Beautiful Balance
Landscape designer Carson McElheney overhauls a Buckhead cottage garden with classic sensibilities
βHave you ever visited a garden for the first time and traveled down a path or rounded a corner, and with each step, there is a growing sensation of what awaits you?β asks landscape designer Carson McElheney.
Homes with intimate courtyard areas, such as this Buckhead cottage, with a recent renovation by architect D. Stanley Dixon, allow McElheney to develop beautifully detailed spaces. His clean, classic approach to landscape design focuses on garden elements that arenβt overworked or distracting to the eye. βNot only does it have to marry the architecture and complement it, but itβs really important to combine what it looks like from inside the house,β says McElheney, who launched his Atlanta firm in 2011. βThatβs really true in any garden, but especially when you have these small spaces that have such a direct relationship with the architecture.β
Previously, the Buckhead garden was a βhodgepodge of plant materialβ and an assortment of colors covering a half-acre, but the homeowner loved clean lines and tailored plots. McElheney defined private courtyard patches with foundation plantings of boxwoods and hydrangeas, swaths of fescue lawn, a secret garden path and a white perennial entry garden with flowering plants that are a bit looser and whimsical.
Β The propertyβs old oak trees are majestic, even if they present a challenge in terms of successfully creating a planting design. βWhat makes our spaces successful is knowing how plants live and grow and develop and mature over time,β he says.
Β Throughout the garden, βGreen Mountainβ boxwood and pachysandra add layers and frame the architecture against rich green backdrops of English laurel. The palette focuses on different hues of green and white, with a subtle introduction of pastel blues. βI think we were very successful creating that sense of anticipation in such small garden spaces and the surprises that await when you enter each garden room,β McElheney says.
LANDSCAPE DESIGN Carson McElheney, Carson McElheney Landscape Architecture & Design, (404) 467-1690; carsonmcelheney.com ARCHITECT D. Stanley Dixon, D. Stanley Dixon Architect, Inc., (404) 574-1430; dsdixonarchitect.com