Laurel Gardens

At this residential home, the front yard hadn’t changed in twenty-five years. Laurel oaks dominate the north-facing yard, and the native coontie plants are the only true green to be found. Some stunted Fakahatchee grass sat in the dry shade, and groundcover juniper was infested with devil’s grass. However, the client dearly wanted flowers, and produced a magazine page she had saved for years as her reference: a classic cottage garden that contained almost nothing but flowers that do not grow in shade or in South Florida. I took on the project as a challenge, to see how much color we could get in the shade and still produce a somewhat woodland “cottage-y” effect. Autumn gave me more flowers to work with than summer could, and I chose ‘Top Hat’ begonias, pinwheel jasmines, coleuses, and Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender.’ The begonias were somewhat overplanted to give some protection against the cold shade while the pinwheels get established.

The front garden directly against the house was planted as a first and fairly simple project. The much larger project of carefully removing all the plantings around the laurel oaks (so sensitive to damage, those laurels) and fully replacing the front yard is still in progress as of late spring 2022 — check out the bottom images for the first round of plantings! The client wanted to retain her “woodland” feel, so no hard surfaces were added and only pine bark and pine needles were used defining mulched garden vs. pathway areas.

Before

 After