Home >  Lifestyle >  Homes

Saturday, June 09, 2001

By Sharyn F. Necciai, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

A practical definition for the term "hardscape" includes any structural design elements that are in your garden, including pavement, decks, walls, fences, steps, benches, railings and trellises.

Hardscaping provides the setting and frames the careful plantings of your garden. "Softscape," then, refers to the plant material and the landforms. The most important role of hardscaping is to provide continuity to your garden without overshadowing the living elements.

The benefits of a good hardscape design include ease of circulation through your property, places of recreation and relaxation, screening for privacy, definition of property edge and special features providing a focal point or plant support.

	Growing with Phipps Previous articles in a series Irises make colorful additions to our landscapes All-America Selections For 2001 This is one of a series of periodic columns by staffers of Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. Sharyn Necciai is an education specialist at Phipps.

One common concept in landscape design is the creation of a "garden room" with the same elements of a typical room in your home, including an entrance, floor, walls, ceiling and perhaps windows. To create a garden room, combine softscape and hardscape. Perhaps trees or a trellis provide the ceiling and creeping thyme or bluestone pavers provide the floors. Or, instead of enclosing yourself in a room, design your garden with outward-looking decks, terraces and patios. Stairs could lead you to other levels, and built-in benches can really take advantage of space while providing function. Our varied terrain in Western Pennsylvania affords us infinite opportunities for looking out or enclosing ourselves in nature.

You could begin the process of visualizing your garden room by determining the year and style of your house. American architecture has a rich and varied history, and Western Pennsylvania is no exception. For inspiration, browse through the works of landscape architects and designers such as Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Paxton, A.J. Downing, Capability Brown, Humphrey Repton, Jens Jensen, Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens. Or, browse through garden magazines, tear out images that speak to your soul and make a scrapbook or a collage.

Also, look back in time to the great cultural landscape designs by reviewing Egyptian, pre-Columbian American, Persian, Islamic, Indian, Greek, Roman, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, French and English traditions. By gathering different ideas, you'll find the best design solution for your site.

Once forms are chosen, designers begin to think about materials, such as brick, concrete, metal, stone and wood. Various forms of these materials lend themselves quite well to garden hardscape that is practical and aesthetically pleasing. Modern adaptations of these materials make them easier to install and longer-lasting, but sometimes the old forms are most pleasing or appropriate for a particular setting. For example, hand-molded brick vs. prefab brick pavers.

Ecological thinking is always appropriate for garden design: Indigenous stone of our region is less expensive and "goes" with the area. Although I don't advocate the demolition of historic architecture, pieces of terracotta or cast iron look wonderful set into a garden. Old bricks make lovely edging and paths.

Hardscape does require some maintenance in gardens, as wood rots, metal rusts, bricks heave, concrete spalls and stone weathers. However, you can avoid many problems by designing your hardscape for our climate following the best construction techniques. If you don't know them yourself or cannot find them in your local library, hire a landscape designer or landscape architect. Many nursery owners offer design and installation services.

Hardscape, when designed effectively, transforms your connection with nature. A nice book on the process of design is "Residential Landscape Architecture: Design Process for the Private Residence" (Second Edition) by Norman K. Booth and James E. Hiss (Prentice Hall Press, $105).

Thursday, June 07, 2001