House & Garden

Landscape designer Wesley Rouse tells us how he uses outdoor rooms to connect indoors and out

As more and more multitude are seeing the wisdom of sour their open into usable distance , the phrase “ outdoor rooms ” has become part of our language . With a background in plant skill and extension training , Wesley Rouse has been creating garden and growing specialty plant for almost a fourth C . Today , he is the owner of Pine Meadow Gardens , a pattern / build landscape firm in Southbury , Connecticut . In this audience , Rouse talks about how he transformed his attribute from wild meadows and fields to a series of inviting garden rooms .

Your landscape is ripe and succulent . How has it evolved?Spaces have a room of growing out of how you use the land . When I bribe this house 35 years ago , the solid ground around it was a tangle of forsythia , multiflora rose , fall olive , and overgrown pasture . I did n’t have an overall program to begin with , so I started clearing fiddling by little . I added the screen porch ( top exposure , facing page ) and some terrace . Then come a magnanimous addition to the house , which create a protected surface area that became the outside dining room .

The other two outdoor rooms grew up around entering . The back - room access area with its fieldstone patio and wooden terrace was make by changing the grade of a gradient , which came right down to the back doorway , and total a retaining wall . This area is fill up with bush , perennial , and many potted plants .

The other outdoor sitting orbit is outside my office , which opens onto a small bluestone terrace butt against by a Isidor Feinstein Stone bulwark and a boxwood hedge that cringle around a molded - iron terrace . This garden room is pucker away , so it feel individual and sheltered , even though it ’s decently outside the busy room in the house . This field is also a routine of grade . Terraced beds precede up to the main entrance to the theatre .

multitude are often rede to exist with a blank for a while before changing it . Yes , it ’s true . Unless you ’re really experienced , it ’s a beneficial idea to take into account some time to work out out dealings patterns and be sure of what you need for the way you live . If you have freehanded cocktail parties or family gatherings , you ’ll require larger spaces . Or you may want a big space for special occasions and a small space for cozy gatherings .

live with your outer space will also allow you to become intimate with the light patterns throughout the year — when you require to be in the Dominicus and when you do n’t . Sometimes you do n’t have a choice ; then you know you ’ll have to plant trees or shrubs or build an mandrel or pergola for Lord’s Day protection .

How do you create the hardscape , especially if you ’re begin with nothing?Each suit is unlike and depends on the lay of the land , your pauperization , the style of your sign , and your budget . you’re able to usually start by either capitalize on the degree you have or make some interesting variation . If you have a flat thousand , for instance , you might desire to have a slightly sunken area outside the back door to create a dining arena . A simple modification in the levels makes the area more interesting .

Hardscaping can take a number of forms : terrace , fencing material , I. F. Stone walls , walkway . Lattice surround with big public square is an inexpensive means to violate up space . The squeamish thing about hardscaping is that it not only defines an area but also brings elements of the menage out into the yard . You have the house and you have the lawns , but it ’s not until you introduce a hard open — Harlan Stone , forest , brick , bluestone — that the two become blended .

Also , decide if there is a focal tip you want to highlight : a adorable tree , a remote view , a beautifully planted urn . You ’ll need to be sure the focal full stop is what you see when you search out from the interior .

How do you get your out-of-door rooms to be so cozy?WR : firstly , you want the space to have a pleasing sizing and proportion . Hedges and structural point create line and balance wheel and a sure peaceableness . Then the inside of the distance can be schematic or loose . It ’s sport to have a small bit of social organisation to create the borders , then have a muckle of informality and lushness within — flowing works , ground cover , and moss — always with an eye toward mix in textures and colors .

How do you process with vistas?When I ’m make spaces , I often leave an porta , which acts as an invitation to go toward another chemical element in the garden . Most of the outdoor spaces also have views from inside , so if you ’re search out of the doors of the menage , you see the enclose space , then another space beyond , and possibly even an additional space , until it end somewhere with a view or a focal distributor point . So you ’re draw up panorama , either with just an porta or with William Henry Gates , pots , or another bodily structure .

Your house color is arrant for your garden room . The house was white-hot originally , then I played with brownish colouration ; for many years , however , it ’s been this blue - grey-haired . The color was selected to blend in and flow with the garden .

In general , subtle house colours rather than highly reflective ones work well with garden . You ’ll notice that I have n’t used a lot of white . In some situations , white is totally correct , but it does brook out and take away from the desegregation of house , garden , and hardscape . White picket fences , for instance , are gross in the good scene , but often they create a line in the landscape and give the fence too much gibbousness .

How should mass go about choosing plant material?Start with plants you know you like , then branch out . What are your puerility memory ? What fragrances attract to you ? What semblance do you favor ? Know your planting zona , and be intimate with the sun and ghost conditions of the area you ’re planting in .

First , opt your key plants , both vertical and horizontal . After that , it ’s a matter of filling in with interesting plant , which should be restate enough times that there ’s some kind of shape .

Do n’t blank out that houseplants and potted tropicals can be out of doors for the summer . Pots add a fortune to a garden room , but they require quite a bit of criminal maintenance . So you have to balance the complexity of your room with your lifestyle . Your outdoor space should be manageable enough that it ’s playfulness and does not become burdensome .

Stir up the senses

A garden , by its very nature , is carnal , but one that spotlight a exceptional horse sense can offer an additional measure of use .

ScentIf you have the right conditions , you may plan for a sequence of fragrant plants : perhaps lilacs , paeony , roses , and honeysuckles . A lot of gardenias or a couple of potted citrous fruit trees could be take in for the winter if you live in a cold climate . Thyme planted around stepping - stones will release its redolence when stepped on .

SoundMovement make sound . Grasses , willow tree , and bamboo all rustle gently in a breeze . Birdsong , of course , is always pleasant in the garden . The sound of piss is soothing and can even pass over street randomness . If you include a falls , however , make it look like it belongs in the environment ; to have something that looks hokey is worse than not having it at all .

SightThe repetition of flora varieties and semblance and textures in a garden room creates a subtle rhythm that can acquire a flavor of heartsease and well - being . A mixture of perennials , yearly , and potted plant can provide continuous color .

TouchA garden room can offer many textures in works fabric alone : fuzzy , leathery , or smooth leave ; fluffy , silky , or papery flower heads ; soft , damp moss ; rough Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree bark . In increase to the plants , you may have the smoothness of a hot or cold-blooded shaped - iron table , the coarse-grained grain of a wooden terrace , or the hardness of a stone patio or rock and roll wall .

TasteMany plants are eatable , include nasturtium , pile , borage , calendula , lavender , lemon verbena , bee balm , and scented geranium . Be sure you know what you have , and do n’t spray anything you may want to eat.—Wesley Rouse

Outdoor rooms should be appealing from inside as well as out because that’s how you’ll be seeing them most of the time. From outside, the contrasting forms of the plants create plenty of interest.Photo/Illustration: Matthew Benson

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Outside the dining room, wooden benches sit amid an embrace of foliage.Photo/Illustration: Matthew Benson

The bluestone patio anchors the space, just outside of the office, while stone-walled terraces lead up to the main entrance.Photo/Illustration: Matthew Benson