A Dundas couple looks to Italy for a garden’s inspiration
Dundas couple looks to Italy for inspiration
There was nowhere to go but up for Lesley Ashcroft-Hall and Daryl Hall.
Their Dundas garden was a morose combo of “grass and annoying greenery.” So they borrowed some inspiration from trips to Italy to create an innercity boutique garden.
The design started to come together after they limbed up a row of giant maple trees that cast deep shade over their backyard. After the removal of struggling grass, they started to build on the ideas of classic European garden design.
“We both liked the timeless quality of the gardens we saw in Europe,” Ashcroft-Hall says. “The goal of low maintenance without being sterile is what we wanted to achieve.”
The backyard changed dramatically with the installation of a big patio of interlocking pavers about 10 years ago. Then, with a backdrop of mature shrubs including yews and cedars, a new curving border was added, which immediately softened the built elements.
Plantings for the border were mostly restricted to green and white. Hydrangeas, holly and hostas filled in much of the bed, and judiciously placed pots of
white impatiens break up the sea of green. The soil in the border needs to be topped up regularly, as Hall notes, since a subtle slope contributes to erosion.
“And almost anywhere you put a shovel, you hit a rock here,” he says, which adds to the challenge of gardening in their downtown Dundas location.
In areas against the foundation of the house, the couple — both retired teachers — used pea gravel contained by metal edging. It’s a material they saw often in European gardens that’s sensible because of its low cost, elegant appearance and good drainage.
In addition to shrubs that added privacy to the garden and covered up a chain-link fence, the couple used black wood fencing because of its elegance and dark contrast, which highlights choice plants.
Throughout the garden, there are vintage pieces of furniture, and statuary. Aged concrete tables, benches, figures and other pieces appear in the beds and on the patio. Though they have the look of something that might have been shipped in a crate from Europe, most were bought at Kastrau Landscaping and Nurseries in Hamilton.
“It’s getting hard to find pieces like this now. We bought them about 10 years ago; they add year-round interest like the evergreens do,” Ashcroft-Hall says.
At the front of the house, the same low-key elegance guides the design. The 1950s-era house was almost swallowed up by a giant privet hedge; once that was removed, a new personality emerged.
A mix of pea gravel and brick defines paths and planting areas — and a sweep of a Japanese yew called Emerald Spreader forms a tidy, low growing ground cover along the sidewalk.
Set in the middle of a circle of brick, a Boston fern in a classic iron urn changes the tone from the densely planted areas.
Though the Halls continue to make minor changes to the garden, their overall vision is mostly complete. Their garden borrows from the classics but fits in with the leafy character of their Dundas neighbourhood. It’s an innercity boutique garden that still has a sense of place.