Create a Private Retreat
By Susie Coelho
August is a great month for projects around the exterior of the house. This year I am doing an entire re-fresh of my outside areas—from painting to cleaning up the wrought iron balcony—to re-landscaping and redoing the planters and flower beds. I am also creating more walls!
I started by having the house painted! I had let it go as long as I could and it needed to be painted and the windows sealed to make it energy efficient.
Now that the painting is done, I am focusing on my front yard first so that I can update my curb appeal! My goal is to create a green wall with some bay laurel hedges to create privacy and a courtyard. Walls and barriers can be created in a variety of ways. You do not always have to use masonry to create a vertical wall. Trellises, hedges, trees, fences and screens all work well to create dimension and space. Remember a wall divides up spaces but this can actually create the illusion of more space!
Vines soften an area and are like nature’s drapes! Vines add a fascinating vertical dimension to the garden, and it’s easy to get yours started twining toward the sky. Use ivy, bougainvillea and creeping fig to create walls that are reminiscent of European gardens. Window boxes filled with trailing geraniums mixed with jasmine or other fragrant species to stimulate the senses also offer a nice touch. For the porch, fill hanging baskets with flowers and three or four different greens to make the baskets abundant and interesting. Use pots and planters and trellises to divide up areas and create a vertical element that adds softness.
There are four principal types of vines, defined by how they attach. Vines with disc-shaped suckers, such as Ficus repens pumila, will scale the wall of your house for a European villa effect. Climbing rose, or Mandevilla, have no inherent fastener and need to be attached to walls or trellises with a wire. Then there are twining vines, such as star jasmine, that wrap themselves around objects like a post or pole. Tendril vines, such as morning glory, have offshoots that will willingly grab onto anything and work well on chain link fences. Wisteria, bougainvillea, or grapes are good bets to drape your arbor or pergola walls.
