Courtyard Gardens: These walled gardens invite close inspection and must be carefully designed. Special paving materials, interesting garden pieces, seating and easily trained vines all combine to create a readable plan without any confusion.

An open space surrounded by walls, buildings or hedgerows and adjoining or within a building such as a large house or housing complex all go to create a courtyard environment. Even though confined, these courtyard gardens need not lack character and interest. In many ways they can urge the landscape design professional to create something quite unique and often dramatic. This interest results from the observation that people within a courtyard environment usually focus more on the planting arrangement than they might in a large open garden. Many upscale courtyard homes have been constructed in city brownstone or gated community environments. Quite often, large sums of money have been spent on creating very spectacular landscapes in these small spaces. The challenges that these relatively small gardens present have attracted many renowned landscape designers and have resulted in some of their best and most creative works. Walls are the major design influence in these scenarios and limited space is the follow-up. In these cases you really cannot defeat those influences, so you must work with the walls in landscape architecture. In essence, the walls become the canvas of your design. If you attempt to cover them up with a hedge, you simply create another wall, which may or may not be desirable. However, if you allow the wall to play its part, particularly if the wall material is brick or some other desirable material, you are ahead of the game.

Create interesting dimension by making the wall in landscape architecture the back layer of your composition. Then add some tracery on the wall with vines or other espaliers. Next place an accent against the wall such as a plaque, fountain or sculpture. Move outward from the wall foundation towards the viewpoints with base plantings in an interesting composition. Then provide framing accents at various points outward towards the viewpoints to add interest and create even more dimension. Fill in the space between the viewpoints and the wall with bed lines that fulfill the design objectives. In a formal setting, a straight line or linear pattern will work well. To relax the design, curvilinear lines will fit the bill. Making the parallel lines move closer together as they reach the wall focus points can create the perspective of greater distance. The framing trees, bushes and other accents can mimic those tapered lines to further accentuate the depth perspective. The color tones at the far end of the focus should be lighter and softer than those at the viewpoints to continue the process. Select your plant material carefully. Most plants and trees will outgrow the scale of the typical courtyard. Trees selected should have maturity limits that suit the site. Accent plants and shrubs should often be selected from smaller scaled varieties. Often there are dwarf forms of many plants that will remain the perfect size for their life span. Remember that scale is of utmost importance in courtyard gardens.

Courtyard Garden Scenes