This is an example of a mid-sized eclectic front yard full sun formal garden for summer in San Francisco with a garden path and natural stone pavers.

Lysimachia clethroides. Westhauser Photography
Inspiration for a mid-sized eclectic backyard partial sun garden for summer in Milwaukee.

A bubbling basalt stone fountain creates a soothing audible backdrop and is much loved by the birds and wildlife that flock to this garden which is a certified wildlife habitat.

A drought-tolerant perennial border of rich four-season texture and color, including Calamagrostis, Allium, Echinacea, Rudbeckia, and Arnoglossum
Photo of an expansive eclectic backyard full sun xeriscape for summer in Philadelphia with with flowerbed and natural stone pavers.

Design ideas for a large eclectic backyard full sun xeriscape in Denver with natural stone pavers and with rock feature.

A modern ranch style home with a very generous front walk and entry garden. Rustic pavers are disbursed with Pa. flagstone paving. Night lighting leads the way for evening visitors. Annual and perennials add color amongst the trees and shrubs. ©Garden Gate Landscaping, Inc./Charles W. Bowers

Natural gas fireplaces provide convenient, year round enjoyment. This fire pit is built of natural siloam stone.
Small eclectic backyard partial sun xeriscape in Denver with a fire feature and concrete pavers for winter.

A clean curved patio connects two front porches on this craftsman home located on a corner Collaborative design by Amy Whitworth, Lora Price and Annie Bamberger Installation by J. Walter Landscape & Irrigation Photo by Amy Whitworth

Repurposed broken concrete surrounded by Kurapia ground cover and loads of drought tolerant plants. No lawn!
Photo of a mid-sized eclectic front yard full sun xeriscape with with privacy feature, gravel and a wood fence.

Landscape Designer by Josh Ward Landscape Design Landscape Designer, Josh Ward Landscape Design, was asked to create a landscape design that was low maintenance, in keeping with this old country train station cottage in Spennithorne, tucked deep in the North Yorkshire Dales, whilst incorporating a contemporary core to the overall design. The train station had just received a beautiful high-spec restoration, inside and out. Located on top of a hill, overlooking some of the most spectacular landscapes, with a working local train line running behind the cottage, this garden design project demanded careful and sensitive design to its local environment. Wind, rabbits, chickens, low maintenance, and a holiday cottage with year round visitors were all important considerations too. The landscape design needed to champion the stunning views and not compete with them! The rolling views were outwards, upwards and all-around! Josh wanted to design a comfortable outside space that acted as a sympathetic viewing platform for the amazing views whilst also grounding the house into its landscape. Firstly the dry stone walling was extended, to enclose and divide the garden, whilst underlining and framing the view beyond. A built-in dry stone barbecue was reinvented from an old dry stone flower bed, for those balmy summer days, with lots of serving space and in close proximity to the evening dining area. In front of the sun-room double doors a gap was left in the dry stone wall to allow people to look straight into the field and onwards to the view, whilst lounging inside in comfort in the winter months. Randomly sized Indian sandstone was chosen for the main area in front of the house. The colours and random sizes worked well with the dry stone walls and a warmer tonal dimension to the whole area. To break the paved area, a low square lavender bed was incorporated, which also masked the barbecue area slightly (so as not to interfere with the view) whilst offering scent and movement too. Two further beds were created in the paved area. One along the front corner of the station house and the other on the side of the main platform steps. These grounded and softened these areas beautifully. A final, rectangular, cut-out hedging bed between the paving and gravel parking area was designed to act as a hub and divider for the west end of the garden. The hornbeam hedge was to act as a screen fro the cars and a windbreak also. In time, it will be pruned to mimick the stepped chimney pots when it reaches a suitable size. A breakfast/coffee area behind the hornbeam hedge was a second seating dining area for six people, which offered amazing morning views. The landscape design leading up to the platform included restoring the steps, fencing and installing a lengthy, stepped raised bed, from brick with a sandstone coping. The planting design for this area had to allow for snatched views of the passing steam trains and had to be drought and wind tolerant, whilst offering all year interest. Swathes of large grasses were incorporated so as to mimick the crops in the nearby field, on the opposite side of the garden and to bed the garden into the landscape more. Great winter interest from the miscanthus grasses, especially as the sun sets! The other side of the car-park/turning area became a vast curving winter bed. Both east and west ends of the garden were hedged with hornbeam. The west side of the garden was a stunning place in which to eat, play boule or just sit on the benches on the upper level, staring out at the best view in the garden. Self-binding gravel was used a the surface here, to break up the amount of paving, to keep costs down and mainly to warm the whole space up with its deep golden colour. A handful of cor-ten style steel rings punched holes though the self-binding gravel to act as beds for box balls, a weeping pear and a crab apple. The box balls mirrored the tree shapes in the distance, whilst playing with perspective, whilst offering punctuation, grounding the viewer and softening the wall slightly. The platform was re-paved and the picket fence reinstated. The final touch was adding a shelter belt of English trees such as blackthorn.

For all of the perimeter plantings that this garden had when we first visited the site, it felt exposed with very little privacy. The existing outdoor spaces were virtually nonexistent and hence, went unused. The stairs from the house to the garden were rickety and unattractive doing nothing but transport guests from the inside to the out. As with all of my gardens, the operative goal was Sanctuary in all of it's forms. Creating the sacred from the secular, making the cold and uncomfortable into the warm and inviting. The lot on which this garden was built is one filled with sharp angles that go unnoticed on a conscious level but come into sharp focus when all of the layers are stripped away. My first and most obvious solution was to pour custom circular pads that transport the client and her friends from area to area as if one is jumping from lily pad to lily pad. Small enough in spaces to transport a guest from area to area, large enough to hold a car, the exposed aggregate pads blend in with the multicolored Del Rio pebbles used throughout the garden. A tropical extravaganza, this garden is now the epitome of seclusion and privacy right in the middle of Venice, California.

This is an example of a mid-sized eclectic front yard full sun driveway for summer in Boston.

Photo by Ketti Kupper
This is an example of a mid-sized eclectic side yard partial sun garden in Los Angeles with a garden path and natural stone pavers.

© Verdance Landscape Design
Photo of a mid-sized eclectic backyard full sun xeriscape in San Francisco with gravel.

ShootingLA
This is an example of a mid-sized eclectic backyard partial sun garden in Los Angeles.

Mid-sized eclectic backyard partial sun garden in Toronto with concrete pavers.

This beautiful Old Westside mid-1800's home had recently undergone a full solar panel installation. The owners were looking to install a progressive and contemporary landscape design with a long wish list that included a clay paver front walk, formal cut and irregular bluestone stepper paths and patio area, a moveable fire pit, raised vegetable beds, a hammock area, and a chicken coop and beehive areas.

Old Irving Park, IL Anne Roberts Gardens
Inspiration for a mid-sized eclectic backyard partial sun garden for summer in Chicago with a garden path and concrete pavers.

Curved brick walk leading to the front door. Westhauser Photography
This is an example of a mid-sized eclectic front yard partial sun garden for summer in Milwaukee with brick pavers and a garden path.