Garden Types

Tasteful Welcoming Entrances
The entrance to the home is comprised of the driveway or parking area, a walkway leading to the main door (and possibly a secondary entry) and the landscaping that adorns these sectors.

The entrance’s plantings should be gracious and welcoming, and direct the visitor to the desired doorway. Boundaries, parking and other areas viewed on approach should be landscaped as well as the building, lending beauty and cohesiveness to the property, and, provide a pleasing view from the home’s interior. Paying careful attention to color, texture, form and succession of bloom, Bebe layers plants, carefully graduating heights, to achieve a finished abundance, softening the transition of house to ground .

The dated “foundation plantings” of yesterday, a boring row of sheared evergreens across the front of a house, did little for a home’s curb appeal.

Tranquil Private Retreats
Well-designed tranquil retreats and meditative gardens can be comforting to the mind and spirit. Many different styles may be used. The garden-room type encourages sitting down, using sheltering plantings, arbors, screens or other inviting structures.

These areas may include soft colors, swaying grasses, the soothing suggestion of water, or water features that can camouflage external noises . Bird or butterfly-attracting plants are other possibilities. Stroll gardens encourage visitors to unwind, relaxing by taking pleasure in their surroundings. Uneven, curving stone paths slow down the journey and aspire strollers to focus on the moment, then enjoy views discovered around the next bend.

The tranquility and harmony of well-designed Asian gardens can be very soothing to Western problems of stress, increasingly busy lives and crowded living sites. As to the latter, a Japanese-style garden can be any size, screen out unsightly views, and make small spaces seem larger. Relatively few elements are included, with great attention paid to detail.

The model that less can be more is very comforting. Zen gardens are dry landscape gardens, consisting only of stones, raked gravel or sand and moss. They are meant to foster contemplation and meditation.

Garden Renovation
A make-over may be just what you garden needs. Gardens by Design can refresh your existing plantings, by adding color, update with some exciting new varieties, and dress them up for greater appeal year-round appeal. Bebe, owner/designer, will determine which overgrown plants can be judiciously pruned, which could be transplanted, and which should be removed.

A comprehensive plan will be developed that promises praiseworthy results , rather than a hodgepodge approach that may achieve little positive change. This can be a large or small project depending on the degree of change the Client wishes.

Wildlife Gardens
These eco-friendly gardens attract wildlife by providing shelter, food & water, and possibly, a place to raise young. Depending on their design, these habitats can draw your choice of songbirds, hummingbirds, butterflies, ladybugs, native bees or small mammals.

Bebe can design a wildlife garden beautiful to behold and include your favorite plants. It can be very small, or a 4- acre meadow... formal, informal, or a blend of both. She often uses native plants, or varieties of them.

Swimming Pool Surrounds
Topnotch landscaping should soften pool hardscapes, and transition them into the property, as well providing an inviting, luscious environment.

The design process, plant choices and placement should consider possible plant litter, reflected heat, airflow, any screening issues (wind and/or privacy), insect attraction. Gardens by Design can create an entire “resort” encompassing a home pool, or the plantings enhancing existing surrounds. The earlier they become involved in the planning, the more pleasing the end result should be.

Shore Landscapes
Considered an authority on the subject, Bebe, Landscape Designer for Gardens by Design, helped Milford Living Magazine write on the topic for their premiere issue.
Great care must be taken choosing plants for these areas as they will be subjected to desicating winds as well as varying degrees of airborne or waterborne salt. Light sandy soils need fortifying with organic matter.

Colorful Container Gardens
From elegant to whimsical, subtle to flamboyant, Garden by Design's planted containers do much to dress up and soften entrances, driveways, patios and pool areas. The container designer plans the finished look of each planter, based on the Clients' color and style preferences, container shape and style, site conditions and architectural and landscape genre. Flowers, foliage (often a combination of the two), succulents, herbs and even vegetable plants can be used.

Then she proceeds with quality plants, carefully positioning them in potting mixes custom-tailored to your plants, containers and site conditions. Long-lasting varieties can furnish summer-long splendor, or seasonal changes can be provided for year-long beauty. Planters with water reservoirs can cut down on Client watering, or GBD can install fully self-watering systems. As the shape and size of containers crucially affects watering requirements and plant longevity, it is recommended that the Client consult with them if he or she wishes to provide the planters.

Rain Gardens
What makes a rain garden is how it gets its water and what happens to that water once it arrives in the garden. A rain garden takes advantage of rainfall runoff in its design and plant selection. It serves to slow the stormwater as it travels, giving the stormwater more time to infiltrate, helping to reduce the water volume and potential water quality problems. Preventing erosion can be an added benefit. On the surface, a rain garden, usually small, can be attractive. It may support habitat for birds and butterflies, it may be a formal landscape amenity or it may be incorporated into a larger garden as a border or entry feature. Below the surface, the stormwater is cleaned and reduced in volume, mimicking the hydrologic action of a healthy forest. Usually rain gardens drain within four hours after a 1” rainfall.

Gardens by Design uses appropriate soils to achieve this and selects plants that can tolerate flooded conditions and lower nitrogen and phosphorus levels. Multiple rain gardens over an area will have a positive cumulative effect on both the volume and quality of stormwater run off. A water storage system can be incorporated for use during periods of drought-induced water restrictions.

Edible Gardens/Potagers
Incorporating edibles can be as simple as including a few tomato plants or herbs into a mixed bed design, a small plot of a fruiting plants, or a colorful melange of organic edibles, herbs and flowers for cutting. Various annuals and perennials can repel insects hunting for a vegetable snack, in addition to embellishing your garden.

Bebe's careful planning can furnish you with a Potager (French Kitchen Garden), a visual delight year-round, as well as tasty vegetables and fruits in season. A structured ornamental vegetable garden, a Potager's beds are usually laid out in a formal pattern of repeated geometric shapes, with paths throughout.

Raised beds, easy on the back, will provide simple seating with a top board added to the sides. Trellises, obelisks, tuteurs and fences, from the simple to the elegant, can be attractive as well as highly functional. And, of course, your "green" garden would be filled with soil rich in organic matter.