Oasis on the waterfront
Plenty of garden space and rich pops of color unify this Eastport landscape
A low-maintenance and laid-back landscape that would complement their home-to-be was what Helen Lawlor had in mind seven years ago — as she and her husband were downsizing — with consideration for privacy and a spot for growing vegetables.
And an element she’d never considered has become one of her favorites. It’s a vase fountain in front of the home in the Eastport area of Annapolis, enhancing the welcome look.
“I love it. In the warm weather, when you open the kitchen window, you can hear the water trickling,” she said, later describing the sound as “like you live by a little brook. It’s natural — it just sort of flows.”
The sleek blue and green ceramic bubbling feature suggested by landscape architect Steve McHale, a principal in McHale Landscape Design in Upper Marlboro, recycles water through river rock. Lawlor added lantanas around it to attract more pollinators.
The fountain gives the front of the white-trimmed beige home visual balance, as the front door is out of view, said Julie Patronik, McHale’s spokeswoman. Helen Lawlor and her husband, Michael, bought the 1996 house in 2011. Renovations included landscaping that matured into a lush setting, more open in front, cozier elsewhere.
“It’s a cottage-y garden,” Helen Lawlor said. “And a cottage-style house.”
Low-maintenance shrubs — many evergreen — serve various roles as they contribute to the style: They define spaces, create borders and are foundation plantings; they foster privacy, are backdrops for other plants, and their leaves and flowers add texture and color.
The landscape is rich year-round. A winterberry trades leaves for red berries for winter holidays; in springtime, pink blooms cover evergreen azaleas; abelia provides pale flowers through the growing season; in fall, nandina starts to change color.
“I didn’t think we would have this much garden,” Lawlor said.
But they do. Lawlor said wherever she looks, she loves the view.
In the front, a flagstone walk through raised beds with dwarf boxwood borders — one bed has a summer mix of pink coneflowers and white Shasta daisies — takes guests to the house. Larger boxwoods at the home’s foundation provide a backdrop for the fountain and for longblooming catmint, with pollinatorfriendly purple flowers.
The colors are repeated near the front’s small porch in a less formal space, with the green of cherry lau