailed survey of the property. This will help us identify the best locations in which to do our work. These areas will in some way always be tied to some sort of hardscape. Patios, walkways, decorative walls, and even motor courts are all in effect foundations for design. Many of these locations are adjacent to significant structures like the house or an outdoor kitchen. Reconstructing the hardscape with new organic elements adds a new dimension of energy and vitality to the architecture of the structure that subliminally communicates a sense of outdoor living experience so crucial to any kind of landscape architecture, be it contemporary or traditional.

Since the whole point of landscape design is to create this sort of outdoor living experience, is also important that we focus our attention on any decorative focal points and all major areas of activity. In gathering places, modern garden ideas are developed as emblematic expressions of the activities that transpire there. A patio area around a pool, for example, is normally the scene of a great deal of movement. People do not just sit around the pool. They get up and walk around, and most get in the water, or at least put their feet in it. A garden here would feature decorative patterns in the hardscape and careful plantings of vegetation that would reflect movement toward the center of the pool. Whether or not these patterns would feature linear, circular, or rectangular geometry depends entirely on the shape of the pool and the patio itself.

On the other hand, accenting decorative focal points on the landscape requires a slightly different approach. Modern garden ideas here are determined by what works best as a supportive element that brings attention to the decorative element. If it is a statue, vertical elements may be added to the hardscape and vegetation to draw the eye upward to the form. If it is a fountain, a garden will normally function as the aesthetic base of the entire piece, making it appear as if the fountain itself rose up from the amalgam of hardscape and plant material as a blend of fluidity and form. Again, the patterns and materials that are used to construct these adjunct supportive elements are developed in accordance both with the immediate form at hand and an aesthetic awareness of the landscape as an entirety.

Regardless of location or intent, the ultimate success of every design depends on a very careful and deliberate selection of vegetation. Too much organic presence destroys the essence of the design, so an intentionally minimalist approach must be taken. Dark colored vegetation is preferable because it works better with the stark absolutism of stone and hardscape. Trees should be small and isolated, almost as if they were stunted—to indicate the control of human consciousness over the otherwise unlimited growth potential of nature. Color schemes in modern garden ideas should be treated with the same minimalism. Colorful, flowering plants should only be used to the extent that surrounding modern art or contemporary architecture uses color to develop style and theme. Any more than this will risk losing the deliberate tension inherent to modern garden ideas and contemporary landscaping in general.

Modern Courtyard Design

Modern courtyard design elevates human consciousness over natural forces. It emphasizes thought over feeling but does not completely ignore feeing. Abstract ideas are treated with equal value to the more commonly understood concrete forms of daily empirical reality.

Modern courtyard design works on one level by creating visual tension and interest with alternating contrast and symmetry. The perimeter will often be designed as a standard or derivative geometric shape, and then decorated within with opposing or complimentary geometric patterns.

For instance, a square modern courtyard can be designed with a patio that is punctuated by expanding concentric circles and radiating lines. A circular atrium can be contrasted by a diamond pattern or square block pattern on the patio surface. A patio of any type also can be segmented into alternating areas for seating and plantings.

The above illustrations show how modern courtyard design relies heavily on minimalism to achieve its ends. Simplicity is the key to key to achieving creative success. Taking only basic geometric shapes, curves, and linear lines with sharp angles, we can distort or extend these patterns into an infinite variety of shapes or expanding lines of movement.

Radii are used a great deal in modern hardscapes because they force the eye to first travel inward to their originating point, then move outward again. This back and forth movement unconsciously suggests the infinite contained within finite space.

Another element of minimalism that is key to modern courtyard design is the selecting the appropriate number and species of plants. Colorful flowers do not work well in these settings because they are too suggestive of traditional gardens and Nature itself. Shrubs with dark green leaves and white or purple blooms constitute the extent of color decoration in the majority of modern courtyard design.

Virtually any type of hedge, shrub, or small tree that fits this description will work, provided the amount of organic material never overpowers the human element. It is essential that natural elements be used only to support man-made patterns, never the other way around. As a general rule, vegetation should total no more than 30-40 percent of the space here. The rest should be inorganic and geometrical.

Aside from these few basic principles, there are little restrictions way a modern courtyard can be designed. Much like modern art, it is a highly subjective style that allows for tremendous client input and creative freedom on the part of the landscape professional.

Because of the innate diversity for which it allows, the modern courtyard is one of the most popular forms of hardscape design and common in a wide variety of settings. It is equally popular in commercial, academic, municipal, and residential environments. Depending on the setting, it is most commonly used as a break area, reading area, or private space for personal conversation.

Modern Tropical Gardens

Modern tropical garden design is a highly eclectic style based upon the controlled juxtaposition of extremes. On the one hand, we have the starkly manmade element of a contemporary style home, while on the other; we have vegetation whose iconic significance evokes feelings of the wild, the exotic, and the remote. Unlike traditional tropical gardens which emphasize a fluidity of boundary, modern tropical gardens are characterized by lush foliage that is tightly contained within strict geometric boundaries.

To obtain this sense of containment, tropical plant species must be carefully selected to balance both symmetry and proportion with the garden boundary and surrounding terrain. Tropical plants with large leaves are planted in key locations to juxtapose against home architecture and hardscape design. These plants tend to grow upward more than outward, and add vertical expression to the linearity that characterizes modern design. Bamboo and palm trees can also be used to create this effect in tight linear plantings against modern walls.

Due to the fact that modern landscapes typically subordinate the organic to the inorganic, it is very important to make certain that the growth factor of the vegetation does not overshadow the fundamental purposes of modernism. Contemporary themes are always humanistic and dedicated to the elevation of human constructs over that which is perceived to be the untamed primitivism of natural life and forms. Tropical plants can prove very challenging when installed in such a landscape, because in their native habitats they tend to grow rapidly and cover the entirety of the ground.

However, there is another attribute that tropical species possess that makes them ideal for modern landscaping, and that is the ability for many different species to grow to one another without choking each other out. This allows the scale of the garden to be reduced to a size that is appropriate to the scale of the overall property and respectful of home architecture. Of course, plant selection must be very precise here in order to maintain the emphasis on contemporary design.

Because modern architecture relies on stark geometry to convey states of consciousness, tropical plants have to be chosen based upon the natural geometric patterns that constitute their forms. What works near the house may not necessarily work near the fountain and patio in the back. Garden design must follow the patterns of angularity and linearity of adjacent inorganic structures in order to remain true to the intent of contemporary landscaping design.

Typically, modern tropical gardens look obviously scaled down in comparison to more traditional design styles. The reason this is so is to create specific spatial experiences using greenery to enhance stonework, gravel, concrete, and masonry. Many times, planters are even shaped to mimic basic geometric shapes that compliment the lines and curves of walls, walkways, stepping stones, and custom patios. It is not uncommon for us to hire masons to build these structures as circular or rectangular enclosures that rise two or even three feet above the surrounding hardscape.

When modern tropical gardens are customized in this manner, it allows for organic design to play a specific supporting role for each particular landscaping element in the yard. The combination of geometry, custom masonry, and careful selection of plant species allows the landscape architect to create a multitude of organic spatial experiences that work with—never against—the predominately inorganic aesthetic of the modernesque landscape.

Modern Garden Design

Modern garden design allows functional elements of landscapes such as walkways, parking areas, and patios to be a part of the landscape as opposed to a typical stand alone element. This is typically seen in contemporary landscapes, which feature very stark geometry and oft abstract ideas. The inorganic predominates in such a yard, with the organic serving to frame or connect significant geometric design elements and outdoor forms. Gardens are minimalist creations, serving a master design plan that promotes human consciousness above the aesthetics of nature and fundamental patterns found therein.

In a contemporary landscape, the modern garden is primarily inorganic in both element and design. Its function is to support manmade structures and home architecture, not showcase natural elements as an aesthetic in their own right. Darker foliage is preferred in these settings because it adds to the sense of stark absolutism inherent in modern landscaping. Boxwoods and mondo grass are typically used in linear plantings than run adjacent to a wall, such as we commonly see in backyard design. Modern garden areas can also be planted inside of hardscapes by removing portions of concrete, blocks, or stone. This has the effect of making nature look contained within modern human paradigms, and forms of nature sculpted to human geometric design.

A modern garden can also function as a perimeter element that adds emphasis to a major contemporary design element. Modern fountains are normally very predominant elements in contemporary landscaping, and adding a circular planting around its base helps strengthen its sense of form. The linear elements of contemporary wall fountains can similarly be magnified with low-profile plantings that emphasize strong lines at the base of the fountain and geometric angles inherent to its design.

Many custom homes feature an eclectic blend of architectural styles and are not purely contemporary or modern styles, per se. A garden here can be more organic and diverse in its design, provided it supports some aspect of the home or yard that requires an added decorative touch. For example, many two-story and three-story custom homes are built with second story patios and rooftop areas that are characterized by a high level of linearity and symmetry. These attributes can be magnified by taking a traditional garden style—such as Italian or Mediterranean—and adapting its form and proportion along more modern lines.

Similarly, more organic lawns will need gardens that add color with flowering plants, and contribute a sense of vibrancy to front and back yards. The degree of color and variety in these gardens will depend entirely upon such factors as the size and proportions of the house, the color of its façade, the materials used to build the home and other outdoor structures, and the number of trees within the yard which by their very presence demand something of a more organic design sensibility as a support element.

Modern garden design ideas such as the ones described in this article can only be developed by licensed landscaping architects who understand the complexities inherent to a very challenging style where organic priorities are almost exclusively determined by inorganic ones, and where garden installation and proportion are predicated on manmade geometry and exterior forms.