Blame it on the barbeque — a super-size stainless steel number that caught Jordan Rubin's eye. It needed a place to park outside the Seattle home Jordan shares with his wife, Leanne.
The only question was where; the Rubins' sole outdoor space was a lifeless rectangular parking pad of concrete, gravel, and asphalt next to their busy street. There was no fence for privacy, and no plants to soften the landscape.
So the couple — first-time homeowners with only the scantiest experience in construction, design, and gardening — decided to convert part of that parking pad into a courtyard for summer dining and entertaining.
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| Leanne Rubin laying flagstone. |
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They drew inspiration from books, magazines, and gardens they spotted during evening walks around their neighborhood. "We did the design by pacing the space and laying down strings and hoses," Leanne says. The couple planned to build tasteful fencing across the back of the driveway to create a private 33- by 25-foot outdoor room, which they would pave with Pennsylvania bluestone. Finally, they envisioned adding a sheltering screen of greenery, a garden shed, and a dining area. But the process of building the new garden turned into an adventure with a few unforeseen twists. Read on for the couple's step-by-step account of their yearlong labor of love.
LEANNE'S SCRAPBOOK
Diary of a DYI dream garden, with a few detours along the way
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| JUNE:
The Driveway Goes
Jordan begins to demolish the paving. "After a few stabs of the pick into asphalt, he demolished a disc in his back instead," Leanne says. "What followed was a trip to the emergency room, spinal cord surgery, and finally a call to a guy with a backhoe."
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| OCTOBER:
The shed rises
Four months of physical therapy later, Jordan and a friend embark on the construction of a cedar garden shed, which takes three months to build. "Before the shed, we had to bring the mower up out of the basement every time we cut the grass," Leanne says. |
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| EARLY MAY:
A fence goes up
To separate the garden from the busy street, Jordan designs and builds a cedar fence. The lintels on the saloon-style garden gate match the shed's extended rafters.
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photo by Norm Plate | MAY:
Planting the pavers
The courtyard's flagstones sit on an 8-inch
base (2 inches of sand atop 6 inches of gravel). To soften the spaces between the flagstones, Leanne plants woolly thyme, Irish moss, blue star creeper, and fragrant Corsican mint.
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photo by Norm Plate | JUNE:
Patio plants are chosen
After building up the beds with compost and topsoil, Leanne plants a weeping katsura tree ("for its scale and beautiful leaves") and clematis ("for the lovely blooms it brings to fences and walls"). Perennials like Crocosmia, daylilies, and blanket flowers fill in around them.
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photo by Norm Plate | JULY: Finished!
"Our new garden is most beautiful and magical at night, when the light coming through the shed's stained-glass window casts a warm glow over the entire space," Leanne says. "We can enjoy serenity and calm after more than a year of backbreaking work."
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TIPS FOR A FIRST-TIME MAKEOVER Choose plants carefully Leanne Rubin selected plants recommended by the Great Plant Picks program at Seattle's Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden. Other good sources for recommendations include All-America Rose Selections; 415/249-6776, the Plant Select list for mountain and intermountain areas, and All-America Selections for garden seed. Each organization lists plants meeting stringent performance standards. Create zones Leanne put water-loving plants in one part of the garden and drought-tolerant ones in another, so watering (all done by hand) is easier and plants grow better. Solomon's seal, Epimedium, and hostas grow in the shady areas, while a blend of grasses, Ceanothus, and a strawberry tree goes in drier, more exposed places.
Compost annually Each autumn, the Rubins put down a 2-inch layer of compost made from recycled garden waste. It adds nutrients
to the soil, protects roots from hard freezes in winter, conserves water in summer, and keeps down weeds all year. Add a shed where you need it the most It keeps tools and garden machinery safe, dry, and out of the garage and basement.
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